RADIO SILENCES: A Novel by Jonathan Jehanne-Elias Wamback

 * I was in a different place when I wrote this. It uses language I do not use any more. *

 

RADIO SILENCES:

 

 

A Novel by Jonathan Elias Wamback

 

 

© 2012 Jonathan Elias Wamback. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 978-0-9916761-5-6

 

This novel has been republished. It was originally published in 2012. And I retain all of the rights. 

The characters of this book are fictional creations of the author’s imagination or drawn from real events and presented in a fictional manner. The setting is a dystopian America of contemporary times. Again, I cannot stress enough that this is fiction, written with the objective of illustrating numerous parties and perspectives. It has to be dark. Otherwise, our split protagonist wouldn’t get the idea. 

Trauma affects us all. We are born through a great trauma and live it day by day, some of us far more than others. It is through trauma that we learn to grow, to thrive and to live to our fullest potentials. To live through love and faith, the only tools that will get us through to the end. And the only tools, which are truly useful to all of us in this world, are love and faith. Then, life happens. And like a silent thief, she begins to slowly tear away at our sanity. Life affects us all but others in more profound ways. The purpose of the juxtaposed characters within these pages is to offer a glimpse of each story, the reason for their actions and wider, to provide a sense of empathy for both of them. The work’s ambition being to emphasize the importance of empathizing with each other in this difficult world and the beautiful implication of everyone having empathy for one another in this short time we have together. 

This book is for all of the great friends who have supported me along the way. Some new and some old and a lot who I have not even met, I cherish all of you for the space you have created for me in your lives. This is written for all victims of violence. It is also written for the community, teaching professionals at York University for encouraging me to never give up on my hopes of writing.

 

Prologue

Empathy and compassion are crucial components in Criminal Rehabilitation as participants learn to appreciate the circumstances of cause and effect and the consequences of their actions upon other, living and breathing human beings. Rehabilitation is shown to have an increased effect, upon those who are unwilling or resisting traditional methods of treatment, through our process. Virtual Offender Rehabilitation was designed with this purpose in mind. 

The process is designed to focus visions of empathy into the minds of even the most unwilling participant. This project has been constructed in response to a widespread epidemic of violent acts across the state over the past ten years. The program was designed for maximizing achievable rehabilitative effects while minimizing the potential damage to the participant’s mind.

The design thesis began by selecting an appropriate plain or medium for transmission or implementation of such awareness into the participant’s subconscious mind. Since previous models for rehabilitation have been very traditional in form and process and have proven to be of concern, being entirely ineffective on stubborn subjects, a great effort was taken to optimize the process while limiting the time required for a complete and full rehabilitation. A prospective medium of transmittal of the program was selected.

The primary and ultimate goal of the project is to effectively and permanently superimpose the emotional and physical effects suffered by the victim of a crime through associated experience to unremorseful offenders in hope that it will deter them in future from committing these crimes again. 

The more serious a trauma is, is dependent upon the coping mechanisms of the victim in question. The less exposed an individual is to trauma, generally the more serious the effects later in life. In the selected subject’s case, the effects of trauma caused by violent crime were overwhelming. 

Prepared for scholastic, medical and psychological analysis, the following is a detailed report as to the deemed successful treatment of the participant named Arrant, Ordell. The effectiveness of the treatment upon its first candidate came at great sacrifice on part of the team working closely with him. The negative and the positive effects of his therapy are truly evident in his recent life course. 

The following transcripts were prepared by industrious students of mine after observing the entire records of the scenario, which were lived by Mr. Arrant for the duration of his treatment, which lasted approximately five hours, forty-two minutes. In addition, please note that to Mr. Arrant, the virtual world in which he was living seemed as though his own being for those six hours. This process is not like a dream or involuntary vision. What Mr. Arrant most likely experienced was a world, which would have grown to become his own. The intensity of this treatment was powerful enough, as was reported by staff present at Mr. Arrant’s awakening from simulation, to cause him to grow extremely disoriented. 

Moreover, upon his disconnection from the program, Mr. Arrant experienced, what was described as a grand mal seizure by the medical staff present. This consequence was highly unpredictable; however, I’m sure that the audience of these reports will interpret the benefits of treatment far outweighing the demerits. 

Also included in the report, which follows at the end of these transcripts is a report written by the participant, Mr. Ordell Arrant, following treatment. The report in question was composed by him, with the aid of a court-appointed scribe, after ten years had elapsed to allow him sufficient time for recovery.

The events that precede the documented transcript of the program were compiled after extensive interview and research surrounding the crime, which served as the catalyst for Arrant’s selection.

The enclosed statement, following this report was documented ten years and seven months after Arrant’s therapy. This subsequent passage is only an excerpt as much of the piece the subject composed was simply circumlocution and nonsense that seemed to dwell around the fact that he had no clue what it was like. He states over and over that he is sorry and doubts that he will never again be able and willing to live a productive life in society. He emphasizes the fact that this fear stems not from a feeling of fear for his own life, but rather a fear of the actions he has committed in years past and their consequences upon other people. The issue of violence, in all of its forms, is one that has grown and plagued this human civilization from the very earliest of times. It is a cause that unites us all.

The objectives of the project were met with great success. The design, potential candidate for treatment and other important circumstances were fully researched, analyzed and discussed. Finally, the program was proven to meet system qualifications and a subject chosen.

 

A Meeting:

The clock above the Chatham courthouse of Savannah was striking noon. The few leaves on the trees of the Georgia Street reached hungrily across the shingled roof of the stout, colonial building. The trees around that time of year were beautiful. Their trunks as wide as the trees are high, so now they towered above the streets on all sides. A yellow fire hydrant lay almost shamefully upon the lawn. It was dried up and probably hadn’t been used for months if not years. A narrow staircase led up to the main floor, through four, very powerful columns, which supported the front of the building. 

A car approached from the road, pulled into a gravel parking lot across the street from the district courthouse and gently rolled to a stop. Car doors were heard closing then from the interior of the Chatham Courthouse. Voices hesitated and ceased as one of the eager-looking men seated, rose and walked across the room to the shuttered window. He pushed back the wooden window shutters and smiled a faint smile. Who he saw was the man for whom they had been waiting. This man, a tall and lean, shadowy figure emerged from the spectre of an automobile and wrapped a colorless scarf around his neck. The scarf blew tenderly in the temperate, outside winds. His stature stiffened and he approached the courthouse quickly.

“Our guest has arrived, gentleman.  Please take your seats.” The suited man indicated with a wagging finger towards the table in the center of the room. A door opened at the far end of the meeting room and through it, entered this guest. One by one, they sat. All of the members of the unique council were dressed in formal business attire and in all of their possession, were black, leather briefcases. As they sat, each withdrew from their bags, a pad of paper and a pen.

One of the five men, who had been quiet, previously, raised his head then and glancing politely around the room he cleared his throat. He began to speak and as he did, the subtle chatter that filled the courthouse meeting room became muted. He said, “Gentleman, it is my sad duty to have called you here today. But,” here he paused, “sad things often have powerful, if not beneficial endings. To begin with, allow us all to get acquainted with one another and to state our particular qualifications and expertise. I will begin. My name is Francois Le Bon. I am a District Attorney with the State of Georgia.”

Another man, the man to his left started up and said then, “I am William Lumiette and I am an elected Judge in the State of Georgia.” Lumiette was smoking a cigar and at that particular moment, it was hanging off in one of the ashtrays spread out across the table. He had a mustachio that was well-trimmed. His hair was jet-black. 

The man seated next to William was a bearded, elderly gentleman, who stated, “My name is George Raleigh Frank and I hold two doctorates, the first in Neurology and the second in Psychology.” He nodded to the men seated around him with an air of reverent diffidence. 

A fourth man, cold and seemingly intent on remaining indifferent to the business at hand, announced in a powerful, harsh voice, “Name’s Colton Hardy. I am a Defence Attorney in the State of Georgia.”

The final man, the one for whom the group had waited, spoke up, his Balkan accent flaring. He said, “I am Radu Stoyanof. I am a doctor of Engineering.” Radu wore a cap, slightly tilted at the side on his head and a dark, fur-trimmed overcoat, which he unbuttoned and took off then.

As they were introduced, a sixth individual seated at the table hurriedly scribbled into a notebook the names and professions of all the esteemed members of the council. When there was a pause this minute taker would glance up with a look of anticipation, his pen poised in the air beside his head.

At the head of the table, Francois Le Bon became immediately excited. His smile grew across his clean face in an almost psychotic expression. Francois said, “Radu, why don’t you tell the other members of this little group of extremely qualified men, what it is that you are working on right now.” Francois smiled at him from across the table. Radu was making his pencil dance below his fingers on the table. His head rose slowly and he said, “My current project, gentlemen, involves the creation and practice of alternate realities.”

George Frank looked about the table with surprise as he allowed his mouth to drop a little, an expression of simple curiosity, as William Lumiette kept his straightforward stare.

Francois stood then and waved his hand about as he emphasized the point by repeating the words, “Alternate realities,” leaning over and drawing a sip from his crystal glass, which was filled with some liquor of sort. “I’m not sure that everybody fully understands this process, Radu. Could you explain your development in a bit more detail?”

Radu smiled warmly. He said, “The premises behind my experiments are quite old. As a point of fact, this concept has already been utilized and has been thriving for many years now. I must admit that I was a little surprised – pleasantly, mind you – when Mr. Le Bon contacted me about this project you gentlemen are considering to undertake.”

Colton Hardy, the invited Defence Attorney said, “You fellows are being entirely unclear about what it is that’s happening here. What project have we consented to support?”

Francois said, his voice excited, warm, inviting, “Trust me when I say that the details will become clear very soon, Mr. Hardy.” He passed his thin fingers through his thick hair and said, “Please continue Radu.”

“Virtual reality, gentlemen,” Radu paused here to also drink from his cup. Then, setting it down, he said, “Virtual reality is a common place practice. Of course, it hasn’t really reached the public mass yet. It has been used for many things, including gaming. Possibly the most progressive development we have made in recent years is the use of virtual reality in military training exercises. I don’t think I need to stress the results of this experiment. To say the least, the program reduced training casualties and actually showed an increased strengthening in battle performance. Perhaps, though, the most interesting improvement as a result of the program in the military was the psychological effect. The volunteer participants of our program seemed to experience markedly reduced symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress after battle experience.”

Francois lifted his hand and indicated to Stoyanof to pause. Here he said, “This is a major breakthrough.”

Mr. Colton Hardy straightened up in his chair, clearly becoming increasingly agitated, “Why all this circumlocution? What does this have to do with us?” His throat released a tremor of a giggle, which he immediately noticed and suppressed. 

Francois Le Bon said quietly, “We should have come to a realization a while ago as to the reason of our being here, if not the direct point itself.” He gazed at Hardy as his voice gradually softened. “Gentlemen, we gathered here today are the very best, the most qualified in our fields. We all, except for Mr. Stoyanof here, are experts in the fields of justice and the psychology of the application of justice. We are gathered here today to discuss the future of criminal rehabilitation.” 

He paused to allow the seated men time to reflect and then continued, “There is nothing graver and more serious in our society than violence and the consequences of violent actions on the individual. The consequences of those actions on individuals and the painstaking recovery from it considered, which in itself, can be as traumatic as the original offense; one thing in our current society is overlooked far too often.”

George Raleigh Frank undid the buttons on his suit jacket and said then, “If I may continue Mr. Le Bon. The thing my old friend, Francois speaks of is, clearly, the rehabilitation of an offender of a crime. The consequences of crime and violence on an offender, based on recent accounts, are blatantly evident. Please note gentlemen that the intensity and frequency of violence, as we see it, has been on the rise for many years now. Say what you will – lay the blame on violent entertainment, poor parenting, that aside – we here all have strong feelings. You have been chosen for that reason. We feel that, contrary to popular belief, an offender of a crime is the sole individual who undertook the initiative to commit a crime and consequently, that that offender should be the sole individual to receive punishment for his crime. Actions are no longer the responsibility of individuals. This is more and more of what we see. The lack of accountability exits on all levels of society.”

Here, Frank withdrew a small manila envelope from his inner jacket and placed it onto the table. Emptying its contents, he revealed a collection of photographs bound together by a blue ribbon. The Judge, William Lumiette adjusted the collar on his suit jacket, which he had not yet taken off and said, “Fellows, I find your appeal rather discouraging. What you say has nothing to do with the rehabilitation of an offender, which is what you promised to discuss. How does this all tie in?”

Francois Le Bon took the opportunity to expand further on his idea. He said, “What we are proposing is a virtual reality program for rehabilitation.” He untied the ribbon that held the photos together and lay one before each of the members of the group. His face grimaced as he eyed carefully the evidence photos that sat on the oak of the table before them all. He spoke eloquently and passionately. The council continued:

Suddenly, there was a shifting in the meeting room, a subtle din of suit fabric chafing and relaxing, chafing and relaxing. The air fan above the room spun at full and the windows partially open allotted for breathable air within the tightly packed room.

Francois drew a deep breath and continued, “I will also ask you gentlemen to note that every rehabilitative process, in the past, has shown very little success. Of course, there are individuals, scarce to say the least, which do become rehabilitated. It is clear that the fact that this rehabilitation in no way is credited to the rehabilitation programs that are in place. The rehabilitation that occurs seems to be more of a response to morality and willingness to change on part of the offender in question. Most often, what we see is that an offender seems content continuing their evil ways and destructive values, creating more pain and suffering to innocent members of our communities. Considering the extreme violent nature of recent offences, I sincerely hope that the gentlemen here today will interpret these actions as entirely unacceptable.”

His voice trailed off and he then pointed to the covered photos before each member. “Please have a look at these photos.”

Several of the men in the room recognized the photo at once. The vibration and chafing of suit fabric grew in intensity as the members shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Lumiette made a sound akin to a hissing exasperation. Hardy leaned over in his chair, reached into his coat pocket, which was hanging loosely on the back of his chair and withdrew a pair of thin spectacles. As he examined the photo before him, he sighed gently. As gentle as his sigh was, it was clear that he was disturbed. After a couple of seconds he gazed up solemnly. 

Hardy, the defence attorney, said calmly, “Who is that in the photo?”

Le Bon allowed another moment to pass before he answered, when he said, “The individual in the photo is a man named Gerard Auclair. He was brought to Chatham County Hospital over a month ago. He has recently been transferred to The Charleston Centre for Long Term Care. His injuries speak for themselves. What you see is only half of what is happening behind that picture. I invited Auclair and his family to this meeting but they are unable to attend. He is in a bed. This is reality gentlemen. This type of tragedy happens far too often.” 

Le Bon then looked up casually and said to Hardy who was still watching him closely, “I believe that Mr. Auclair, the man in the photo, is the victim of the defendant you are defending right now.” Le Bon watched about the room as Hardy, Lumiette and George Frank nodded in comprehension.

William Lumiette, sitting very patiently spoke then. He said, “Violence and trauma are a part of life. Since humanity has existed, people were expected to suffer. If not for the glory of a nation, then it was considered a part of evolution. We have all read Darwin. It’s just part of nature.”

Radu stroked his bearded chin pensively. As he looked up from the table, he said, “I agree with you Mr. Lumiette. To a degree, I agree with you. What Darwin himself failed to realize was that the human race, the human civilization are not animals. He also failed to predict a state of human consciousness that has evolved. Of course, there is room for spiritual and physiognomic evolution but what has presented itself is the completed state of human psychological growth. What we have now is violence that neither feeds nor enables. Why does the average criminal resort to violence?” George Raleigh Frank nodded his head in agreement.

Hardy said then, “I have to say that I find that a little offensive. The average criminal is a man just like you and I. More often than not, he will be committing a crime in order to put food on his family dinner table.”

Raleigh Frank said, “Absolutely. But, I think that Mr. Stoyanof is speaking not about a poor bastard who happened to get involved in stealing a car. They are usually the ones who are most susceptible to the rehabilitation the way it is. Typically, these individuals have remorse. We’re not talking about these people though, Mr. Hardy.”

“Then, tell me, who are you talking about?”

