What Happens When I Close My Eyes

What Happens When I Close My Eyes

Daniel Ellis sat on the edge of his chair, tapping his foot and staring at a clock. His appointment was for 3:20, he told himself yet again. He had arrived at 3:12. It was now 3:34, and he was still waiting. His hands wadded and smoothed the fabric of his trouser knees by turns. The man sitting across from him, reading a 2-month-old copy of Time Magazine, coughed. Again. Any minute now, he thought, glaring at the 4-year-old with the leaking nose, I am going to the appointment desk and tell the girl with the annoying smile that I am still waiting. Undoubtedly she would apologize and ask him to be patient yet again, tell him that the doctor was very busy, but that he would get the best possible care when his time came. My time came at 3:20, he imagined himself telling the smarmy little receptionist. It is now 3:38.

At 3:41, just as Daniel was running through his litany of appointment time vs arrival time vs current time again, Olivia, Dr. Portman's diminutive nurse, stepped through the doorway into the waiting room. Before she finished calling his name, Daniel had crossed the room and was preceding her down the hallway. Olivia had to trot to overtake him and direct him to the correct examination room. Daniel thought she seemed a little huffy as she told him to roll up his sleeve for the blood pressure cuff, but it wasn't his fault she had such short little legs.

Taking the stethoscope out of her ears, Olivia pursed her lips at Daniel, taking in his tensed and twitching body, tapping foot and set jaw. "You're going to need to do something about that blood pressure, Mr Ellis," she said, folding the cuff and putting it in the cupboard.

Daniel sent an icy glare at her back. "Why do you think I'm here?" he grated.

Olivia plucked a pamphlet from the back of a drawer and put it in his hands. "Maybe you could try doing it the old-fashioned way," she said pointedly. As she closed the door behind her, Daniel looked at the pamphlet in his hands. Controlling Your Blood Pressure Through Diet and Exercise. He missed the wastebasket even though it was only two feet away.

Daniel paced the tiny examining room, stopping at each end to read all of the posters, although he'd memorized them in the course of his frequent visits. He had begun to fiddle with the knobs on the examining table when the doctor came in. "How are you today, Mr. Ellis? Not too well if you're here," Dr. Portman said, as he did every time Daniel saw him.

"I need Sense Distortion, Dr. Portman."

If the old doctor was put off by Daniel's brusqueness, he didn't show it. "Now let's see here," he said, sitting on his roller stool and opening a medical file. Daniel hopped up on the examining table and immediately hopped back off. He paced the room a couple more times, and sat on the only other chair. As he was tensing to begin pacing again, the physician closed the folder, removed his glasses, and looked Daniel in the eye.

"Says here your last visit was only 22 days ago."

"Yes, I know, but--" Daniel began, but Dr. Portman cut him off with a stern shake of his head.

"Sense Distortion is still in the experimental stage, as you know. Most subjects only receive treatment every 2 to 3 months. In your case, we've stepped that up to every 30 days. But I really don't think it's a good idea to go any more often than that."

"I know all that, Doctor," Daniel said, scooting to the edge of his chair, "but things have been so intense at work lately. This is really the only thing that's keeping me going."

Dr. Portman gave him a look that made Daniel feel as though he were begging for drugs, which made him defensive. To make matters worse, the doctor put his glasses back on, reopened Daniel's file and began flipping pages.

"After this quarter is over, things will cool down a bit at work and I can go back to the regular schedule, but I really need this now, Doctor."

Daniel wasn't sure if old Portman was still paying attention. He seemed to have found the document he was seeking and was reading silently. Daniel stole a glance inside the folder and recognized his own handwriting: his application for experimental treatment.

The doctor removed his glasses and used them to tap the page on his lap. "According to this, you applied for Sense Distortion to help you deal with your divorce. You didn't mention anything about job-related stress. In fact," Dr. Portman squinted at the application, his reading glasses clutched uselessly in his hand, "you said that your office atmosphere was relaxed and that your workload had never been a problem."

Dr. Portman blinked for a moment before fixing a look of concern on his wrinkled face. When was this old geezer going to retire?

Daniel stifled his frustration. "Like I said, things have only begun to heat up recently."

"Since you began Sense Distortion treatments."

"Yes," Daniel hissed.

The doctor closed his file and placed it on the counter. "Have you considered the possibility that this isn't helping? You seem to be getting worse, not better, since you started the treatments."

Daniel stilled his immediate rush of panic. He must continue treatments. "I've told you before. My job has become very difficult. Regardless of how I rated my work stress level eight months ago, it's driving me crazy now, and the treatments are the only thing keeping me from going over the edge."

"Have you considered seeing a therapist about this? I can recommend a very good?"

"I am not crazy!" Daniel shouted. Dragging in a rough breath, he said more calmly, "I don't need to see a shrink, Doctor. I just need to continue the treatments. They've helped me so far. Are you going to authorize another treatment or not?"

