The Gift - 5

It was nearing 8:00 PM. Eli was back in his and Larry’s room. Larry was already asleep and Eli lay on his back in bed, holding his arms up in front of his face, inspecting the stitched up holes in his wrists which he could see now that the gauze had been removed. A service provider had taken scissors to it earlier in the day. He would have permanent scars—that is, if the wounds even healed. If he lived long enough for them to heal. He ran his fingers over his forehead, feeling the gashes that, despite time and a seemingly endless supply of antiseptic, were still etched into his skin, fresh as ever.

As if overpowered by a sudden force, he felt an intense urge to write. He bolted off his bed and tiptoed over to the writing desk in the corner of the room. He sat down, opened the composition notebook that sat, untouched, on its surface, took up the felt pen that was available (for fear that an actual pen or pencil could be used as a weapon) and started to write.

Writing was an encouraged activity, at least for Eli. Dr. Anderson felt that writing would help him work through and release pent-up emotions. She recommended he keep a journal, documenting his thoughts and feelings on a daily basis. He’d never done it. He even told himself that as long as he was at St. Thomas, he would refuse to do anything Dr. Anderson said.

He was writing now, but he didn’t know what he was writing. It was as if his hand moved on its own, as if his body knew something his mind didn’t. He covered the whole front of the first page, top to bottom, and then turned it over, filling the back top to bottom as well. He didn’t know how long he did this, but by the time he was finished, a third of the composition notebook was filled.

He put down his pen and flexed his fingers, then looked over what he had written.

He couldn’t read it. Not because it was illegible, but because it was written in a language he didn’t know. A language that appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin.

~

“Mind over matter,” Dr. Anderson said with confidence. “The manipulation of the brain over the body.”

“Is that your diagnosis?” Eli asked. He was only half-listening, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on the multi-colored carpet in the office, taking in its intricacies while thinking of the writing frenzy he’d had the night before.

“It’s my observation,” Dr. Anderson returned. “I believe these wounds on your body are the result of deeply ingrained psychological guilt.”

“Guilt?”

“That’s right.”

“And what, may I ask, do you think I feel guilty about?”

“Your deployment, for one.”

“And?”

Dr. Anderson pursed her lips. No faux Barbie doll smile now. “And I’m not sure, but there’s something else. Something you’re holding back. Whenever I ask you about life before your deployment, you freeze up.”

“Aha! A clue, Sherlock!”

“Sarcasm won’t help the situation. If anything, it’ll hinder it.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. Because you’re using it as a defense mechanism, the way you used alcohol and sex. It’s a means for you to cope with what’s really bothering you.”

“And these?” Eli lifted up his arms, flashing his holed and stitched wrists. “Are they coping mechanisms too? I did magically will them on myself according to you, right?”

“Not magically, but yes, in a manner of speaking, I think you did ‘will’ them on yourself. The mind is an incredible thing, Eli.” Dr. Anderson folded her hands on her desk, over top of the papers she’d been scribbling on. Her fingernails were long and painted red. Eli stared at them. “Too much worry and you get an ulcer,” she continued. “Give someone a nonalcoholic beverage, tell them it’s alcohol, they’ll act drunk. Have you ever heard of pseudocyesis?”

A drop of blood fell on her right hand, in the crook between her thumb and index finger. Eli’s eyes darted up to find the source, finding it to be two threads of blood pouring from the inner corners of her eyes as though she were crying them.  

He gasped.

“Eli? Are you okay?” Dr. Anderson’s voice was far away. Muffled. Eli didn’t respond, but continued to stare at the streams of blood cascading down her cheeks in perfect, unwavering lines of crimson. If Dr. Anderson had not raised her voice—“Eli!”—and startled him, he would have reached for them to make sure they were real.  

Eli shook his head. “Sorry, I’m fine,” he replied quickly. “What did you say?”

“Have you ever heard of pseudocyesis?”

“No. Sounds like a disease.”

“It’s commonly referred to as ‘phantom pregnancy.’ Basically what happens is a woman believes she’s pregnant so firmly that she develops pregnancy symptoms—morning sickness, massive weight gain, even contractions. Everything except an actual baby.”

“That’s freaky.”

“Just one of the many ways that the mind can overpower the body.”

Dr. Anderson shuffled the papers she had in front of her, straightening them, that artificial smile gradually coming back.

She thinks she’s got it, Eli told himself. She thinks she’s figured me out. “With all due respect, doc,” he said, “I think you’re reaching. You really don’t have a clue what’s happening to me so you’re scrabbling for ideas that fit your narrow scientific view of the world.”

Instantly, that smile was replaced by a disproving scowl. “Well then enlighten me, Eli. What do you think is happening to you?”  

“I don’t know, doc. I really don’t know. And neither do you. But unlike you, I’m not ashamed of that.”

“You think I’m ashamed to not know?”

“I know you are.”

Before Dr. Anderson could speak, Eli cut her off: “Because if you don’t know, or don’t act like you know, you’re not doing your job. You’re not living up to that Ph.D. you have on the wall for everyone to see.” Eli gestured up to it, on the wall behind Dr. Anderson’s head.

Dr. Anderson paused, then said, through her usual synthetic smile, “I think we should cut this session short.”

~

In his room with Larry, Eli thought about what Dr. Anderson said. He sifted through the composition book he’d written in the night before, the Middle Eastern prose alien to him, as though it had been written by someone else. His memory of writing it was murky at best. The book was the only proof that it had happened at all.

Mind over matter, my ass, Eli thought. People didn’t just will themselves to write in different languages. They didn’t just will injuries on themselves and, poof, there they were. They didn’t just will their dreams.