Frank watched Colton Hardy sourly. His facial expressions shifted into one of grace and he thought a moment. He said, “Violent criminals... Our program, of course, will be very selective in its decision for participants, to avoid the application of this innovative and effective rehabilitation program on individuals not meriting the treatment.”

“We have an understanding then,” said Francois Le Bon softly, his fingers seeking his veins. “In that case, we have a decision before us.”

There was silence in the group. One expected the other to speak then and the other expected the next. Radu Stoyanof tapped his wrist with his forefinger silently and then said, “The program I have been working on is called, very appropriately, PSYCHO-LAW. Naturally, the program is in its infancy.” 

Le Bon interrupted him politely, “Some of us here were in fact on familiar terms with the unfortunate victim in the photographs I just showed you. If your recollection failed because of your initial reaction of shock at the brutality of these images, let me remind you.  About a month ago, a brutal assault took place here in Savannah. The man who left Gerard Auclair, the man in the photo, paralyzed and brutalized, was a man by the name of Ordell Arrant. The remorse that Mr. Arrant displays is no more than an ersatz attempt at pleasing those who seek it from him.”

Colton Hardy hissed his song of disapproval. He tucked his head into his chest and then brought it back up in a swift movement. He said, “My client still insists on his innocence regarding this case.”

Le Bon, becoming a little aggravated, raised his shoulders and eyed Hardy for a moment.  He said, his eyes still on the defence attorney, “And you believe that?”

“I have to, Francois. It’s not really a matter of whether I do or not.” Here Hardy made a little attempt to smile pleasantly. He continued, “Although the evidence is paramount to suggest his guilt, my job is to defend this man – in and out of court – and I will do that.”

Francois Le Bon returned his smile. He said, “This offender, Mr. Ordell Arrant has been before American courts enough times to recognize the loopholes of our already fractured justice system. Please note that, based on the violent history of Mr. Arrant, he shows absolutely no remorse, his actions are entirely predisposed to solving matters through force as opposed to any reasonable manner of problem solving capacities.”

Mr. Lumiette, the Supreme Court Judge said then, “Arrant knew a lot about our justice system. He has found, through his unbelievably plenty experiences with the courts, countless ways to manipulate psychologists and professionally trained counsellors into thinking that he was remorseful for his past acts. The discretionary and subjectively lax laws only allowed Arrant to get away with his crimes. And I might add that any time he did spend behind bars was well rewarded. He was actually offered a university education, which he successfully completed, at tax-payer’s expense in the years of 1996 to 1999.”

Le Bon continued, “You know that one time, he even marched into a sheriff’s office and dropped a copy of the Bible on the desk before the sheriff, pleading that he had repented and that his soul was saved?” The group laughed gently. “Perhaps he truly believed it then. But one week later, after his release, Arrant went on to strangle to death an elderly couple, robbing them of their life savings. Their life savings were eventually returned to them by the courts, rather, were returned to the children of the elderly couple.”

George Raleigh Frank said, “So skilled is Ordell Arrant in crafting the courts and people who felt sorry for him, that he has lived most of his life murdering people. An exaggeration of course, but it is an exaggeration with just reason to identify Arrant’s true nature. So eager were people to believe that true evil does not exist in this, our compassionate world. So eager were people to pray and commit countless hours of community service on Arrant, reading to him, taking him out into the county prison courtyard and talking to him for hours, that they never saw his true nature. They were made blind by their own perception of what is good and what is evil, skewed as these perceptions were.”

Colton Hardy spoke then faintly, “What does all this business have to do with my client?”

Hearing this, Radu Stoyanof wiped at the collecting beads of sweat on his forehead with his kerchief and said, “My virtual reality project is in its early stages Colton. It has been successfully tested and applied for many years, like I said, but never in this manner. What we need from you gentlemen is the authorization of and participation in the project.”

All of the men knocked on the table before them and nodded vigorously except for Colton Hardy. Le Bon, who was pacing carefully, with his eyes on his feet while this was being discussed said, “The first subject of PSYCHOLAW is yet to be chosen.”

Stoyanof whispered, “I nominate this Mr. Arrant for rehabilitation.”

The air spun about lifelessly in the meeting room, through the blades of the fan on the ceiling as the sixth member at the table, the minute keeper, scribbled ferociously in his notebook. There were nods and echoes of agreement. A moment passed in the midst of a busy table, when Colton Hardy nodded slowly and smiled at Francois Le Bon.

 

Gerard Auclair:

Gerard Auclair lay immobile in his hospital bed. His throat was bandaged and his face, covered in breathing equipment. The equipment that was breathing for him would not last. Even a breath was not free. His mother, Genevieve Auclair sat next to him on a chair next to the cot, on which she herself slept. She stroked his hand and whispered into his ear soothingly, like a dove would coo. 

The hospital was located in Charleston, South Carolina. Its individual rooms were smaller than what you would find at a cheap, Appalachian highway motel. The rooms were fitted with a television on the wall opposite the patient bed and a small night table sat off in the corner of the Auclair’s particular room. Genevieve had pushed it out of the way to make room for her own cot. 

Gerard appeared to sleep. There was no telling whether he would wake up any time soon. He was in a coma as a result of the assault. Hardly did he know that he was assaulted any more than he knew that his loving mother sat compassionately next to him. There, stroking his hand. There, cleaning his trachea. All the while, there breathing into his ear, breathing for him so that he might know that someone was near. He did not think of revenge, of the man who had done it to him. He thought nothing of his current situation, as far as Genevieve could tell. He simply slept and smiled slightly. He didn’t even blink when she came in the room. 

Genevieve had taken two weeks leave from her job. She had taken up welfare, the funds her husband had saved for their family in the years before his death would slowly diminish owing to costs in keeping her son alive. Gerard always promised to support her as she aged. And now what? The money that his father had saved for the family’s future, before his untimely death, was then being used only for Gerard’s future and for the care that he would ultimately need. Gerard’s father was a kind man and always thought of his family’s future but what he could never imagine, had happened. The impossible had happened. The concept of tragedy is always impossible to account for and to predict. At least that money would go far to lead Gerard into a comfortable life after she was gone. No one planned on her death to come so soon. But that has not happened yet.

She had bled tears of agony for the past two weeks that Gerard, her only son, was comatose. She would tell him frequently that all would be alright. All would come if they would pray together. She begged her son to pray to the God she once thought was there. She begged him, while he lay silent to beg the Lord to have mercy on him.

She reflected, looking upwards and stroking her son’s lifeless, smooth palm in her own. A nurse would enter, from time to time, to help her to administer his meds. Genevieve would watch sadly as, through a pump, Gerard would receive his daily nutrients and medicines that would keep him alive. If only for a day more, keep him alive. She would watch in despair as her son would seizure as a result of the injury. He would arch his neck off the hospital bed and scream in agony through the muzzle of his breathing apparatus. Genevieve shrieked in horror each time this would happen.

There Gerard sat that day, twenty days after the assault committed against him. Genevieve had wondered what thoughts her boy had been experiencing. The doctors told her that Gerard was brain dead, that any chance of recovery was slim. They told her that he no longer thought, regardless of her observations that he seemed to be responding. They just told her that it was a reflex. Regardless, Genevieve would not leave her son and she knew that he was thinking. Gently, as if to a small, vulnerable child, Genevieve whispered into Gerard’s ear. She said, “Gerard, you have a birthday coming up. Wouldn’t it be nice to surprise all of us by waking up for that day? Don’t you want to get home and spend it with all your friends?”

That day, a team of doctors entered the room, followed by the head nurse. Genevieve was stroking her son’s acne covered forehead, manipulating the individual hairs on his head, when they came in. She looked up nervously, as though a fatal blow by an approaching truck was imminent. 

Gerard Auclair would indeed have thoughts while he lay comatose and motionless on that hospital bed. He thought of such things like what he was going to wear for work tomorrow. He thought of his future, the girls he would one day meet. From time to time though, without him being able to understand why he was having the thought, he would think of death. He would beg and plead for death. But death would not come. He would only continue in that dark existence that was his coma. That existence where he would continue his day to day life. Only it seemed, people would try their hardest to inspire him to wake up. To find a way to survive. The people he once knew would tell him, surreptitiously, of the things he had to do to get out. However, the most powerful thought that occurred to him, he didn’t understand. That thought was, ‘Where is my God?

To Gerard then and in his incapacitated state, the doctors that his mother saw so clearly, resembled to him nothing but spectres. They resembled something awful to him, their faces and bodies blended into the image of grotesque demons. As though he himself were not even an entity in the room, these demons spoke silently to his mother. He tried to listen. He couldn’t. Something had happened to him and he hadn’t figured out what it was. The doctors glanced casually across the figure in the bed. His mother stood fully erect and listened to them with an expected degree of patience and reverence as they spoke. She struggled with the thoughts they were presenting her with. The thoughts seemed to absorb into the fabric of her belief system the more she resisted them.

“You must know that our surgeons did their very best to prevent this situation, Mrs. Auclair. There was nothing that could have been done differently.” 

The head nurse present nodded in approval and then sighed slowly, “We know that you have been a good mother, Genevieve. And you must know that your son always has a place here at Charleston Center for Long Term Care. But the time has come for you to go home. You have to get some rest. This is not healthy for any of us.”

Genevieve lifted her hand from the bed and said, “What do you mean by that? I think that what I do is my own business. And right now, my place is with my son – my son who needs me. How is my staying here not healthy for you?”

The nurse turned and glanced into the eyes of the doctor next to her and then she returned her gaze. The first doctor, a tall woman said lightly, “We’re just looking out for your best interest. To be realistic, no one really knows at this point whether Gerard will progress much further. Besides, his paralysis is permanent. The extent of the spinal injuries is such that he will never be able to move from his neck downwards.”

Genevieve’s voice raised a little, her anger surmounting with the words they said. She said, “You don’t have to tell me that he is paralyzed. I’ve heard it plenty of times in the past weeks.” She stuttered a little, shook her head and then looked at all of them. She continued, “Wha – what about the guy who was responsible for this situation? Is he being taken to court? Is he being punished?”

Another doctor, standing back in the group, came forward then and said, “You can rest assured that justice will be served in your son’s case. People like that always get punished.”

“How can you be sure?” Genevieve subtly shivered, “Is there any hope for my son to recover?”

“Very little,” a doctor said, “but it’s hard to say. With a lot of hard work, when and if he wakes up from the coma state, you never know how much he will improve. He will never be able to do the things he did before. You’re living in a new world. If you insist on staying with your son, you must keep your hope. For the first three days he was here, he couldn’t breathe on his own. Now look at him.” 

All present allowed their weak, caring gaze to pass over the lifeless body on the bed. Gerard saw this. He started to cry. But no tears fell.

 

A Sentencing: 

The council entered the court chambers the day of the trial for Ordell Arrant. There was a deadly silence as they entered the room. And as they sat, the judge, next to the court recorder, the defence, next to the prosecution and the prosecution next to the members of the opposing council. Defence sat very slowly, waiting for everyone else to sit before he himself did. He shuffled some papers before him from out of his suitcase and immersed himself within these papers almost immediately. The prosecution looked up after another dreary silence.

Ordell Arrant, who sat before the court, made a light grunting noise. He turned about sourly and eyed the gathered congregation. They all watched him. There were nearly twenty people observing Arrant’s pre-trial, save the court staff, the judge, William Lumiette and the council. Included in the council was Colton Hardy, Mr. Arrant’s defence attorney. Almost all present watched him with a deep sincerity of boiling hatred. They wanted to feel sorry for him. They also wanted to see him fry. They had come to hear the expected verdict of ‘Guilty’.

Lumiette, sitting high up from the rest of the courtroom, acknowledged the prosecution’s statement and leaned forward on his bench and placed his chin in his open hand. He looked collectively at the council, the defence and the prosecution. Hardy, Mr. Arrant’s attorney sat dumfounded, unable or unwilling to proceed, based on the fact that his client was clearly guilty and on his undeniable history of violent offences. He sat next to Arrant, his head in his collected hand. Morality and conscientiousness play no part in a criminal court room. But certainly they had for Arrant’s attorney, for this court procession.

Lumiette focussed his spectacled eyes on Ordell Arrant. Arrant was glancing about the room easily. He was watching the clock, waiting for the moment that he would be out of that courtroom. 

The judge read his charges to Mr. Arrant then. William Lumiette said, “Ordell Arrant, you are charged with attempted murder in the savage assault of one Gerard Auclair. It is shown that on August twenty-first, 2008, you did willingly and without pity attempt to rob Mr. Auclair. And when he defended himself, the court is informed that you, sir, proceeded to strike Mr. Auclair, knocking him to the ground, where you continued to strike him with your foot in the proximity of his throat or neck. And then, continued to slash at his face with an incisor knife until he was unrecognizable. In light of the overwhelming evidence in prosecution’s favour, there is no need to seek probable cause. Mr. Arrant, how do you plead?”

Ordell Arrant had his head collected in his arms on the table before him. Hardy nudged. Arrant didn’t respond. The man released a sigh of air and then snorted. All watched him carefully and despairingly. There was a gentle, muffled laugh from the back of the courtroom. Arrant’s defence struck his elbow with his own and Arrant startled awake. He raised his head slowly. Hardy whispered into his ear. The words he whispered were vaguely interpretable. He whispered with an expression of desolate disgust, ‘Guilty’.

Ordell Arrant’s eyes rose from the table and he said almost inaudibly, “Not guilty,” as if he were pronouncing something profound, as if he were proud of what he said. 

The resonance in the courtroom raised into a quiet uproar as Ordell Arrant lay his head back onto his bicep, smiled and pretended to sleep. The prosecution turned his head abruptly. The defence looked down to the table before him, upon which his client now rested peacefully.

The judge, clearly perturbed by such a blatant disregard for the practice of his law, spoke again. He said to Arrant’s defence, “Considering the severity of Mr. Arrant’s crime and his obvious lack of remorse and recognition for what he has done, Mr. Arrant will spend the remainder of the proceedings in a holding cell on the premises.”

Mr. Hardy went to speak up but was stifled by the insistent cries and wails of the crowd. Two armed officers approached Arrant, who at the sight of them from his periphery, started and began an attempt to fight them off. 

It was heard at that moment a voice calling, “For God’s sake, get him out of here!”

The officers succeeded in sedating him and then picked him up off his chair. Arrant went limp and the officers were left to drag him out of the courtroom. The spectators of the court watched him, their anger stewing. At that point, neither victim nor perpetrator was present while the proceedings continued.

The doors of the room were closed and Lumiette continued with his verdict. He said, “As I was saying, very little can be said in favour of Mr. Arrant, especially of his crime and sadly of his life. He seems to have made a brilliant career around bringing suffering and death. His mental health seems in order. I am setting a fine at $500,000. He will remain in jail until the full sum is paid out. Furthermore, I am suggesting that Mr. Arrant volunteers for a modern criminal rehabilitation program. The rehabilitation is mandatory. Upon completion, Mr. Arrant will be free to work, supervised, in order to begin surmounting what he needs to pay his fine.”

Colton Hardy, who sat with his face lowered, shook his head and scoffed. Lumiette, catching sight of this, said then, “Will council please approach the bench.”

The D.A. and Hardy stood swiftly and paced across the tiled courtroom floor. Both lawyers were disappointed with the verdict. The D.A. because he thought the sentence was too weak and Hardy, the defence, because he thought the penalty was too severe. They stood before the judge then.

“You’re disappointed?” said Lumiette to the two lawyers.

The D.A., looking at his watch, was the first to speak. He said, “Just troubled, that’s all. I’m wondering what this new form of rehabilitative program looks like. Namely, I’m wondering how it could possibly make up for all of the pain and suffering and death that Arrant has caused in his life. I feel that Arrant deserves life for what he has done. The guy practically butchered and paralyzed this poor kid, Auclair. Who the hell knows what he has done in his past aside from what the state knows.”

Colton Hardy glanced up and said, “The fine is good. I’m also a little distressed about the rehabilitation program. What if it makes Arrant worse? This thing we were talking about a while back, this new Psycho-Law program, what if it seriously… you know… fucks up his head?”