The intense young businessman and the bemused old physician looked at each other for a long moment. Just as the former was considering threatening the latter with physical violence, Dr Portman pulled out his prescription pad and said, "Very well, Mr. Ellis." He scribbled something illegible and tore off a piece of paper. As he handed it over, he met Daniel's eyes. "I'll expect you back here no earlier than October."

#

Daniel survived the drive across town by drafting a strongly worded letter to the Department of Transportation regarding the number of absolute morons and teenagers with death wishes that were allowed to operate motor vehicles in this city. By sheer determination and liberal use of his car's horn, he made it back to his office building before 4:30. This was fortunate, because Daniel needed to ask Chuck for the following afternoon off. Chuck Yeardley, Daniel's supervisor and an enthusiastic family man, never stayed later than 5 o'clock. Since Daniel never left the office before six or seven PM--and since he no longer had anyone waiting at home--this behavior did not endear him to Chuck in the least.

Which is why Daniel was so irritated when Chuck was not in his office. "Alan," he barked at Chuck's assistant, who was bending over a filing cabinet, "is he gone already?"

Without turning around, Alan said, "he's picking up a fax. You can wait in his office, if you want."

Daniel had just decided against kicking the snotty little internist in the body part nearest him when Paula from the cubicle next to Daniel's came around the corner.

"Hey, Alan, are you going to make it to lunch with us tomorrow?" she asked. Straightening up and kneeing the drawer closed, Alan grinned at her. "Absolutely!"

Then Paula noticed Daniel standing in Chuck's doorway and hesitated. "How about you, Daniel? A bunch of us are going to The Speckled Hen for lunch and a pint tomorrow. Care to join us...for old time's sake?"

Paula's smile weakened and died as Daniel glared at her. "Some people have work to do," he said, turning on his heel to enter Chuck's office. He made no attempt to hear what they said after his back was turned--something about wondering where the old Dan was--but he noticed that they continued to talk for quite awhile. I don't know where people find the time to get anything done around here, he thought, with all the chatting that goes on.

Daniel paced Chuck's office, picking up and replacing trinkets and picture frames as he made the rounds. One picture showed Chuck, Daniel and Paula at last year's Christmas party. Daniel, several pounds lighter and with a touch more hair, had Chuck in a headlock and was giving him a noogie. Paula was giving Daniel "rabbit ears."

Shaking his head at how relaxed he looked in that picture, Daniel heard Chuck and Paula's voices in the hall. "You bet! I wouldn't miss a Friday Pint," Chuck said as he entered the office. "Oh, hey, Dan, what's going on?" Chuck said with an easy grin.

"It's 'Daniel.'"

"It was always 'Dan' before." Chuck glanced at the photograph Daniel still held.

Daniel placed the frame face-down on Chuck's desk. "I'd like to take some sick leave tomorrow afternoon."

"Sick leave?" Chuck asked as he plopped into his swivel chair and put his feet on his desk, knocking off a pen. "What's the matter with you?"

Daniel stared at the pen on the floor, which Chuck showed no sign of picking up.

"Nothing," Daniel replied. Chuck stared at him, waiting for further communication. Daniel sighed and said: "I have a Sense Distortion appointment tomorrow. I usually make them for evenings or weekends, but on such short notice, I could only get an afternoon appointment this time."

"Whoa, really?" Chuck said, removing his feet from his desk and knocking a stack of copies to the floor. Chuck grabbed the papers--but not the pen--and put them back on the desk. "I've heard about that. It's like a drug trip, right? It whacks out your perceptions for a while, only they do it with some sort of hypnosis machine."

Daniel winced at the word 'drug.' "It's more than just 'whacking out your perceptions'," he said, snatching the pen off the floor and putting it back on Chuck's desk. "I don't know everything about how it works. From what I understand, they confuse your mental processes to the point where your mind is forced to reset. After a treatment you feel like a clean slate." Still sensitive about the drug comment, Daniel refrained from mentioning the intense feeling of euphoria that he felt after each session. That feeling was the main reason he came back again and again. "It's an experimental treatment for stress," he added, with a significant look at Chuck's relaxed office, which betrayed no evidence of stress, whatsoever.

"You feeling burned out, Dan?" Chuck asked, with what sounded like real concern in his voice. "I know you've had it rough since Amy left. If you want to take some time off, the offer still stands. Or if you just want to talk..."

"No, Amy's--I hardly even think about that anymore."

Chuck looked skeptical. "Well, we could shift some of your work for a while if it'll make it easier on you. Frank Stotz has been looking to take on more responsibilities, and Paula's just wrapped up a project--"

"No!" Daniel banged on Chuck's desk, causing the pen to jump back to the floor. As Chuck looked at him in surprise, Daniel picked up the pen again and slapped it on the desk. "No. I'm perfectly capable of handling my own work. Which is more than I can say for Frank Stotz. And as for Paula.... Just forget it. Can I have the time off, or not?"