Behind him, he heard Larry lift himself into a sitting position and start talking to himself. He had a habit of doing this, especially in the evening and at night. Eli could never quite hear what he said—he didn’t speak clearly, only mumbled—but he would rub his eyes and temples repeatedly, as though trying to scrub something off of him, and Eli would see the burn marks on his arms. Little pocks of scarred skin that looked to be from cigarette butts. Eli had seen people like him before, mostly in the military. PTSD was hell to live with. Eli knew all too well.

The door to their room opened and a service provider ambled in carrying two small cups, water in one and a pill in the other. “It’s time for your evening med, Larry,” she said.

Eli watched as Larry slid the pill into his mouth, then drank the water in one gulp; he watched as the service provider took up the empty cups and left the room, as Larry scrambled off his bed as soon as she was gone and hid his un-swallowed pill between the mattress and the bed frame, then climbed back into bed and pulled his covers up to his neck. Eli watched all of this in silence. He’d seen it many times before, whenever Larry was given his med. Why Larry hid all his pills in his bed frame Eli didn’t know (he probably had a multitude concealed in there by now), but he never said anything, and he didn’t plan to, either to Larry or to any of the staff.              

~

Showers were once a day for clients, either in the morning at 8:00 AM or in the evening at 7:00 PM, and the clients were given the freedom to choose at which time they wanted to take them. Eli was a morning shower-taker, partly because he’d always been throughout his adult life, but mostly because he wanted to get it over with. It was the worst part of his day. Of all his days. Even Dr. Anderson couldn’t top them.

The last time he’d hated showers was when he was a kid and his foster parents practically had to drag him to the tub kicking and screaming. If the consequences weren’t a sedative and some time in isolation, he might’ve started kicking and screaming now. The shower room was roughly the size of a high school gymnasium, with hot-and-cold gages and nozzles embedded into the walls and drains in the floor. The shower stalls were narrow and had translucent curtains instead of doors. The bottles of shampoo and conditioner and bars of soap were small and noticeably cheap, the wash cloths and towels—which were situated outside of each stall—old and coarse.

Eli always showered as fast as he could. His motto concerning shower time was “get in and get out,” and usually he succeeded. It was a rare day for him to not be the first one finished and out the door.  

This, however, was one of those rare days.

There was a scuffle between two clients a few stalls down to the left of him, and then another client started crying. Some clients rocked and talked to themselves, needing prompting from the service providers who were circling around the room. Nothing out of the ordinary. Eli went about his showering routine of scrubbing himself down as quickly as possible, starting with his face and then working his way to his neck, then his shoulders and arms, then his torso.

He was on his stomach when, once again, he felt something hot and thick trickling down his forehead, and he could tell it wasn’t water.

Again, he touched his fingers to it and looked at them.

Again, he saw that it was blood.

And again, a moment afterward his body inexplicably erupted with pain. This time it was his back. A bolt of white-hot pain shot across it. He fell forward, hitting the tiled wall, and plummeted to the floor where he scrunched into a ball. Another surge of pain followed, and then another. Eli cried out, helpless and defeated. Beads of blood dripped from his forehead and gushed from the holes in his wrists as though they’d never been stitched in the first place. The searing pain traveled through his nerves. His body went rigid. The blood running down his face, chest, arms, and legs mixed with the water on the floor and swirled down the drain.

He felt cold hands touch him and flinched. Turned his head enough to see two service providers, one male and one female, crouched beside him. “Oh my God,” the female gasped, leaning over to inspect his back.

“Looks like he’s gashed up pretty bad,” the male stated.

“But how?” the female asked. Then she addressed Eli: “What happened?”

Her words were muffled. Drowned out by the pain pulsating in his ears. All sounds seemed to be muted. Eli looked passed the service providers, at the clients who were staring at him. Some sensitive ones were crying and yelling, others talking among themselves. Some just stared, bewildered.

“Eli?” the female service provider said. “Eli, look at me. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

The male service provider grabbed Eli’s towel from the towel rack outside his stall and handed it to the female service provider. “Here,” he said. “Put pressure on as much as you can with this. I’ll get help.” And then he left.

As the female service provider gently pressed the towel against his back, Eli heard the distinct sound of laughter somewhere in the distance. A hideous, mocking sort of laughter that left a person feeling less than human. Eli glanced around at the other clients again. “Who’s laughing?” he managed to ask.

The service provider looked utterly confused. She pivoted sideways and glanced at the clients herself, then turned back to Eli. “I don’t hear any laughing.”

But it was unmistakable, and it was getting louder. “Someone’s laughing,” he said.

“Eli, no one’s laughing.”

Eli nodded, desperate to be believed. “Someone is! I can hear them—can’t you hear them? Make them stop!”

More voices joined in, and together they laughed and laughed. Eli clenched his hands into fists and raised them to his ears, his face contorting into a grimace as humiliation burbled inside him.

“Eli, hey, hey, it’s okay,” the service provider soothed. “I promise no one’s laughing.”

“LIAR!” Eli screamed.

The male service provider returned with a supervisor. “An EMT’s been called,” he said. “All we have to do is wait ‘til they get here.”

The supervisor took one look at Eli and said, “Oh shit.”

That’s all she had time to say before another burst of pain bulleted across Eli’s back. Eli shrieked and crumbled into a fetal position on the floor, hyperventilating, shaking. All three staff backed away and stared, dumbfounded, at him, clueless as to what to do.  

The laughter continued, rising in pitch until it was almost deafening, with still no one else taking notice of it, and the invisible blows continued, one after another. Again and again and again.

By the time they stopped, Eli was unconscious.