Lumiette sighed politely and said, “Hardy,” he paused here, “I assure you that it is fully operational and proven to have enormous results. So much emphasis has been placed in recent years as to the inability of people to make decisions on their own. Of course, there is a matter of the media out there.” Lumiette wagged a finger towards the entrance of the courthouse and shook his head silently. “This project still is to remain completely confidential. When our first human subject has successfully been treated, then we can inform our public.”

Hardy stared at him intently for a moment, unsure about where to go or what to think. “How can you be sure that the program has been proven operational?”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s in good, professional hands,” said Lumiette.

The D.A. nodded in understanding as Hardy proceeded towards the door at the opposing wall of the judge’s bench. He pushed the door aside and within the courtroom was heard his powerful voice as it trailed off with the closing of the door behind him. This is what was heard: “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, by now, I’m sure you all are aware that my client, Ordell Arrant has been found guilty. The sentencing has taken place. I will be submitting an appeal on compassionate grounds within the coming weeks. A formal press release will be made in the coming hours.”

When he finished speaking, the few members of the press outside the door began howling, flailing their wrists about in the temperate air and demanding their questions be answered. 

Inside, Lumiette and the D.A. spoke briefly. Lumiette passed his hand across the wood of his judge’s bench solemnly and said, “You know, I remember a time when a case as big as this would attract every member of media in the city. I don’t understand what happened to make attempted murder such a dry theme in our society."

 

A Visit in Isolation:

Spending the time mostly in solitude, Ordell Arrant waited with violent anticipation for the therapy that awaited him. The only visits he would receive, aside from the continued surveillance of the full-room camera, were from a quite indifferent group of armed prison guards who would bring him his meals. The meals were scheduled to come, first in the morning at 9:00 AM, second at 1:00 PM for lunch. And finally, his dinner would come at 6:00 PM. He had grown to appreciate this schedule, as it was the only time for the possibility of social interaction, of which he had grown to miss so much. Still, he could not really understand why they would just enter and toss his plate and juice box onto the ground before him and then leave without a whisper. He did not understand their actions and how they could simply ignore him. He was a person just like everyone else, wasn’t he?

His lawyer, who he knew only as C. H. had informed him some time before he was sent to the holding cell and sometime after his disgraceful court appearance, about his mandatory volunteering for a rehabilitation program that would begin in the next few weeks. “This program is new Ordell. I’m sure that you will find the benefits far overweighing the negative effects.” Mr. Hardy would say as he picked at his fingernail with his free fingers. “It is far unlike the previous rehabilitation programs that you have taken,” he would continue.

Ordell Arrant looked questioningly into the eyes of his attorney and said, “How is a volunteer program mandatory?”

C. H. simply gazed at him for a moment.

And since then, Ordell waited with ever-increasing intensity of emotion. He dreaded the night that they may come, like thieves, and pick him up, take him to the doom that awaited him. The truth is that he no more wanted to volunteer for this rehabilitation program than he wanted to murder all of the people he had. The two concepts seemed akin in concept in only the thought that he didn’t want to go through with the acts but felt compelled as if by some metaphysical force.

Still, he kind of doubted the effectiveness of the program in the way that his lawyer described it. He never thought that anything could mend his immoral and broken ways. He was a killer. He did not like it, but it was who he was. And he had grown a long time with the understanding that nothing could be changed. 

And so, Ordell Arrant began to feel invincible. A defence mechanism he had conjured up within himself to counter the fear, the agony and the anticipation. He waited in exhausting silence and increasingly ravenous curiosity. It was a strange phenomenon, a displaced oddity, as it grew, the emotions surrounding that, which awaited him. The curiosity that existed festered as he contemplated the rest of his life – the life he knew that one day he would be able to live on the outside world, following the treatment. All he would have to do was to get through this ridiculous rehabilitation. Sparks of emotion passed through, attempting to convince himself that he, in some new way, felt an overwhelming feeling of remorse. He began to reflect. Secretly, for he would never confide this in anyone, he truly began to feel what he assumed to be remorse. How could he be sure if the feeling was remorse? He had never experienced it. It is strange how new feelings and emotions have a way of sneaking up on you as new experiences present themselves. He was aware that demonstrating remorse, fake though it may be, could bring him good fortune in the future.

He could feel his heart as it tried to convince him that he was done with violent crime was terrible. Something within him begged against his own will that he could not commit another crime. Though he pushed these feelings away. After all, what sort of justice system was this that offered these sorts of bargains and lax punishments for what even he assumed to be a horrible crime? There was no doubt that he could not, with even his enormous amount of experience with it, take his country’s justice system seriously.

That day, almost as though a divine miracle, a man dressed in dark denim entered the room followed by three heavily armoured and armed guards. The man as he entered the room whispered to the guards and they went and waited outside the room. Their brief presence in the room was just a show, a display to demonstrate they were there and armed.

Ordell Arrant watched the man as he approached him. The dark man in denim advanced towards him as a child approaches a frightened dog. When he stood before Arrant, he collected his courage as though encouraged by the offender’s not attacking him at any moment before then.

Arrant gazed up, still seated on his bench with his legs wide apart and his arms collected coolly between the legs. He said, “What do you want? Have you come to torment me?”

The man, who was clearly a priest, Arrant could judge by his white collar and black suit, said with kind, compassionate eyes, “Of course not, my son. I have come to help.”

Arrant leaned back a little and raised his head, “How can you help me? God has no place in here, preacher.”

“On the contrary,” he continued with his generous eyes, “God exists everywhere. He has come to hear you repent today.”

“I haven’t anything to repent,” Arrant hissed.

“In that case, how would you feel about spending an hour outdoors? Maybe that will brighten you up.”

Arrant concealed his smile with a lift of his hand to his face, “You’re joking?”

“I’m sure that I can convince the sheriff to permit you at least an hour under supervision. You must have grown very tired of this room, my friend. There is so little sunshine in here.” His head tilted a little at the side and he said, “What is your name?”

“Ordell.”

The priest waited, in expectation of the man to ask him his own name. But he didn’t. So the priest smiled pleasantly and said, “Ordell, I am pleased to meet you. My name is Father White. Why don’t I try to arrange that outing now?”

Arrant nodded politely and watched as the priest, or whatever he was, left the room again. Arrant waited, stifling his expressions of joy as they came, lest the priest should return and catch him in his emotional state. Arrant had grown as a man with very little love. He was never encouraged to display emotion and always was encouraged to show a traditional masculine strength around others.

A couple of minutes passed and the priest entered again. This time two of the guards followed him. Arrant erected in posture and started at the sight of them. The priest approached and attempted to calm him. Arrant watched as one of the guards pushed aside his jacket in order to display an ebony pistol stowed away in its holster. Arrant’s eyes became fixated on the holster with the gun in it. He sat there dumbly, only looking at the bulging space in the officer’s jacket. A moment of discussion passed as the priest and the guards spoke in the corner of the room in heated dialogue.

Arrant only continued to watch the bulge in the officer’s jacket. The priest approached Arrant easier now and the guards remained stationed at the doorway. Father White looked down at Arrant on his bench and said, “I have arranged for a forty minute outing to the gym. Does that sound alright?”

Arrant seemed pleased but Father White could not really tell. Then Arrant said quickly, “Thank you, father. To be completely honest, it has grown a little dull in here.” And smiling politely, he lowered his face again. The guards approached and picked Arrant up by the armpits. That time, he walked by himself to the door.

 

Mother Nature:

The armed guards paced behind the priest and Arrant slowly, taking turns at watching with infinite vigilance, the prisoner who they were meant to guard. The other, the guard whose turn it was not to be on alert, hiked easily beside his friend and took in the scenery of the outdoors as though he himself had grown unaccustomed to its splendour.

A bittersweet moment is it to him who is not privileged with contact by nature for some odd period of time and then suddenly experiences it in one gasp. Arrant’s eyes squinted with an awful pain. Of course, it was nice for him to see the sun again. It reminded him that he was alive. That he was a living creature. He blinked wildly but still gazed upwards to the sky.

All the while, Arrant strode next to the priest, who would make casual remarks about the weather and the birds chirping whenever Arrant grew silent. He would grow silent not out of reasons of ignorance or superiority but rather out of sheer fascination with the sunlight. His cell, in which he had sat then for over two weeks, permitted very little light. There were no windows. The only real light which entered the room was the faint streak of daylight that would become visible through the crack underneath the door, when someone opened the outside door.

“What a lovely day,” Arrant would murmur, genuinely entranced by the natural world. “It feels like I’ve been in prison my whole life.”

Father White said in an equally low voice, “Can you imagine what it would be like to spend an eternity in prison?”

“What do you mean?” Arrant said.

“I only said that with your own best wishes on mind. Think of it in whichever meaning you like – I know that there are many who do not believe in our Father. My first meaning is that of prison here on earth. And Ordell, trust me that you will spend the rest of your life in prison if you continue with your evil ways. But what is even worse, is my second meaning.”

“Spare me father,” Arrant muttered, “if you mean what I think you mean. There is no place there for a man like me. I am too far gone. I think that if God ever saw me, he would spit on me and then drop me into the pits of Hell without even a second glance. Besides, I like it in prison. Just not that holding cell,” here, Arrant gestured back to the shrinking building behind them. “I get fed, I get taken care of and I get to work out all of the time and spend it with good people.”

Father White stroked at his greying beard in contemplation. He said, “God does not hold grudges, my son. It is men who hold the grudges. If you repent and confess your sins, there are no limits. No man, no matter what they have done, is too far gone for God. He will never abandon his children. As long as what lies in their hearts is pure, they are forgiven.”

“And what if a man’s heart is not pure?”

“A man’s heart can be made pure through prayer and repentance.”

“I want to believe, Father White. I really do. It is what I have seen and what I have done that contradicts the possibility of the existence of a God who is good. It is what I myself have done that negates the possibility that, even if there were a God, that He would be a forgiving one. To me at least.”

“Suffering has a way of opening the door to the evil one. And though it is not our intention of being evil, even suffering can turn otherwise good, faithful people into tools of the fallen angel. We must resist the temptation of him when we are at our lowest, show him that we are not tools and call upon the name of our Lord. Ordell, take this opportunity to repent. We can start from the beginning. What was your childhood like? I am willing to listen and God is right next to me.”

Arrant smiled softly and looked at Father White out of the corner of his eye. As the priest spoke, something happened to him. Though this feeling he would grow to experience in a life to come, he was not used to it then. At that time, he did not know what was happening. The outside seemed to blend into a simple expansion of his vision, the voices and laughter of the guards behind him, transformed instantly into a rhythmic pounding within his head. The thought of his own childhood had opened a vortex in the earth on which he stood, slowly swallowing, limb by limb. It was as though he were looking through his brain and hearing through his internal organs. It was a terrifying experience for Arrant. Though he would come to recognize this sensation as a dissociative flashback in years from then, at that time he was emotionally unfit to handle it. The memory was so vivid, so similar to the conversation that was occurring between himself and the priest at that very moment.

“It’s difficult,” Ordell said, turning his head to face the priest all the while thinking, it’s only a memory. Come on, Ordell, pull yourself out of it. He was thinking. He was thinking as the metaphorical hole beneath his feet swallowed him to the chin. 

Father White gestured with his hand in a compassionate movement, “What is difficult?”

The memory then became overwhelming. The strange thing, even Arrant thought at the time, was that he could not put his finger on this memory or what it implied. Still it swallowed him, all the while occurring within his mind as the conversation with the priest continued. Arrant struggled violently to bring himself to collect his sanity. But since he had never felt as such before, was having a very difficult time in controlling his emotions. Out of desperation, Arrant, in his mind began chanting the name ‘Jesus’… ‘Jesus’. The word at that time, meant nothing to him.

Father White was watching him as he fell upon his knees and began howling violent tears. Both guards rushed over then as Father White lay his hand across Arrant’s shoulders. 

Arrant, as if seized then by some demonic presence, seized the pistol from the smaller of the guards and stood back. Father White watched with horror as he tripped backwards from Arrant. 

The other guard immediately went to reach for his own gun. Arrant shouted, “Drop the gun and kick it over.” 

The guard, from whom Arrant had stolen the pistol, stared indignantly at the priest for a moment before kneeling down with the rest of them. Father White ignored the look from the guard and said in a deep tone, “Ordell, what will this achieve? What are you doing here?”

“Your God doesn’t exist, priest.”

White spoke, raising his voice a little, “God does exist.”

Arrant, overcome by the intensity of the memory that he was experiencing, fell over then and began to heave tears of despair. On seeing this, the guards rushed over and kicked him prone. Ordell Arrant was seen from above in the guard towers, as his back heaved and then shivered as it exhaled. The guns pointed on him did not waver once.

 

Like a Thief in the Night:

It was not long after that, in the third week of Arrant’s stay in this holding cell that the guards did come for him. And indeed, they came like thieves in the night, silently and with haste. Four men appeared, dressed all in black and in his stupor of having been woken by them, the sight of them seemed foreign to him. They appeared to him like spectres in the dark through the prison cell’s iron bars. At the time, Arrant had not seen a soul for over a week, since he was beaten after pulling the gun from the guard. The beating did not last long but the two guards who had committed the crime against him managed to rough him up pretty well. The fact that they laughed and rejoiced while they pummeled his arms and legs and torso with their feet, seemed to make the beating last longer.

He woke to the sight of four black apparitions, which approached with intent as he began to scream. There was no one to answer his screaming, he would discover. As they swung aside his cell door in the deep black of the room, they marched inwards. No sooner had they pushed aside the cell door than the foremost one in the group struck him over the head with a baton. 

Blackness…

They pulled him from what he had grown to consider his home and strapped handcuffs onto his wrists. The guards struggled with the cuffs and once pinched Arrant’s flesh so severely that it spurted blood. Not a sound was heard from the knocked out man. They dragged him out into the hall and through half open eyes and a half conscious state, Arrant could interpret the fresh air of the hall as it passed by his nostrils and mouth. He sucked at the air, his feet hanging out from his knees, which grazed the floor roughly as they lugged him to the outside.

Suddenly, his body was allowed to descend a bit in the clasping arms as doors were thrust outward. He was pulled through them silently. The fabric of his pant leg caught on the stop in the door. The guards did not notice this and still pulled at him, with increasing strength. They began to tear at his arms, believing him to be struggling. They did not look back His pants were caught to the door.  Finally they succeeded in taking him along with them and Arrant’s body gave and flailed a little with the force used to pull him. His pants were left behind. One of the guards noticed that they had ripped from his legs as they were tugging. It seemed to bother him little. He was left naked from the waist down. They continued to carry him, outside, to a white van parked close in the parking lot of the Chatham County Jail.

Arrant was shoved into the back of the van through doors that opened out in the rear and was made to lay prone. Two of the guards sat next to him and above him. They laughed and discussed politics while Arrant lay there. Arrant could feel their breathing moving sourly across his face. The smell reminded him of coffee and cigarettes and because they were foreign smells to him, or at least, seemingly distant memories, the smell repulsed him.

The other two guards sat up front, one driving and the other a passenger. There were no windows in the back of the van so as Arrant dreamt, he imagined himself in the comfort of his holding cell at the county jail. He had come to recognize a home wherever he could find one. 

It could have been hours for all Arrant knew. The trip seemed to go on endlessly like any other night in the solitary dungeon he was left in for the past week. He was only so familiar with darkness, solitude and hopelessness. It was possible, though not entirely likely, that the van was only being driven in circles. As Arrant would wake weakly for a moment or two while they drove, his position allowed him a sight of the outside. He seemed to recognize certain buildings and monuments within the great city as though he were experiencing déjà vu. The guards did not utter a word nor even look at Arrant when he would turn his head questioningly while he would have lapses of semi-consciousness.

Finally, the van slowed, jumped several times in its spot and came to a jolting stop. The engine quit and Arrant heard doors opening and pounding shut. One of the guards who sat above him on the board, on which he lay, said quietly, “We’re here buddy,” and pulled him up by the arms again and tossed his limp body to the other two who waited on the outside of the van. Slowly, life began to return to Ordell Arrant, jostled by his freefall from being tossed into the arms of the other guards. Arrant started quickly and raised his cuffed hands to wipe at his mouth. A thin trail of drool cascaded about his chin. 

“Where am I?” muttered Arrant indignantly. 