"Sure, Dan," said Chuck, still taken aback. "No problem."

#

At 11:56 the following day, Daniel was watching the clock, waiting for noon when he could leave for his appointment. Paula and her crowd of laughing coworkers, no sticklers for rules, were already leaving for their lunch party. No doubt they wouldn't be back until well after one PM, either. Daniel shook his head, never taking his eyes off his plastic digital timepiece. At least I won't be here when they come back, he thought.

12:04 saw him maneuvering his Camry out of the building's parking garage and heading towards the downtown offices of Digital Therapy, Inc. He could probably find his way to the Sense Distortion lab on the fourth floor of DT's building in his sleep after seven months of treatment. Thinking of sleep reminded him of the dream he'd had again last night, the one he'd been having since just after he started Sense Distortion. It usually began two or three days before a session.

In the dream he was walking toward Digital Therapy's building, when increasingly frightening creatures would try to keep him from entering. First there would be tigers, bears, even sharks and dragons blocking his path. Fighting his way through to the doors of the building, he would be confronted by a horrible creature for which he had no name. As is the way of dreams, this creature seemed to be all shapes, colors and textures at once. It screamed and oozed putrid slime as it pulled on his arms with sticky fingers.

This was usually about the time he awoke, overcome by profound anxiety and agitation. He interpreted this dream as a manifestation of his fear of not being permitted to continue with Sense Distortion, since it only bothered him when he had an appointment for treatment already arranged.

Daniel found that while his mind was elsewhere, he had, indeed, found his way to the Sense Distortion lab. He was standing in reception, waiting for the young man behind the desk to finish explaining Digital's procedures to the person on the other end of the phone. By his tone of voice, Daniel could tell that he'd had this conversation many times before.

"Well, you're right," he was saying. "Since the subject has no memory upon awakening, and since we don't yet have a machine that can read the human mind--yes, that is a good thing, I agree. But because of that, we don't know for certain exactly what goes through the subject's mind during a treatment." The man listened to the handset while mouthing "just a minute" at Daniel.

"Well, Ma'am," he continued, giving the impression that the other party had merely paused for breath, "we've done extensive testing. Computer simulations and hundreds of test cases have shown a good success rate. Heck, I've done it myself, several times. And our subjects always come back for more," he continued, as another technician poked her head around the corner and beckoned Daniel into one of the five doors lining the wall.

"Sorry you had to wait, Mr Ellis." The technician, a cheery young woman whose nametag read Emma, handed Daniel a laminated chart. "We're short-staffed today. Go ahead and choose your setting while I get the machine ready."

Daniel skimmed over the list of relaxation scenarios. Warm beach. Cool forest. Babbling brook. And the one that always made him smirk, Mother's womb. Whenever a person underwent Sense Distortion, they got to choose one of these tranquil settings as the comforting place for their mind to heal. It was too bad that he wouldn't remember the sensation when he awoke. It seemed almost like he was choosing a vacation for someone else.

Tossing the card back on the nearby table, Daniel leaned back in the chair and let Emma arrange the machine's paraphernalia. "Warm beach," he breathed, as always. He was already drifting off as Emma closed the helmet over his face.

Daniel's body began to feel heavier and warmer. As he became more and more relaxed, he heard the surf, smelled the salt air, and felt the sand beneath him. More relaxed. Ever more relaxed. Drifting, drifting away.

#

Dan sat bolt upright on the beach. Looking around, he saw a blue sky and even bluer sea, with seagulls flying far out over the water: a perfectly peaceful setting.

"Not again!" Leaping to his feet he began stomping, pinching himself and yelling: "Hey! Wake up, wake up!" But it was already too late. The blue sky was taking on a scratchy sulphurous smell and the water was making a sound like a cat fight. Dan felt as though he were chewing on aluminum foil.

Black ink was running down the sky while puke-flavored numbers lacerated Dan's body. Then the monsters began to arrive. Every nightmare beast from his childhood was represented, made more horrible by his heightened yet obscured senses. They grabbed at him and he couldn't get away because his body had turned to hairy phlegm in the key of C#. Stretching him thin, they staked him to the molten beach with taxes and began tormenting him. He tried to scream, but motor oil poured out of his mouth and got in his eyes. When he blinked them clear, all he could see was stomachache and failure.

Dan endured excruciating torture for what seemed like years. He couldn't ignore it. He couldn't shut it out. He had to be there for every sickening, painful, embarrassing, frightening moment of it.

Dan knew from experience that Daniel would not remember anything about this treatment which was slowly killing him. Even so, when the monsters began to fade, when Dan's body began to reclaim its former shape and the seascape returned to normalcy, while ecstatic relief began to take hold of him, Dan screamed, "Don't come back, Daniel! Don't ever come back! Please, for God's sake, do not come back!"