One of the unidentifiable guards said impatiently, “We’re just bringing you here bud. But from the looks of the sign on the building, it’s the Georgia State Criminal Corrections and Rehabilitation Division.”

Arrant went silent. He lowered his head and began to walk on his own. When the guards realized he was able to walk again, they released him from their grip. Two guards firmly grasped his shoulders, one on each side. A third led him by the chain in his handcuffs. The night breeze blew tenderly across the hairs on his bare legs. And looking down, he noticed that he hadn’t any pants on. 

They entered the building through the front doorway. The parking lot was not vacant as was expected at that time of night. A row of seven cars were parked side by side. As they entered, Arrant noticed the interior of the Corrections Building, the hallway, was entirely white. The walls bled with intense blanche. Arrant reflected for a moment that that room must have been what Heaven looked like. The walls seemed to emit their own source of light. And as he was led closer to them, he noticed their reflective surfaces and pearl-like tint. 

A young girl sat behind an oval reception desk in the middle of the empty, white foyer. No doors extended to other branches. No hallways led to other rooms in the building. It appeared that the massive building he had seen outside was in reality, no more than this rather large room. Arrant, catching the girl’s eye, noticed that she glanced quickly at his bare legs and then averted her vision back to her work. This made Arrant a little angry as he himself looked downward to his thin, hairy legs and his small, shrivelled penis.

He continued watching her, half out of contempt and half out of his genuine loneliness, as the guards pushed him past her. When she would not look up from her work, Arrant made slight noises to try to get her attention. The guard behind him struck him a hard blow in the back of his hamstring. Within Arrant then, a profound anger festered and boiled. He was perturbed that this girl had not the least concern for him, being dragged here in the middle of the night, without pants. The sight itself must have been one to evoke pity. For all both he and she knew, he could have been being led to the gas chamber. He was angry that the guards had the audacity to display him to this young and pretty girl in such a piteous state. Least of all, he was angry for the guard striking him. The pain from the blow began to settle in and he began to limp. The limp was hardly noticeable to anyone else but to him and the pain it caused him was the greatest injustice of all. 

Arrant, turning his head from the girl began to yell then. He yelled at anyone. He shouted obscenities and began to stomp wildly about, pulling at the men, trying to get away from them. And as he continued to shout and struggle, the guard behind him struck him again, this time in his back, close to his kidney. When the blow hit, he fell over in agony. The guards proceeded, again dragging him behind them. Slowly, he regained his posture but was keeled over from the pain he felt as he walked. 

He was carried across the white room to the wall where he did not know what was to happen next. One of the guards indicated back to the girl at the reception desk. A button was heard being pressed and then a hiss as a doorway pushed aside in front of the prisoner and the guards. They moved through the doorway. Arrant looked once more back to the receptionist and tried to smile. She would not look up. 

All was dark for a moment as the door behind them shut. And then the light reappeared as another point of entry opened before them from out of the shadows. When the door was opened entirely, Arrant was left with the sight of five men, one young girl in a lab coat and a boy, sitting before a computer. The boy at the computer punched brutally at the keyboard on his lap.

The guards pulled Arrant inside the room and the door behind them slid shut. The guards released their grasp on him and he fell to his knees. When he looked up, he examined the setting of the new room. This room was padded. There were computers and consoles spread out about the dark and a ventilation system ran above the highest point on the wall. The ceiling was obscenely high and the corners between the wall and the ceiling blended in marvellous symmetry. The images intruded ferociously into Arrant’s short term memory. In the middle of the room, seemingly the climax to the furnishing of the area, sat a large chair with an endless wiring system attached to its bulk. The seat was egg shaped and was cushioned on its interior. A step hung before the front of the chair. The air within the room was filled with the slight hum of a slow jazz melody.

Arrant’s vision then focussed on the gloomy figures in the room. There were five men. One was a tall man. Arrant recognized him. He was the judge in his latest trial. The man stood higher than all else in the room, his black hair camouflaging him with the walls of this new room. The second man was one who he had never seen. He was shorter than the judge and was bearded. One other man he noticed was his lawyer, C. H. Colton Hardy stood with an expression of pity and distaste. His view passed over the forehead of Arrant who rest on his knees then. The other men mattered little to him. 

Arrant struggled to breathe then as he hissed, “What am I doing here? Since when did rehabilitation programs include unnecessary beatings and occur in the dead of night?”

“This is not your typical rehabilitation program, Mr. Arrant,” said the young girl in the lab coat. “My name is Angela Deblois and I will be supervising your treatment.”

Arrant stared angrily at the room full of people and then spoke a bit louder, this time addressing his defence attorney, Mr. Hardy. He said, “So you’re in this too? How much are they paying you?”

Hardy let a loose smile build on his face as he said, “It’s not a matter of money, Mr. Arrant. You should know that by now. Some things go far deeper. This is a matter of doing the right thing.” Hardy’s powerful voice contradicted the faint friendliness that had been his personality a month earlier.

Arrant whispered then, still hard of breath, “I hope you know that I will not be receptive to the treatment.”

“We’re counting on it,” said the man with the mustachio, William Lumiette.

Arrant sneered, “Then you must know that no rehabilitation process can be successful with the willing participation of the subject.”

“Aren’t you a clever criminal? Very reflective. As a matter of fact, we’re counting on that as well. I’m sure that your lawyer here, Mr. Hardy explained to you about the process of this program.”

Arrant said, “Briefly.”

“In that case, allow me to fill in any loose holes regarding what Colton told you about the program. But before we do that, Mr. Hardy, will you provide Mr. Arrant with some proper clothing.”

Hardy crossed the room and retrieved a fresh pair of pajama pants and a robe and brought them to Ordell. He took the articles of clothing without a word and raised the pants to his nose, instinctively smelling to see if they had been cleaned. He put them on and tossed the robe on the ground in front of him.

Lumiette continued, “Seeing how the human brain can only safely endure up to six hours of the treatment, we had to do our very best to make the process as effective as possible in as short a time as possible. Tonight, Mr. Arrant, you will participate in a virtual reality system. In the virtual world, you will experience your victim’s life from the moment,” here he paused, “of your assault on that poor kid. Do you remember your victim’s name?”

Arrant derided the thought and scoffed openly before the individuals standing before him. After all, he never gave a single thought to what his victims had to endure after his crimes against them in the past. He thought for a minute. If only someone had have told him the effects, more about the treatment, the events he was about to live, he would have lived a wonderful life in prison, oblivious to the pain that violent crime caused. “I can’t remember.”

 “You can’t remember what?” Lumiette said.

Arrant seemed to become agitated then and he said, “The guy’s name.”

Swiftly, Arrant was lifted up off of his knees and was carried towards the centre of the room. Arrant watched with growing, violent expectation, the large concave chair towards which he was being pulled. As he was thrown into the chair, the guards beside him struggled with his struggling body. Restraints were placed on his arms and then, in due course, onto the shins of his legs. 

Angela Deblois was busy saying something but he did not hear what it was she said. He was busy trying to find a way to release the restraints. He imagined, as she spoke, how the collected group would feel if he were able to find a release. He would pull the release out of the chair and hit the bitch over her stupid head with the broken restraint.

“Did you hear me?” Angela said sternly.

At that moment Arrant had another horrific vision. Again, it was a vision of him escaping and strangling this woman, this Angela until the guards put a stop to it. It was only a vision. 

“Yes,” he answered, “let’s get this over with.” 

A small contraption was placed over his head, which came from behind and to the sides so he could not get a clear look at who put it on him. The interior of the full head helmet was lightly cushioned and around his chin then was connected the clip on a strap. The vision through the visor of the helmet was slightly lucid and presented the dark room before him as a rouged version of its previous self. Angela took about four paces backwards while an additional device was placed over the visor on the helmet. Arrant felt a subtle pulling of gravity as if something else had been placed over his head. He heard then, what he thought to have been scuttling about the room. 

Angela moved hurriedly to the station desk at the far end of the room. She began to speak in a dialect foreign to Arrant’s understanding. The dialect was not a foreign language only a type of technical talk he had never heard before.

His head, which was previously the only part of his body that was permitted to move freely, was then also restrained by a clicking sound in the outer carapace of the helmet he wore. The gentle hum and harmony of the jazz music still penetrated the room. The music, now the only audible thing to Arrant in the room, became a soothing presence. He focussed all of his energy on the sounds of the saxophone, the piano and the drums and the pleasant way in which they rang together in lovely melody.

“Let’s get this over with,” Arrant said loudly through the muzzle of the helmet. “This is kind of ridiculous. I don’t give a fuck what I did to that guy. He was just a bitch. He hardly even fought back.”

Angela who then sat behind the console desk, whispered, “You will care. His name is Gerard Auclair. Your name is Gerard Auclair.” Though she whispered the statement, which was meant for the other individuals in the room, Arrant heard it and grew frightened.

The voices became a subtle blur like the crash of a speeding freight train as he became increasingly less aware of his own surroundings. Arrant ground his teeth hard inside the visor of the helmet. “It will be nothing,” he thought aloud. “Let’s just get this shit over with and get out of here.”

”His name is Gerard Auclair,” a manly voice in the room was saying. He emphasized the last name, which grated Arrant as he sat there. The entire thought of experiencing this was, to him, so utterly degrading. He felt a degree of shame as an image shuttered into his awareness. 

The images he was unable to hang on to long enough to decipher. They sped by quickly and surreptitiously. And as they sped by, one image overlapped his awareness. The main image that bled across the many that seeped into his subconscious then was one of a young boy and his mother. It focussed heavily across the back of the boy. The boy’s mother, for somehow he knew she was his mother, held onto him tightly and caressed his cheek with a tender kiss. He could not explain his understanding, this sudden realization and appreciation of the scene. He was shocked at the love behind the still representation, while so very much pain existed simultaneously. The image was black and white and a piteous scene.

Arrant shuddered in the equipment that bound him. A voice entered the contraption on his head. It was deep and so very realistic. “I love you, Gerard. Never forget that. God loves you and I know for a fact that He is watching you right now, just like I am. Get better for me, sweetheart.”

He felt a slight pressure apply itself to the temple of his head after the voice had finished. He interpreted the warmth, the love. But at the same time, he felt the contrary, overwhelming pressure of misery. The feeling he felt was similar in so many ways to his own feelings after spending months of isolation behind bars. He began to stir in the contraption as he became angry with the presence that could feel so miserably while so very much love was being showered atop him.

 

“He’s just a lazy fucker,” another voice, unrecognizable this time, was saying. “If he wanted to wake up, he would.” The voice reverberated and then died away. It gave into more negative and hopeless rants about this boy. Another voice said angrily, “He fucking deserved it. No one would really do something like that unless provoked. He only has himself to blame.”

All the while, Arrant twisted within his restraints, entirely uncomfortably, entirely aware now of the emotions and images as they washed across his senses. It was unbearable. Not the process – which he found utterly agonizing – but rather the images that displayed so viciously across his vision, that was unbearable. The audible voice of the young lab technician was heard then saying, “You will experience everything. Everything. And then it will be over. Like a dream.”

The voices continued until they became one with Arrant’s mind, attaching to his cerebral cavities and burrowing within his spine until it shivered.

 

“He must have been doing something wrong for somebody to do what they did to him.”

             

“If he really resisted, what happened to him couldn’t have happened. He must have wanted to have been beaten. That’s kind of sick.”

             

“He just sort of gave up. I’ll tell you something. If it were me, I’d have gone ahead and lived life. But, if it were me, it wouldn’t have happened anyways.”

             

“Just get over it. It’s time to move on. I’m really sorry for your loss but sometimes you just have to suck it up.”

 

Other voices, which he interpreted as a ghost, as though he were hearing it through his own ears, as though the voice were his own, said despairingly, “Where is my father’s money?”

             

“Where is God? If He is there, he’s fucking forgotten all about me.”

             

“I don’t want to leave,” another voice whispered.

             

Others were saying, drilling into Arrant’s mind, “Why have I been punished for the crime committed against me?” and “Help me, mother. They treat me like I was a criminal. What have I done?”

 

Gradually, Ordell Arrant’s head began to spin, the walls seeming to close in upon him. An image appeared in his vision. His mind tried instinctively to deny that it existed but it soon began to penetrate his mind and body. The image soon grew to make sense to Ordell, as a simple expansion of his own life. Realistically, the image that presented itself soon became his very own life as it grew and presented more and more images, all blended together, as though one. Ordell Arrant soon became, in mind and in his own understanding of body, this other man, Gerard Auclair. The side of his mouth twitched and Arrant slept. Awakening in his consciousness was a completely different person.

 

Written in the Stars:      

It was a pleasant day in Savannah, Georgia. The birds chirped their song of melancholy and the sun shone eagerly across the tarred pavement of the city. His memory of his old life as Ordell Arrant was only a vague recollection of some distant feeling. His memory dictates that he is Gerard Auclair. He has always been Gerard Auclair. Gerard is twenty-two years old and has started, in months past, his work as an accountant at a chartered accountant’s office. After his many years of study, his dream of working in this distinguished profession had finally been realized. His name, his being, his soul was Gerard Auclair’s. He truly believed that more than he believed in the omniscient presence of his God.

Work had only just finished moments before and Gerard Auclair collected his bag, along with the packaged lunch his mother had made for him for the day. He had not a moment in his busy schedule to eat the meal his mother had prepared for him. He kept telling her that it was unnecessary for her to make him lunches but he sucked in his pride and took them with appreciation every morning. Besides, he went out for lunch most days with his coworkers. 

Gerard was to be paid that day. That was the reason he had hung around. 

He slid into his thin overcoat and left his office, closing the door behind him softly. And approaching the treasurer’s office, he could hear her voice as she spoke on the telephone from behind the closed door. He listened for a moment and what he heard pleased him intensely. From behind the closed door was heard, “I also want you to know that our new employee is working out quite well. He is a brilliant young fellow by the name of Gerard.” There was a pause and then the voice continued, “Yes, he was educated – at Georgia State, I think for an Accountant’s program.”

Gerard was tugged by his morals to stop listening. He backed off from the closed door and made his way slowly, reflecting on the kind things said about him, to the office cafeteria. He poured himself a cup of coffee and waited until he heard the door across the hall open. He sat for some time, sipping at his coffee, in reflection, when the cafeteria door opened. The young girl who stood before the entrance looked at him kindly and said, “Doing overtime, are you Gerard?” She slid into the room through the half open door and approached him energetically.

Gerard laughed pleasantly and moved his arm across the inside fabric of his overcoat. “Actually, I was waiting for you, Andrea. Is there anything else I can do for you tonight before we close up?”

Andrea Conchie stood up to about Gerard’s chin. She was incredibly beautiful but the highlight of her face and slim physique was her eyes. The penetrating, blue shade of their irises were like piercing knives. The blueness was a unique blue. There was such a beautiful spirit about her to him. 

Andrea gazed at him with admiration for a second and then said, “That’s alright Gerard. I am going to close up. If you want, you can wait for me and we’ll walk to the bus together. Besides,” here Andrea gazed downward and put her hand into her pocket, “I have something for you.”

She produced a beige envelope from her jeans and handed it generously to him. He took it from her casually looked at it carefully. He opened it enthusiastically. It was a generous sum. So far, he had only received two for his hard work at Sartor and Sons Chartered Accountants & CO.

“Thank you Andrea,” Gerard said, smiling. “Where are you going tonight?”

“I have to go to school.”

“You work really hard. You’re going to do something really great someday. But you need to find time for fun,” Gerard began to blush. “Every day since I’ve started work here, right after, you get your bags and rush off to school. That makes me feel really unwanted.” He smiled and winked.

She looked at him for a moment and lowered her head. She slowly returned her gaze to Gerard who kept his eyes upon hers. She smiled sweetly at him and said, “Medicine is pretty serious. My father passed away a year ago from a heart attack. This, school, is my way of showing my dad’s spirit that I truly loved him.”

“I know Andrea. I’m really sorry if I brought up bad memories for you. I was just trying to express how much I admire your determination. Not everybody could do what you’re doing… med school… man…” he paused for a moment and then continued, “Look, I know that you love your dad. And that you succeeding in your life and you’re going to be a doctor is your way of showing him that you care. I know for a fact that he is watching and will be watching you succeed in everything you do. I’m just saying, don’t you think, at the same time, he would want you to be happy and have fun in succeeding?”

Andrea smiled, “One day Gerard. One day. After all of this is over. Please be patient with me.” 

They walked close to each other as they left, side by side and looking at each other in the eyes. There was a silence as they stood before the entrance of the building at which they both worked. Gerard gazed up and watched Andrea as she put a coppery key into the lock on the front of the door. The lock clicked. She turned and they began walking again. Gerard could feel the warmth of her body in the coolness of the late December, Savannah air. And as her arm would brush up against his own on each passing stride, he would swoon. He admired her, if not for any other reason, than for the simple reason that it had seemed so easy for her to build a friendship with him. He was never very good with girls and knowing that a girl as beautiful as she was, actually sought his friendship, made him feel like a king of sorts. 

Gerard spoke then with a shake in his voice, “I love silence.” 

“You know what? I really do too. It says a lot about two people when they can be silent and still comfortable being around each other. You’re something else Gerard.”

They walked close to the bus stop at which several people were already waiting. The air outside had grown dark and misty, the mist settling heavily on the ground above the sidewalk and the roots of the old, majestic trees that filled the inner city. Their steps seemed to penetrate through the mist on the sidewalks as though they were walking on clouds.

“So, you have to go to school tonight?” Gerard asked.

“Yes.” She looked at him and moved a bit closer. “I told you that already, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Gerard replied, “but I guess I thought you could take this one day off. Come and have some fun with me.”

“What kind of fun Gerard?” she smirked a little. 

“Let’s go to a bar. Sit and have a couple of drinks. Just the two of us. No uncomfortable silences. Just loving silence. And maybe the night will get more interesting. Who knows? We can do karaoke or play some pool. And then maybe go back to my place. It doesn’t really matter to me. I just want to spend time with you Andrea. You’re such an incredible person to be around.”

“Gerard, you are the most loving guy I think I have ever met. You’re such a beautiful soul. I would love to be closer to you. I just can’t right now. This is very important in my life. I hope you will understand that. The future for us is so filled with love yet so unwritten. We can make anything with our futures. It’s just going to be all the sweeter when I am done with school. I only have a year left. Half a year. Besides, we have weekends for now. I hope you understand that. Please, please be patient with me.”

Gerard replied, “I’ll be patient with you. I’d wait for life to stop before I gave up on you.”

“You’re cute, Gerard.” Andrea let out a sudden breath of air to indicate that she was laughing. “Half a year.”

There they stood. Andrea looked longingly into Gerard’s eyes. The eye contact made him a little uncomfortable but he summoned the strength to return his eyes to hers. She said then, “I really like you, Gerard.”

“I like you too, Andrea,” he smiled lovingly, “a lot”.

She looked about the open air coyly and then nodded slightly. Gerard watched her as she did it and then said, “Are you alright?”

Andrea returned her eyes to his and she answered, “I really like you Gerard. You’re one of the nicest, kindest and smartest guys I have ever met.”

Gerard stood silently a moment as if confused. He looked around nervously as if for some sort of escape. Slowly, as his vision settled, he became aware of another man watching him from afar at the bus stop. He was large in stature, though not much more than he himself. The man who watched him was dressed in a tawdry and moth-eaten business suit and puffed slowly away at a thin cigarillo, which was chewed up at the end closest his mouth. Gerard thought nothing of it but became increasingly agitated as the man continued to watch him. Andrea’s words she was speaking at that moment went unheard by Gerard who was eyeing nervously, the man who watched him through repetitive clouds of silvery smoke. 

Gerard refocused his attention on Andrea who said then, “Are you listening to me?” And she struck him playfully on the side of his arm with her hand bag. 

“Andrea,” Gerard managed to say, looking at her. His line of sight, through his periphery remained on the man standing at the back of the bus stop line.

At that moment, there was a hiss as the hydraulics of the metro bus slowed beside them. Gerard watched quickly the pebbles and dust rise and shoot out from the underneath the slow turning tires. The bus came to a stop as Andrea leaned into him with force and kissed him on the chin. Her eyes faltered nervously for a moment and then she looked at him intently once more. She kissed him on the mouth, passionately. She said, “I’ll give you a call over the weekend. Please be patient with me.”

She leaned in and kissed him again and then backed up onto the bus. Pulling away, Gerard caught glimpse of her smiling, beautiful face as she stood at the back of the bus, ducking to get a view out of the window and waved to him. Gerard smiled and returned the wave and then turned slowly. What he saw next, he could not explain in the seconds before he turned and walked off. He saw the man in the tattered business suit. The man still watched him closely. As Gerard turned to face him, the man approached him quickly and said, “That’s a lovely girl you’ve got there.” 

Gerard only nodded, turned and ducked his head. But the man followed him. The man said pleadingly to Gerard’s back, “You wouldn’t happen to have any change, would you sir?” Gerard shook his head and turning back, said, “No, sorry.” In all honesty, he was being quite truthful. Generally, Gerard gave to people whatever he could. The pay-check in his pocket was all the money he had. 

The man disappeared then. After a moment of Gerard pacing hastily forward and dreading looking back, lest the man still be following him, Gerard did in fact look back. There was no trace of him or his smelly suit. Purely out of paranoia, he slipped a hand into his suit jacket then to see if he still had the check, to make sure that it hadn’t been stolen. When he realized it was still there, Gerard made his way to the bank to cash it. 

At the bank, Gerard approached the counter, behind which sat a middle-aged man. The man was abrupt and sped through his dealings with Gerard. He handed him his cash quickly and without looking up. When Gerard turned around to make his way out of the bank, he noticed the same man in the moth-eaten suit. The man, it seemed, did not notice Gerard and stood with an imploring grimace on his face, in the corner of the bank with his cap in his hands. He begged all who passed for change. Gerard thought it no more than a coincidence that this man was there. He did not associate his presence to being followed. 

Out of a desire to appease his anxiety, Gerard pretended that the gaunt figure did not exist. And as Gerard began pacing past him, he ignored the man’s existence, even as he beckoned at Gerard with his hat. When he would not respond, the man began to taunt him softly with statements like, “Are you better than me?” and “You think because you have a good suit and a pretty girl and a pay-check that you’re better than me?” The people inside the bank ignored the man’s wild remarks and wrote him off as a madman. Some even put dollar notes into the hat out of pity. Gerard continued on his way away from the bank and started down the sidewalk outside. The air outside had grown stale and dark. He glanced back once or twice, noticing that the man had disappeared. This comforted him immensely. And so, he returned his head to the street ahead of him and paced through the neighbourhood next to his own.

Anyone who has been to Savannah is aware of the old, colonial style neighbourhoods that seem to crisscross like the shapes on a chessboard. Groups of houses surround other groups of houses, encompassed around a street, which protects a small community garden. 

As he made his way along the sidewalk, he soon became more and more conscious of the sound of footsteps following. They fell consistently and eagerly. And though, Gerard dared not glance back, he seemed able to force his anxiety to settle. How many times, how many people have heard the echo of footsteps behind them, only to slow down and watch comfortingly as the character from which those footsteps emitted, obliviously passed by? 

This was not the case in Gerard’s situation. When he slowed, the footsteps slowed. When he stopped, to test this figure, the footsteps stopped. He grew overwhelmingly afraid and changed his course and walked toward one of these community gardens.

It was in this garden that everything suddenly grew cloudy, the image, the memory, the sound and the tactile. The man behind Gerard was clearly following him. And when finally, he turned about to see, it was the same man that had been there at the bank. He approached with a look of angry expectation on his clean-shaven face. The holes in the suit that he wore seemed to grow bigger with every step nearer the man took towards him.

Gerard could not move. He simply could not even speak. All the thoughts that he possessed from an earlier memory were erased. They were the thoughts that he was invincible, that if he were ever encountered by someone who meant him harm, he would be able to fend them off – because he was a strong person. 

He felt invincible because he denied the very possibility that a physical confrontation could confront him. And even if it was possible, when he was relaxed and in the comfort of his home, whenever the possibility presented itself, he denied that there was anyone who he could not fend off. He hated the thoughts that his mother always forced into his head – to come straight home after work, that the world was no longer a safe place. He hated the thought that his safety was jeopardized. He liked to think of himself as a man, one who could not be messed with, any more than intimidated. But then, there Gerard stood, like a deer in headlights.

It didn’t happen like that. Gerard absolutely was so terrified that he could not even move. It was as though he were paralyzed. The man then, two paces away, raised his arm and struck Gerard in the face. Gerard fell instantly to the soft, wet grass, his body silhouetted by the mist on the lawn. He lay still and was submissive to this crazy man’s plan. He groped Gerard’s pockets carelessly until he found the wad of cash. Then he snatched the cash into his own pocket and looked at Gerard. Gerard tried so hard to tell this madman that it was his money, that his mother needed it. He did not think that the madman would care. But he had to try. In one swift period of ten minutes the begging of the madman at the bank had translated into Gerard’s pleading on the ground. He pled for his money and for his life. But somehow, still, he did not think that it would come to that. He found it hard to believe, there on the ground, squirming like a grounded fish, that anyone had the capacity to end such a life. He thought, there on the ground, that the more pitiful he made himself seem, the less chance there was of this madman’s taking any further action. He prayed, there on the misty, warm and wet grass, that the madman just take his hard-earned money and leave.

Gerard turned over on his tummy then, his chin cushioned by the soft ground below, as the madman stood over him. At that moment, Gerard experienced a terrible feeling, something like lightning in and across his head. And then, his vision clouded and Gerard slept.

Further off down the street, a group of three or four teenagers who were busy smoking a communal cigarette, turned slowly at the sound of a cracking. Two of the teenagers ran off instinctively at the gruesome sight while another two remained stood where they were. While they watched the scene from afar, they could distinguish through the halo of a streetlight through the dark night, a tall, middle-aged man standing over another, seemingly incapacitated on the grass. The man, from what they could discern in the light, was slashing at something. And as the teenagers neared, they saw the man covered in red. They both called out and the red-covered man ran off. The teenagers approached the scene carefully and when they were close enough, they saw the man on the ground. The sight was so vicious that one of the teenagers who had come to help threw up, there on the ground before Gerard. 

The teenagers looked at each other, once the other had risen back up after dry heaving several times. They started simultaneously to shake their heads with exasperation. The larger of the two said to the other then, “I can’t be here. We’ll get in trouble. I don’t want to be accused of doing this.”

“Hang on, man. They can’t accuse us for trying to help him. Look at him.” The teenager gestured to the man on the grass before them. “Look at him!” He shouted as his friend stared off into the empty space of the park.

Gerard started to quiver on the ground. On seeing this, the larger of the two teenagers turned, spit and ran off quickly. The other teenager was left standing there, disempowered by the situation. In turn, he spun about and ran off as well.

 

A Cry for Help:

Gerard must have been in the same spot for hours. He tried to scream but the way his chin was rooted on the grass, he couldn’t. The endless thoughts that sped through his mind were muted. All he could focus on was the extreme discomfort, there, lying on his stomach. His neck was poised upwards so that the space between the bottom of his chin and the top part of his neck rested on the cool grass. Something within him dictated that the position he was in was entirely unnatural. He resisted the thought and encouraged himself that he would be alright. But still, he experienced a tumult of interior dialogue in those passing moments that felt in reality as passing hours, which felt in turn like an eternity. He began to contemplate his imminent death, if help would not arrive. And he prayed for help to arrive. He imagined his death and pondered the effect it would have on his mother. She would have been heartbroken and perhaps even have allowed herself to die also. His caring mother, who only wanted so much good for him. He was all she had and all she had was for him. Divorced at thirty-three, after she had given birth to him, he was her life. Perhaps a bit ironically, though perhaps a bit realistically, the memory on which he concentrated for most of the time before help did arrive was what had just occurred. He felt as though it were only a distant and perverse memory. He thought over the pointlessness of the assault and of the shame he had endured. What’s more is that he thought he would never be able to get over it. And, indeed, that was the truth. But Gerard did not have to know that then. His insistence on that single thought that he would not be able, nor willing to triumph over the event that had just happened to him, would haunt him in months to come. Still, at that moment, as Gerard lay in this unnatural position on the grass in that Savannah park, the assault and robbery seemed completely resolved to him. 

Of course, he had no possible way of telling the time – the time that had passed, nor the time he had spent unconscious. He only waited. And as he waited, there unnaturally, the length of his back and neck began to throb in agony. It was almost like the pain had its own pulse and circulatory system. That it would begin at the neck with a sudden burst of extreme pain and then pass slowly down his neck and into his back, down to his tailbone.

And then, as if by some miracle of divine intervention, Gerard began to hear the distant cry of voices. Gerard could faintly make out their shadows in some indeterminable distance. They were teenagers. He hadn’t noticed it before then that his vision had become cloudy, as though he were abnormally inflicted, with a sudden and hideous case of cataracts. Gerard tried with all possible effort to call out to the boys but they did not hear. They did not hear because the faint, muffled cry that Gerard was making, the sound that he heard, was not a sound at all. No matter how hard he tried, the harder he heard his voice become. But to the boys who stood at the other end of the park, they heard nothing. 

They approached his position but did not see him. One of the teenagers stepped over him as though he were a piece of garbage. That is when one of the three boys saw him. He saw Gerard as he lay on the ground trembling and leaned over.  He said, “You alright, buddy?”

Gerard said nothing. He didn’t even try to speak for the pain was becoming relentless. The boy bent and rolled Gerard over. The reflexivity that made Gerard’s body jump quickly in accordance with the boy’s action startled all of the adolescent boys. Gerard’s neck twisted like a loose sock as he fell over onto his back. The boy lifted his head a little off of the ground to see if he was breathing. It was clear that he was still breathing because as Gerard’s neck pulled up off of the straight surface, he yelped. The expression in his face twisted in multiple looks of agony and shock.

“Alright, buddy,” the boy who was kneeling said softly and encouragingly, “the ambulance is on its way.” His voice, to Gerard, sounded like a violent thunder clap, as though a train were passing through his fractured head. Gerard went unconscious again.

 

A Friendly Visit:

Andrea Conchie’s steps created a lucid and reverberating echo through the halls of Charleston County Hospital. And as she entered the wing of the building to which she was directed by the receptionist, her thoughts bounced and raced. She had hoped to God that she would be able to continue their conversation that day at the bus stop after work. She dreaded entering the room and discovering what she knew she would ultimately find. 

She had only just heard about the assault on Gerard`s life the day before. Two weeks had passed since she had seen Gerard. His absence at work had caused a sort of commotion around the office at first. They were saying that he was just another unreliable kid who did not take his work seriously. They said that he was sleeping. They said that he was on drugs. They even considered firing him for a while; when and if he were to ever return. They said all of these things until they also heard the news. Nothing good of him was said in his absence. Andrea just listened, her anger rising, every time they would say these sorts of things. She was worried about Gerard. And it bothered her that she seemed the only one to be worried. Two weeks had passed and he had missed a pay-check.

She had felt so despairingly guilty. Knowing somehow, as she reflected upon that last day she had seen him, that had he just gone home after work instead of walking her to the bus, he may have been alright. Thoughts of her own deceased father crossed her mind then. Gradually, her thoughts returned to Gerard. Thoughts of the beautiful conversations they had had together, the beautiful silences, the smooth and warm taste of his upper lip on her lower lip. She dreaded not experiencing these things again. She did really love him. But that did not stop her from feeling overwhelming responsibility in what had happened to her.

She stood for a few seconds in front of room 201. Each second she stood, in hesitation, the apprehension in her heart grew. Allowing herself to gain courage, she stroked the edges of her fingertips on the coarse wooden material of the hospital room door. Her hand inspected each bump in the grain of the material. Then, hearing a slight shuffle, which she believed to be coming from in the room, she knocked. After a moment of silence, she pushed the heavy door aside. The sight was confusing to her at first. But as she permitted her concentration to focus upon the tragic scene, she released a small whimper and as if that escape of air had released a torrent hidden within her lungs, she began to sob violently. Andrea`s knees crippled beneath her and she toppled over. She rose to her feet and sped to the bedside. And reaching out her arm in fervor and desperation grasped Gerard’s lifeless palm and stroked the fingers of the lifeless body violently, while with her free hand, she wiped away the collection of tears, which had grown so quickly on her cheeks. Gerard`s face was bandaged up and a brace on his neck. 

A movement in the corner of the room. Andrea had not noticed Gerard’s mother, sitting in the back of the room atop the cushion on the cot. When she saw her finally, she moved across the tiled, hospital room floor on her knees and put her head in the boy’s mother’s lap. “I’m so sorry,” Andrea would say, through her sobs.

Genevieve Auclair looked at her. “I know darling. It’s ok.”

“It’s not ok,” here Andrea spun around and pointed to Gerard`s body on the bed, “look at him! Who could have done something like that?”

Genevieve shook her head slightly. Andrea moved across the floor again, stood and knelt at the top of the bedside and kissed Gerard’s forehead. His skin was covered with acne and the lower part of his face was still bandaged from the deep cuts of the knife. A dried layer of blood crusted through the bandaging. Her fingers caressed down the cheek of his face and rest across his jaw. She turned in an immediate expression of concern, as if to ask if this would hurt him. His mother nodded. 

The corner of Gerard`s mouth twitched a little. His eyes were dead. His hand lay frigid and lifeless in her own. She examined a small vein in his forehead that pulsed once every three seconds. Genevieve`s hand was on her shoulder. She stood then and hugged his mother. They held each other for a moment. Moving apart, they looked at each other quickly and then Andrea spoke. She said, `Will he wake up?”

“Yes,” Genevieve passed her fingers across her nose as her eyebrows rose involuntarily. A tear was collected in her eye but would not fall. “The doctors say he’s in a coma. We’re praying every day. Me and him. Soon, he’ll be back to normal.”

“Genevieve,” pressing on her shoulder with her own fingers, “the news said he was paralyzed by the attack. Is that true?”

The lip of Genevieve’s upper mouth twitched violently and grew into a snarl, expressing distaste. “He’ll be back to normal soon. You’ll see.” 

“I believe you.”

All the while, Gerard thought. Gerard thought of how much he missed his friends, his mother and most of all his work. Andrea was who he thought of most during that time of extreme pain. He felt something at that moment. He was aware of another presence in the room. It was then that he realized who was in the room with him. Immediately, Gerard struck up a conversation with her. In his mind, continually replaying in his mind was a loop in his memory. He leaned in softly to kiss her as they told each other of the love they each felt. Then, as if his mind had become his own personal horror story, his eyes focused on the guy he remembered so vividly. He studied the shape of the face. Every line and wrinkle in its tanned skin. He inspected the cold, but emotional eyes. He studied them until he could not handle any longer the pain within the soul. And the evil they represented. His mind would skip and he would be back in the room at his room. 

A sudden craving, a sudden desire came upon him then. He screamed. Nothing emerged from his lips. Every thought that passed his mind in those seconds, he scrutinized with intent. He heard his mouth say the thoughts. But when he would reflect upon the matter of seconds that had passed since he heard himself utter these things, his thought would change and he would question whether he had said anything at all. He wanted to tell Andrea that he loved her. This thought was his only concern as his spirit screamed it and fought against the resistance of his body. He fought desperately. And failed each time. Each time, he failed. He watched out of a half-conscious and half-open eye as Andrea withdrew the tender hand that had caressed him, afraid only that she was hurting him. She did not know what to do. She began to cry again.

A window was open beside the bed, from which blew continual streams of mild air across Gerard’s body. He could feel the zephyr breeze as it rolled easily over the hair on his chest. The light that shone in through the window shades left a steady mark of sunlight on his forehead simultaneously. There was light over Gerard’s eyes. Noticing this, she reached across his body and closed the blinds. He saw no light anyway. His eyes, though opened slightly, were blind. As she leaned across him, he felt her shoulder-length hair as it dangled in front of his face. She leaned back, leaving him longing for the sensation of her hair, the scent of her to last just a little longer. 

A heavy-set, male nurse entered then. He smiled warmly and nodded to Andrea. “Gerard, you have a visitor today,” he said loudly and then changing his gaze to Gerard’s mother, he continued, “She’ll have to leave or wait outside while we deliver Gerard’s medication.” 

Andrea did not hear what he had said. She rubbed gently at Gerard’s chest in a compassionate effort to let him know of her affection. She leaned over him and put her mouth next to his ear. She said audibly only to herself and to him, “I love you Gerard. I will be patient. I will wait for you.”

Genevieve laid her hand onto Andrea’s shoulder. She was still leaning next to his ear. She kissed his ear softly. Genevieve said, “I’m sorry, Andrea. You have to go. Gerard needs his medication.”

Andrea nodded and picked up his hand in hers, brought it next to her mouth. She rubbed her tears with the back of his knuckles and whispered again, “I love you, Gerard. I’ll be back soon.”

She stood outside room 201’s door when Gerard began to cry out. She spun around. The door was slowly shutting itself by its hydraulic hinges. His neck arched harshly and his face twisted in sorrow. The nurse stood over his bedside, injecting some red liquid into a tube in Gerard’s tummy. She watched in fleeting horror. The door quickly jarred shut. And the sounds he made then. Had Andrea not known the true horror behind that door, she would have been terrified. 

Gerard struggled in spastic thought. He was tortured by Andrea’s leaving. He wanted to feel her beautiful skin as it embraced against his own. He wanted to hear her kind voice tell him that she loved him one more time. He knew then that that would be the last time he saw her. He hoped that it wouldn’t be. He just reflected on his own physical state. He really wasn’t aware of the state he was in but he could judge that, in his fractured-consciousness, by the way his friend and his mother acted around him that he was not doing well. He dreaded at the thought of how much longer he had to live. Questioning if he would ever be able to go on a date with Andrea, ever drive a car, ever return to work and support his mother again. Somehow, he doubted it. But he wasn’t sure. All of these thoughts came as waves of feeling. And he could not make sense of the feeling. And it terrified him.

Andrea remained in front of the hospital room door for a while. From the concealed room, Andrea could hear the sound of an unusual sound that Gerard was making. The nurse, she could also hear was scurrying about. He thought that his reaction was due to their being late with his medicine. She knew that the sound he was making was an expression of sadness. She knew somehow that Gerard had known she was there. She had felt it growing from the very moment she entered. It was almost as though her presence awoke something within him. 

Within the room, the feelings of physical isolation, of desperate helplessness pervaded Gerard’s existence. It was as though he were in the darkest of prisons, the most powerful of restraints holding him back. Though he fought tirelessly, he could not seem to defeat the prison guard of his mind who sat, ever-vigilant, with deadly weapon poised toward Gerard’s consciousness. That weapon was one of contempt for the world, of hatred for the man who had the ability to put him in that situation. And slowly, that hatred grew to encompass the world around him, who he began to view, in his own personal prison, as just as hostile as the madman who had stomped on his neck and stuck a blade through his face several times. 

 

A Preliminary Trial:

She woke to the sound of thunder that day. It was about nine o’clock in the morning but was still dark outside. And as she moved closer to the window, between Gerard’s bed and the wall, she noticed the dismal storm that affronted the Carolinas. She remembered fleetingly at that moment, a distant recollection of a news report on the television, which she had seen the night earlier. The report warned of a storm approaching. She placed her hand onto Gerard’s ankle for a second and then returned to her cot. 

She had arranged with the nurses to look after Gerard for the short time that she was going to be away that day. Something within her told her that she should not go, that her being away, she could miss so much of her son’s life. She could miss his eventual waking from the sleep that encumbered him. What she dreaded was the fact that, by her absence, her son may grow into such a despairing state and collapse under the pressure of his quite new life. Though, it was a truer concern that was on her mind. Those frightening words haunted her: “The fact is that we don’t know Genevieve. He could wake at any time. He could die at any time. Just keep faith. We are doing everything we can.”

She knew that he was able to get better on his own. She knew that he would have to. She had applied for a new job earlier that week. The welfare just was not enough to cover the hospital expenses. Gerard’s father had a large savings account into which she would draw for bills but she did not want to use that up. It was for Gerard’s future.

Genevieve was intent upon her plan that day. She knew that this was something she had to do. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew – and was comforted by the thought – that Gerard was a strong boy and would be alright. He’d always been, even when he was a small child. 

She felt obligated to confront this guy who had taken so much from her son as if to ease some of the feelings of despair and hatred, which had festered within her soul for the past month. She thought briefly about the fact that maybe her presence could persuade this man, this evil man who had destroyed everything, to feel compassion. She thought, however fleetingly, that perhaps he might apologize to her.

But that apology never came. That hope for compassion was subdued indefinitely at the very sight of this man’s actions, this man’s character. His name was Ordell Arrant and as he was led down the centre of the courtroom, all of the spectator’s present stared at him menacingly. They thought that their glares of disgust might have had some effect on him. And indeed they would have an effect on a morally whole person, for Arrant, he only felt a spiteful wave of hatred that built within him as a result of the odium that he could sense throughout the room. 

Genevieve sat off in the back corner of the courtroom. She watched the man who entered with abhorrence as she blew her nose into a tissue clenched in her fist. And as she blew, she heard the audience of the pre-trial spark up in rage. Genevieve glanced up and back at the man who had hurt her son. He stood patiently and did not move. When she had looked, he stood with an expression of feebleness, as though he were a victim of the audience. Whatever it was that had caused the commotion, she had missed it.

The judge, a tall man with jet black hair and moustache entered the room then. His long, black and silk robes skirted the ground after his feet, an extension of his shadow. As he pushed aside the door in the far corner of the room, a younger gentleman stood eagerly and said in a loud and triumphant voice, “All rise for the honourable Judge William J. Lumiette.”

Most of the people in the crowded room stood. Arrant however, did not. Lumiette watched him out of the corner of his eye as he stepped cautiously up the treads to his judge’s box. Regardless of the sight, Lumiette sat eagerly and struck his mallet upon the wood that rested before him. “Court is now in session,” he said.

Colton Hardy, who sat then leisurely, struck his client with his elbow as he lay on the table with his head in his arms. Arrant collected himself, lifted his head as if waking for morning, snorted and lay his head back down.

Genevieve, at the back of the courtroom, shook her head angrily. She did not understand this man’s apathy to the system that was in place to punish him. After all, he was being punished for savagely assaulting her son. She could not fathom how he could sit there casually as though he had done nothing wrong. Slowly, she shut her eyes for a moment.

Mr. Arrant’s defence attorney rose then. Genevieve did not know the man but she immediately harboured ill feelings towards him for the very fact that he actually had the audacity to defend such a monster. Arrant sat then with his head in the air as he dug away with his thumb and his forefinger at the skin below his lip.

Hardy began his speech. “Ladies and gentlemen of the court, let me begin by stating for the record that there is very little evidence in this case. And the only legitimate evidence there is, I intend on proving quite unreliable. Ladies and gentlemen,” he said again, “my client’s case is sincere. Mr. Arrant is a kind man. Little has to be said based on the prosecutor’s examinations, of his past. We all are quite aware of my client’s past.” 

Hardy paused, raised his hand to cup his chin with his fingers and looked at the D.A. on the other side of the small room. Hardy continued, “Indeed, we are all aware, or have been made so, of Mr. Arrant’s experiments with violence. Though, what our District Attorney in this case failed to mention was perhaps the most important side of the story. The fact that Mr. Ordell Arrant here,” indicating to his client, “is a broken man because of what he has done. Continually, has Arrant, in the past, apologized to his victims, served in community programs and undertaken extensive, volunteer rehabilitation programs in order to help himself. Mr. Arrant is not a bad person. Further, Mr. Arrant’s invaluable contributions to charitable organizations are profound testimonies of his character. Having gone and spoken with youth who have been in trouble with the law – something, which Mr. Arrant never received, but could have absolutely benefitted from – this man standing accused of crimes in front of you today has been steadily making valiant and positive efforts toward the betterment of his life. And for his rehabilitation into society as a loving and contributing member.”

Raising his hand in the air and turning quickly on his feet, Hardy said in his clear and powerful voice, “But,” pausing briefly after the word, “Mr. Arrant is also a very troubled individual. His sickness comes not on a level of mental capacity but rather of emotional difficulties – another blatant fact that my adversary, the D.A. has failed to bring to light in previous preliminaries of this trial. The very fact that this man’s being in a jail setting for so much of his youth; the very fact that his childhood was the very worst imaginable, perhaps sheds a faint light on his actions. I must tell you now of the loneliness and of the desperate misfortune Ordell Arrant was forced to endure as only a vulnerable child growing in a broken home, in a shattered environment.”

There was a pause then. And in the pause, the crowded audience of the pre-trial stirred up in agitation. Colton Hardy’s words were malicious and fictitious, according to all who heard – because, to them this man’s youth mattered very little for why he was there. This proclamation immediately struck a cruel chord in the hearts of all present. Two or three individuals in the room began to shout out in opposition to what was being said about a man whose guilt was obvious. William Lumiette struck his mallet several times and shouted, “I will have silence in my courtroom!” 

Genevieve sat quietly, almost as though all strength had abandoned her. She felt brutally nauseous, ferociously ill on hearing her son’s assailant being canonized like that. She did not expect to hear something this fantastically preposterous as a defence for a man who had in one swift stomp, paralyzed her son and then, in subsequent actions slashed at his face leaving him bloody and disfigured. All present knew for a given fact, as Hardy himself often speculated, that no bad childhood, no time in jail could create such a monster. Most people grew up in an environment they felt uncomfortable with at times. Regardless. She grew reasonably well and so did millions of others. The time in jail that Arrant had spent should have been utilized to grow spiritually and morally. The only person in the room, who did accept as true, Hardy’s weak words, was Ordell Arrant. Arrant sat then, one ankle crossed over the other leg, chewing at his thumb, with a manifestation of the most pitiable of sorrows in his eyes. And still, the District Attorney sat there patiently making notes.

Hardy continued after the tumult subsided, “Again, little needs elaboration regarding the witnesses of this crime – this crime that was supposedly committed by this repentant man here, sitting next to me. They are teenagers. And as if that weren’t enough to discredit their testimony, one of these boys, a boy with whom you are all familiar, based on his own violent actions in years past, I move that his witness be removed from the evidence of this court.” 

Here Hardy rushed back to the table at which Arrant sat and shuffled through some of the papers on its face, before producing a single page. Hardy glanced at it quickly and then continued, “My records show that this boy, on the night of January eighteenth, 2003, robbed a convenience store at knifepoint. My records also show that on that same night, the convenience store clerk in question was stabbed twice.” Hardy shook his head a little and smiled. “If this is the sort of person the D.A. admits as evidence in an aggravated assault trial, then I think prosecution has lost all hope.”

Prosecution stood up abruptly and shouted with his arm outstretched, “Objection! We all know that this witness’s criminal past has no bearing on the case at hand. He saw what he saw.”

Lumiette waved a hand towards the D.A. and said delicately, “Continue, Mr. Hardy.”

Hardy stroked the side of his cheek with his open palm and then stopped mid-step, thrust both of his hands onto the face of the prosecution’s table. “We all know that this crime was committed. That’s granted. But what we don’t know… is who committed the act. Was it Mr. Arrant, over there? I do not doubt the possibility. Of course, I no more doubt the possibility of Santa Claus committing this assault. The fact is that we have all been deceived into believing that that man,” he pointed steadily back to his own table, “Mr. Ordell Arrant is guilty before he has been convicted in a court of law.

“On December 13, 2002, it is shown that the victim was confronted by a man who only wanted change. And when he was denied arrogantly by Mr. Auclair, an unknown man followed him knowing quite well that the victim had money on his person. And when the assailant begged pleadingly, having no place to go, Mr. Auclair refused him again. Let the record show that my client had been sleeping outdoors for a week prior to that moment in time. Perhaps any money Mr. Auclair could have spared would have gone towards some sort of lodging for the assailant during the cold night.” Hardy hissed as Genevieve’s eyes lit up in shame. Hardy paced back over to his table and reordered his papers. Arrant sat there and nodded in agreement.

“Do you have a point?” Lumiette gazed upon the courtroom.

“My point is simple. If Gerard Auclair only had have given this poor man some money, my client may have stayed with Auclair for a short time and prevented the assault on Auclair by someone else. Some stranger not yet apprehended by the authorities. The whole situation that allegedly ensued could have been altered or perhaps even avoided.”

At that moment, the rage of the audience grew into a wild tumult. People stood in front of their seats and barked forward with anger. Meanwhile, Genevieve Auclair was seen leaning forward in her seat. What was not seen by anyone who happened to glance toward her was the stream of vomit that projected from her mouth. The vomit seemed to come from the very pits of her stomach. And as the tugging of the emission reached her bowel, subsiding she leaned backward in the seat and wiped tenderly at her chin and lips with a handkerchief she withdrew from her pocket. No one had noticed the scene. Genevieve, embarrassed and filled with an unknown rage to her, stood and ran out of the courtroom without a noise. 

As the door shut behind her, the reverberation of the shouting that was still occurring within the room penetrated her skull. A court clerk walked by her then and asked her if she was alright. “Fine,” Genevieve answered her. This is not justice. This is a travesty. The farthest thing from justice. Waiting… The crowd from within seemed to have regained some order. And summoning the strength to push aside the large wooden doors to the court chamber, she made her way up a bit further in the aisle to avoid sitting near the vomit. Strings of vomit hung loosely to the back of the seat ahead and then dripped off onto the floor. She ignored it and sat two rows up. 

The prosecution was speaking then. He spoke slowly and with a weak voice, much unlike the well-rehearsed defence attorney. He was saying, “The criminal history of Mr. Arrant is testimony enough of his unrepentant character. The fact that he has uttered a few apologies to people he has robbed from, quite often the object of his thievery being a human life, does very little to indicate the man’s sincerity. The defendant’s childhood is erroneous to the tenets of the case at hand. And further, the evidence of Mr. Arrant’s guilt in this trial are overwhelming. As a matter of fact, the defence’s argumentation seems to be built upon a matter of speculation and fallacious rhetoric. One cannot blame Mr. Hardy. I guess he’s just doing his job.”

The judge struck his mallet for a final time. He said, “I am in full agreement with prosecution. Evidence in this case is indicative of Mr. Ordell Arrant’s responsibility in Mr. Auclair’s assault. And considering the severity of the crime and of his obvious lack of remorse and recognition for what he has done, I am obliged to make the following decision.”

Lumiette put on a pair of spectacles and picked up a few pages before him. He continued: “Very little can be said in favour of Mr. Arrant, especially of his crime and sadly of his life. He seems to have made a brilliant career around bringing suffering and death. His mental health seems in order. This is evident in his taking part in charitable works, as Mr. Hardy has pointed out. I am setting a fine at $500,000. He will remain in jail until the full sum is paid out. Furthermore, I am suggesting that Mr. Arrant volunteers for a modern criminal rehabilitation program. The rehabilitation is mandatory. Upon completion of this program, Mr. Arrant will be free to work, supervised. And, at all other times, will be confined to his home. In addition, upon his successful completion of criminal rehabilitation, Mr. Arrant will be expected to compose a letter, one every year, expressing what he has done and how he feels about his crimes. If Mr. Arrant is unable to compose these letters, a court-appointed scribe will be sent to Mr. Arrant’s new address. I recommend him reflecting upon his life.” Lumiette smashed his gavel down in a flash. Here, Genevieve watched as Lumiette indicated to the defence and prosecution. They both approached him and spoke for some time. There was a shuffle of commotion in the courtroom as the three spoke confidentially. After a minute, they separated and the judge stood.

The young boy who sat eagerly at the edge of his chair stood then and shouted, “All rise for the honourable Judge William J. Lumiette.” All in the audience stood and watched as Lumiette marched quickly out of the room, his long, black robes trailing.

Genevieve looked towards Arrant, who stood then in between two court officers. The jump suit that he wore was bright orange and his wrists were bound together by handcuffs. In the centre of the chain that connected that cuffs, dangled a second chain that fell sloppily down to the floor. Attached to this chain were feet shackles. Genevieve despised the sight of the man. Were she to confront him, she might vomit again. Her stomach felt like a pounding pit, her head like a burning oven. Her eyes felt as if imminent on implosion then as this disgusting, smelly man passed her through the aisle. 

He glanced at her once and seeing her angry gaze upon him, he returned his sight to her and stared at her. When he noticed her appearance falter, he smiled a patronizing smile and then turned and was led down the aisle. Genevieve was boiling with anger then. She did not know what to do. She hadn’t ever been in such a deviously strange situation. Remembering what she had come for, she ran after the man surrounded on each side by the judicial officers. She slipped past them and stood in front of him. At first, the officers went to push her away until they noticed the tears welling in Genevieve’s eyes. Their attitudes softened even though she did not look at them. She was staring at Ordell Arrant. Arrant glanced about and then rest his vision on the strange woman’s forehead. As he attempted to push through her, she kept him back with the tips of her outstretched fingers. She made sure, still not to touch him. The very thought of contact with this man seemed to her a very distinguished sort of contamination.

She stopped him again, this time with a forced air of anger. She said, “So, you’re the man who did this.” 

He rolled his head about and said, “What’s it to you, lady?” 

She began to tremor, “I’m the mother of the boy you hurt,” she said.

He began to giggle contemptuously then. It was a forced laugh and she could tell that he was growing uncomfortable. When he said nothing, the guard to his left gave the woman a sympathetic glare. He said, “Miss, if you don’t mind, we have to get Mr. Arrant back to his cell.”

She ignored the statement by the guard and continued to watch Arrant. His expression had become one of anger and agitation as she stared him down. Genevieve said, her eyes beginning to water, “Why did you do it?”

Arrant’s expression twisted briefly into a guise of stifled emotion. There were tears forming in his eyes also. Still, he said nothing. And taking his silence for arrogance, for sheer indifference, Genevieve stomped her foot harshly on the tiles of the courtroom floor. She observed as Arrant looked down at her feet as she did it. Still, he remained silent. 

“Why did you do it?” Genevieve began to yell. “Do you have any God damned idea what you did that day? Have you any idea what our lives are like now?”

Arrant’s eyes rolled back in his head for a second and then he said calmly, “I don’t really know. I didn’t do it.” A grin built across his face and when he noticed the woman’s troubled expression, he elaborated, “Lady, if you’re not getting the answers you want, maybe you should try asking what’s on your mind. I don’t really give a shit what happened to your son. What was his name anyhow?”

Genevieve spoke quickly and with determination, “Gerard. His name is Gerard.”

“Like I was saying, I don’t give a shit about what happened to Gerard. He was probably not all that innocent himself.”

She thought a moment and then said, “You will fry for this. I’ll see to that personally.” Not having any possible means to support her claim, and she knew that, she still held her head high and with conviction.

Arrant turned his head away quickly and said, “Do I really have to put up with this? I am ready to go back to my cell, guards.” Here, he held up his shackled hands and each obstructed leg, one after the other.

Genevieve struck him then. She hit him across his chest as the guards hurried to get him away from this woman. Still facing the empty spot at which Arrant had stood briefly and without turning, Genevieve heard the courtroom doors close then. The room was empty. And somehow appeased by the silence and comforted by the fact that she was alone, Genevieve fell over onto her stomach and began to sob uncontrollably. She repulsed her hand, the knuckles that had struck the man and wiped them off hard across the fine particles of dirt and tiny pebbles that covered the floor in an attempt to wash the evil from her skin. 

 

A Glimpse of Reality:

Outside in the dust and garbage littering the street, Genevieve made her way slowly to her place of employment. In the state of extreme shock, despair and anxiety, she paced the sidewalk. This was her fourth day at work. A feeling of resentment grew in her every time she thought about the fact that with the news of her son’s attempted murder covering the media of Georgia, people just felt sorry for her. She pushed these thoughts away and a subtle appreciation would set in. 

She entered slowly and with a growing uncertainty. The other three employees of the place were looking at her as she pushed aside the door. The feeling she got from people looking at her festered like a plague. I’m probably just paranoid. She entered and took off her coat, adjusting some things near the coat hanger to distract herself. They were in shock of dishevelled appearance. The clothing she wore was unclean, having only been washed once in the past couple of weeks. She washed her wardrobe, most of which she had thrown away since the assault, in a communal laundry room at the hospital. 

And then inside, Genevieve ambled across the room and stopped at the bar, turned to face the open dining area and smiled pleasantly. A tall, tanned man stood hastily from his table, at which he sat alone. Genevieve noticed the man’s meal was half-finished. He went to the cashier and purchased a pastry, dropping his change on the counter without a glance at the employee. He made his way quickly over to Genevieve. Genevieve lowered her head at once. It was an instinct. She felt shame. 

The man said then, waiting a couple of seconds for Genevieve to look back up at her, “Hey, my name is Andreas Lévesque. I hope you don’t mind my approaching you like this,” he waited thoughtfully for her response. Genevieve smiled at him. He continued, “I drive a truck here in the state of Georgia for GPZ Freights. You know the company? Anyways, I’ve heard countless stories about Gerard.”

“From where?”

“Everywhere! The news, from friends of Gerard’s. As a matter of fact, the accountancy company that your son worked at used to handle… still does… handles my company’s books. I think I may have met your son once. And I want you to know how sorry I am for the passing of Gerard, Mrs. Auclair,” Lévesque said.

Genevieve tilted her head a little, gauging the sincerity of the man and then coming to a conclusion that he only meant well, said, “I appreciate your concern but my son is not dead.”

He made a noise of affirmation, smiled warmly and continued, “Tell me, what happened to those bastards? Are they going to fry?”

Genevieve grew cold and nervous but did not sway her demeanour towards the man, “I don’t think that’s how it wor…”

The man partially interrupted her, lost in his delirious excitement and shouted, “You know, if it were up to me, them guys would fry,” he emphasized the word ‘fry’ by letting it drag on – ‘f-r-r-r-y-y-y-y’ “Can I tell you something, Mrs. Auclair?”

Genevieve nodded politely, blatantly stricken with a recurring grief as the man taunted her. The other employees had gone back to their work – one with a broom, another with a cloth and the other at the cash.

Lévesque continued, “You know, I’m an ex-boxer. I used to get in fight after fight – not just in the ring – in the street too. And you know what? I never lost a single fight.”

Genevieve felt her mouth twist to a frown. He continued, “If I had have been there with your son the day that shit happened,” he sighed as if saying something prolific, “it never would have happened.”

Genevieve swallowed the clot of saliva that had developed in her throat, a clot of pain and suspicion. At the same time, she watched this strange man as he swallowed the building saliva in his own throat, building with pride and justification. He was trying to justify her son’s attempted murder with his own pride. It sort of bothered her. But she smiled, muttering the occasional ‘yes’ and ‘mm-hmm’. A door opened quickly from behind her.

“What is this? Genevieve, get to work!” The bakery owner shouted. The owner was friendly typically. And this reassured her partially.

Genevieve nodded politely to the man and mouthed the words, ‘thank you’, turned and picked up her apron and gloves. She had kept her head turned for some minutes in case this man was still there. But when she turned, he wasn’t. She was glad of that. Two employees from the dining room watched her coldly as their boss approached Genevieve.

“Genevieve,” he twisted at the torso a bit, brought his hand to his face and stood there for a moment, “the thought of this for the past couple of days has been eating me up, through and through. I’ve been trying to figure out a different way. There really isn’t any other way. We have to let you go.”

Genevieve struggled quietly and looked around the dining room behind him. She said, “Am I not doing well? I’ll work harder. I’ll invite everyone I know to eat here.”

“It’s not just that, Genevieve. If it was, we would keep you on as long as you wanted. I know how good of a worker you are.” Here, he took her aside and whispered in her ear, “You’re a much better employee than the others. It’s just that our business is a small one. Mom and pop’ sort of deal,” he snorted empathetically, “and it’s because of that that we cannot keep you on. We can’t have every customer who is coming in here recognizing who you are and getting upset about what happened to Gerard. This has a tendency of souring people to the place because they attribute the negative feelings they feel to the food or the atmosphere… or something. We just can’t have that. I’m so sorry.”

Genevieve thought a moment, the tears only starting to well up in her eyes. She said, “But I am a good worker. You can keep me on. I can’t help the media – I never could. They just came. I need this job. My son needs it so that I can be with him. So we can survive… so he can stay in the hospital.”

The employer sighed and glanced over at the other two who were trying to listen to the conversation. When they saw him look over, their heads snapped back to their work and they became busy. He said to Genevieve after he had released a lungful of air, “You are a good worker – a great worker. And if you need references, I’ll be glad to do that for you. But like I said, the bakery does not need this sort of attention.”

Genevieve mocked his sigh politely but the tears were beginning to fall, “It’s not as though I bring cameras in here. It’s not like I answer questions while I am at work. I’ll work harder if I have to. What about my son?”

“Genevieve, you have our full support with anything you need. Gerard was a good boy. But the decision is final.”

Genevieve began to cry outwardly then. There was no shame in her heart, no fear for appearances and making everyone else around her comfortable. There was only fear, hatred and disgust. She said inaudibly, “Full support? Where are you when I need money? Will you lend me the money I need for my son’s care? That other employee,” she wagged her finger towards the window, “she gets maternity leave for a child who is a full year old. Where is the compassion when a human is brutalized and in a hospital for a month, or six months, or a lifetime? By the way, my son is not dead.”

He nodded a bit.

“You know something? A gentlemen was only just moved in to the room next to my son’s own. He was hit by a car after running away from his former employment from which he embezzled over half a million dollars.”

“Wh-Why are you telling me this, Genevieve?” He stammered.

“After he gets out of the hospital, he is going to be spending more time behind bars than the fucker who nearly killed my son. You call that justice? The very fact that they would put a criminal next to my son in the hospital proves our societies lack of respect for human life. I have no faith in the state’s system.”

He looked around coyly as though all he had heard was the last statement in her dialogue, as though he doubted the integrity of that statement. He did not believe her. The way he had turned his head like that, so patronizingly, so contemptuously like he knew something she did not, made her sick. He touched her shoulder gently and turned her around so that she wasn’t facing the other employees. He then said, “I’ll give you until the end of the week. We can continue to pay you until the end of the month,” and walked away.

The door to his office shut softly but to Genevieve was heard then a crashing noise, something grating with the knowledge that the noise it was making was dreadful and irritating. The noise continued and followed her out into the street. Dust filled the air, garbage strewn across the sidewalks, she moved away from the entrance of the bakery and toward the bus stop.

 

A Half Finished Meal:

Ordell Arrant’s eyes twitched quickly:

Outside, the dust and garbage littered the streets. The air was warm. Genevieve Auclair loosened her scarf and lowered her head as she paced along the street. About a mile to the east, lay her place of employment, a little café that she had frequented often in the critical periods of Gerard’s situation. She had gained employment as things started to stable out. Things were improving for her son. Of this, she was entirely convinced. Of this, she was certain. Otherwise, the depression that would settle into her sense of identity would paralyze her. She would not allow herself to feel pity on the circumstance. She was going to get through it. More importantly, she was going to help Gerard, her son get through this. She knew that what she was going through could not compare to the trials that she knew that even now, he was experiencing. She wanted more than anything to help him get through this. 

Genevieve had heard, sometime prior that the punk who had hurt her son was arrested and sentenced. It was a peculiarly quick trial, seeming as though the officials residing over the case simply wanted it to be over and done with. At first, she was suspicious about this. But Genevieve though took comfort in the continual promises of the D.A. that justice would be sufficient and swift. She remembered him telling her about some experimental process that was confidential at the time. She remembered him telling her that the offender would be changed for the good. She remembered the D.A. telling her that the guy who hurt her son was named Ordell Arrant. She pondered, then, as she strode to work, what kind of a man was named Ordell Arrant. It was a peculiar name even for a regular, law-abiding citizen. Perhaps this was a sense of neuroses that she simply attributed a negative connotation to the handle of the man. Perhaps, she thought again, his parents had intended for him to become a violent offender when they named him. She giggled silently as she considered the thoughts in partial jest. Whatever the case may have been, Genevieve was convinced Ordell Arrant would not be committing crimes in the future. 

A stray cat limped erratically in front of her as she turned onto the side-street where her place of employment was. It looked as though it was not entirely domesticated and tried to run away. Genevieve leaned down as it passed her and spoke soothingly to it. The cat approached Genevieve cautiously. Genevieve withdrew a piece of bread from her pocket and placed it onto the ground before the cat, which sniffed it ravenously and then lapped it up into its mouth with a single movement of its tongue. Genevieve watched it curiously. Its eyes seemed to roll back into its head as it swallowed the bread. It followed her to the café. 

A group of regular customers seated on the patio waved to Genevieve from a distance as she approached. “Hey beautiful,” a lean man in his mid-thirties said as she brushed past him. She looked at him questioningly as he, shook his head quickly, in a manner, acknowledging that it may not have been the time for such informalities. With his gaze averted, he asked her then, “How is your son, Genevieve?”

She looked at him a moment, as if to assess his intention. After a moment, she responded quietly, “Things could be better. But thank God, he is getting stronger every day. He is getting more responsive every day.” 

The others in the group seated smiled warmly and seemed to have been encouraged by the outlook. The man then quickly rose and approached extended his hand warmly to her. “I know we haven’t officially met. I’ve been coming here for a while. And from the moment I saw you, I knew it was you. Your son holds a warm spot in our hearts,” here he paused and turned with his extended hand to gesture his friends behind him. They all stood then. He continued, “My name is Andreas Levesque. When I was young…” here he ceased speaking once again, apparently surprised by his own misfortune and suddenly realizing in a single moment, the full effect of everything that he had been through in life. He released a gentle whimper and wiped a tear from his eye. He continued, “But you don’t want to hear about that right now. How is your son?”

Genevieve allowed her glance to soften and she extended her hand to meet his own. She placed her other hand onto his shoulder as she said, “Thank God, sir, my son is stable and has started breathing on his own. I have faith that everything is in the hands of God. So does my son. All we can do is trust in Him.” He felt his grip tighten in her palm as she said this. She looked at him questioningly.

Andreas seemed lost in thought. The silent group seated behind him exchanged marveled looks. After a moment of unease, he realized that his grip was tightening and released her hand quickly. “Forgive me. It’s just that I have been through so much in my life too. We all have,” again, he gestured behind him. It’s very encouraging to know that you have kept your faith in tact after this terrible event in your and your son’s life. For me, it’s not always so easy.”

Genevieve said then, her left hand still on the shoulder of the man, “This life is difficult, always ups and downs. And in the trials, in the sufferings, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that God wants very much for our happiness and deepest of love. Bad things happen. But one thing remains constant through everything that happens and can happen in this world.”

He tilted his head towards her. “What’s that?” 

She replied, “The love of God. God’s goodness.” She watched him as he noticeably shifted and grew more at ease. “How do you know of my son, Andreas?”

“Ma’am, I drive a truck with a company that used to deliver to your son’s company. And I’ll tell you that I remember very well the countless times he received orders from me at Sartor & Sons. I am barely exaggerating when I say that people in my line of work are not exactly the most respected people. There was something about your son, the way that he treated me, which always made me feel very appreciated. The friendship I developed with him, if you can call that sort of professional relationship a friendship, which I did,” he stammered, “I considered him a brother, Mrs. Auclair.”

Genevieve, clearly moved by the effect that her son had had on this man, nodded and lowered her head a little. 

He continued, “I remember one time, around Christmas this year, after I told him that I was struggling, that my family would be struggling that season, he bought me a turkey and brought a bag full of gifts. He placed the bag in the cab of my truck when I was speaking with his boss. I feel badly because I was not entirely honest with him when I said we were struggling. This has haunted me ever since news came out about what happened. But what a heart. What a beautiful heart your boy has.”

Genevieve nodded and smiled warmly. “Don’t feel badly. I knew my son well. He got a lot of joy from helping others. I’m sure he was pleased to provide these gifts for your family.” 

“Mrs. Auclair, I want you to know how much your son means to me. I know I am having difficulty expressing myself with clarity right now. I just get so dang emotional when I’m reminded of my own experiences. I want you to know that your son will not go through this alone. I want you to know that even if it’s only my own family of six children, we are not going to allow Gerard and yourself to suffer alone. I am going to fight for your son.”

Genevieve nodded silently again and said, “I want you to know how much I appreciate your kind words. Thank you. I have to get to work. Please you’re welcome to come and visit Gerard at the hospital.”

Andreas stood back and said, “Of course. Where are my manners? If you need anything, please let me know.” He slipped a folded piece of paper into her hand, “this is not the last time you will see me.”

Genevieve acknowledged the rest of the group, turned and passed through the doors of the small building. Only turning her head back once to smile at them again, she caught out of the corner of her eye, the stray cat that had followed her to the café. 

She greeted the other employees with a smile. One of them smiled abruptly at her and said, “Oh, Genevieve. Thank goodness. I’m just about to go on break.”

“No problem,” she replied. “Can you just give me a minute?”

Genevieve went into the back office, retrieved a small saucer and filled it with water, opened a can of tuna and put the fish into another plate. She brought the saucer and the plate out to the front of the café and placed them onto the ground next to the brick wall of the building. The cat, watching her, waited for her to step away before it pounced on the gifts. 

Returning to the building, she approached the other employee who offered her the apron she was wearing and a notepad with some scratches on the front page. When from the back office, the face of a man appeared. He called out to Genevieve to go and see him. She looked at the other employee who sighed. Taking back the apron and the notepad, she motioned for Genevieve to go. 

Genevieve entered the office and smiled warmly to her employer. He turned back from his desk at which he was seated and pushed a chair on wheels out from under the desk. Motioning for her to sit, he continued writing into a ledger that was already filled with pen marks. She got the impression that he was pretending to write into the booklet so that he could avoid looking her in the eye. She began to grow anxious and said through her building saliva, “Is everything alright?” 

He turned to her quickly and then returned his gaze to the booklet. He said, “I should say so. Our business has practically doubled since you have started working here.”

“I don’t understand. Is this not a good thing?” She asked, judging his body language. 

“It’s not the media attention we desire, Genevieve. We want you. You are an amazing server and I really believe that that is the reason people come from across the city to eat here. The fact that you’re so friendly and warm, even after going through so much, that’s why our business has doubled.”

She smiled anxiously, still expecting some sort of discipline. She said, “That’s a nice compliment. But I’m sure it’s not because of me that people come here. The media stories aside. Was there something you wanted to discuss with me sir?”

He grinned and manipulated a pencil in his fingers. He was still looking at the ledger in front of him. “I suppose I just wanted to say thank you. And no, of course it is not simply the media coverage. It’s your reaction and outlook that is inspiring people. You truly are a remarkable woman, Genevieve.” 

“Thank you,” tears were building in Genevieve’s eyes as she considered the thought. She had never received such a beautiful compliment.

He stood and went to a filing cabinet, opened a drawer and withdrew a file. In front of Genevieve, he placed the file folder. He returned to the filing cabinet and reached behind it, collecting a large stuffed bear. He placed the bear beside Genevieve. He did this all without looking her in the eye. 

Something was kindled in her then, a feeling that she was not entirely familiar with. She slowly lowered her head into her hands. Her elbows on her knees, she allowed herself to weep. Her employer stood next to her, his hand gently holding her back. She became silent after a moment and simply sat, her palms still collecting her face. Tears fell through her fingers. 

He asked her if she was interested in seeing what was in the file folder. She acknowledged and lifted her head slowly. She sat still. He waited for her but when he saw she wasn’t going to move, he leaned over and opened the folder for her. She moved a bit closer to the desk. 

In the manila envelope was a collection of papers, bound together with a single paper clip. There were about two-hundred pages and on the front was Gerard’s name. She began to flip through the pages. They were letters, some hand-written, some emails. She started again to weep. She didn’t know which emotion she was feeling. There was joy. There was sorrow. There was fear. There was hope. What she knew was that these people cared enough to take the time to write these letters in support of her son. She looked at her employer. He smiled and for the first time, returned her glance. 

“Why?” She asked.

“I can’t tell you why. But I can tell you how.”

She motioned towards him.

He smiled at her again, “A gentleman by the name of Andreas Levesque was so moved by what happened to your son, by the newspaper articles suggesting in some way that Gerard deserved what happened to him. He was so moved that he decided to start a letter writing campaign. He set up a PO Box and an email address for this and collected the letters once it was finished. He went into schools where he told Gerard’s story and encouraged the kids to write to him. He comes to the diner here now and again. I asked him why he was doing it. He simply kept on saying that Gerard deserves better. That it was the right thing to do. That it was just the beginning.” 

The employer then reached out and pushed the letters aside. Under the collection of papers was a check. Seeing it, Genevieve was surprised. She leaned in again to the desk and examined the check. It was for five thousand dollars. Her jaw dropped noticeably. She snapped her head upwards and gazed with sorrow filled joy into the man’s eyes. 

He held Genevieve’s shoulder and looked down anxiously as he struggled to say, “From supporters. From patrons of the restaurant. From me. For Gerard’s care… For Gerard...”

She wept again. 

“You can have the rest of the day off if you’d like.”

After she left the office, the other employee smiled warmly. Genevieve walked quickly outside, to the patio where she was hoping to find Andreas Levesque still there. He had already left. 

Genevieve chose to work the rest of the day. When she returned to the hospital, she greeted Gerard warmly and sat and started to read the collection of letters to him.

 

Through a Corner of the Eye:

Genevieve, having woken at early hours due to her anxiety, sits by her son. Her presence was an all-too-well known comfort to Gerard. He was so used to having his mother at his side. Gerard is thinking now. Gerard is lost in thought, the mazes, the labyrinth of thought. Genevieve is aware of this. Gerard lay on the hospital bed with the back of his head dug into the depths of an over-used, white pillow. He can feel in his neck, though he cannot feel anything below his neck. Through the feeling in his neck, he can sense that the mattress is not thick. The rungs and metal posts of the bed carapace dig into his skin through the mattress. Who knew who had rested on that very pillow before him? God alone knew of the horrible illness that had torn through their lives and the consequences that it surfaced. Are they alive? Who knew but God? From that angle, Gerard could see his mother through a tiny crack in his left eye. His consciousness had lapsed briefly and allotted him a moment of awareness. 

Hours pass and the silence and solitude continue. The uncomfortable abode that had become home for Gerard and Genevieve was, in reality, no home. There is a sign above the head of Gerard’s bed that says I can hear… Genevieve put it up to remind people, when they spoke around him, that he was a living and breathing person, although dormant. Genevieve had conducted a little superficial research into the nature of brain injury and experiences of patients during comatose states. She came to the conclusion that even if her son was in a vegetative state, she would be there for him to protect his interests. In her research she came across a web page that depicted an unconscious man being taken to a hospital for minor surgeries due to a minor car wreck. On the way there, the paramedics joked lightly about the unconscious boy’s plight. They would make comments that he stood not a chance of survival and, so it goes, moments after that, with no explanation, he was convulsing and dying on the ambulance stretcher. Genevieve was aware that the boy in the story had simply lost the will to live. The web page was created by one of the paramedics who felt so guilty that he had done something wrong. Sleep and being in a forced, prison-like oblivion due to injury or instability are different in the sense that while unconscious, you are not really asleep. You are merely immobile and paralyzed. The thoughts come quicker than at any other time. The thoughts are paralyzing. They are haunting and terrifying. The time spent in a coma or while unconscious seems like an image or a dream and if one is not really sleeping, they are somewhat aware. 

Gerard could hear Genevieve as she started to cry. It began very lightly; almost resembling a little chuckle but grew into a steady weep. His eyes had grown blind again but his consciousness wavered and stayed in tune for a moment. 

There is a light tap on the door as she weeps. The nurse lowered her head and knocked a little louder this time on the outside the closed door. Genevieve told her to come in. The door crept aside slowly. The nurse had heard the sobs and did not want to intrude. Genevieve grew embarrassed and her complexion rouged when the nurse held up her medical tools and proceeded over to Gerard’s bedside. 

The nurse stepped closer to Gerard with her tray of vitamins and her blood pressure monitor and her stethoscope trying not to stare uncomfortably at him in the bed, trapped in some tragic inhumanity of a desperate existence. She wanted to help but was shocked by Gerard’s appearance. This was unmistakable in her eyes. That she felt so badly for these people. That she wanted so badly to help at whatever cost. She had already seen many of these worse off people who struggled with their own human existence and salvation in a humanity that can be so cold and cruel by a simple stroke of luck at birth or in the life cycle. 

Gerard could glimpse her face, as she looks from him to Genevieve, ill at ease but composing herself each time she feels this. Gerard could understand her quivering distress, built by anger, fetched by fear, hurdled by an all-embracing thankfulness and frustration for the luck she has had every day to be able to walk to her work in a place of work that is filled with such misfortune, such happy stories and such horrible tales that will never be told. She lifted her monitor to measure Gerard’s blood pressure and then leaned over Gerard’s chest to listen with her stethoscope.

Gerard began to seizure. Gerard’s head and neck muscles began to shake. He uttered terrible moans; lightly at first but its growth was fairly steady. Gerard’s mouth was half open and his small body, grotesquely still. Genevieve approached the bed. She began to stroke his head with fear. She rubbed at his arm with hope, with frustration. Gerard’s neck arched up off the pillow and his head shook furiously.  Gerard’s bloodcurdling screams are a deep tone and the nurse tried desperately to calm him. Gerard thought then, Oh my God, what have I done to deserve this shit? I am trapped in a cage with no sight or touch, only I can hear the fright outside. He screamed in his mind for God to take him then. He screamed in his mind for death. 

The nurse backed away with guilt and Gerard could see her fear. That made him scared. Thinking she had done something wrong, the nurse fled the room to get the on duty doctor. She left so quickly, she forgot to close the door.  Genevieve was too frightened to notice the crowd of patients gathered at the doorway. Genevieve tried her best to comfort Gerard. The crowd who had gathered at the doorstep was unbearably quiet, thinking that Gerard was dying. A sort of quiet respect passed over them, like they were present at a funeral. 

The nurse and the doctor entered then, closing the door behind them. Some of the patients lowered their heads while others cried. And Genevieve shouted then, “What is happening to him?”

The doctor fumbled about over Gerard’s body until he withdrew and called for the nurse to get the head nurse. She went and returned in less than a minute. Genevieve was led austerely from the room and behind the door. From outside Gerard’s hospital room was heard the frantic shrieks of a yet to grieve mother amidst the simple questionings of concerned patients who stumbled over their tongues and words.

An hour later, the doctor drew aside the door slowly and smiled at Genevieve. A painful wave of relief streamed across her chest as though she were breathing the feeling within her soul and the doctor beckoned for her to come. She was seated, cross-legged on the floor of the hallway when she got up and ran into the room. The doctor touched her shoulder as she ran past but she hardly noticed. She was staring at Gerard, who seemed placated on his bed, then. He still breathed heavily but the shaking and convulsing in his head and neck had subsided.

As Genevieve’s concentration returned to the head nurse, she became aware of the voice of the nurse who had been there when it all started. The voice, only a voice to Genevieve was saying in a trembling voice, “What happened? How can that be normal? It was awful.” And the doctor led the nurse to the door. She was releasing powerful sobs beneath his arm as she rounded the corner of the door and glanced back.

The doctor then returned to Genevieve, next to the bedside, on which his hand lay delicately. “It was a normal process,” the doctor was saying. Genevieve still was in a void, an emotional and senseless vortex.

“How is that normal?” She repeated the nurse’s question, her stare dead-set on the wall next to Gerard.

“It is difficult to believe but I assure you that this is the way the brain heals itself in Gerard’s case.” He turned and walked off. The crowd was still waiting at the door for any word.

At that moment, from the adjoining room through the walls, was heard a shrieking reverberation. It started out as the tender hum of one suffering in silence but grew in a matter of minutes to the thumping boom of wailing agony, of one wanting to let the whole world know their pain. At first, Genevieve thought that the person in the other room was mocking Gerard and that made her a little angry but then, it became clear that it was no attempt at jest.

 

Writing in the Sky:

The widespread news coverage that had been composed surrounding Auclair’s case focussed primarily on the notoriety of the criminal, Ordell Arrant. Ideas were raised about the hostility of the man and whether it was a good idea to return him to the community. No one really cared as time would pass. No one was really bothered when the man took up shelter in a small home in the suburbia of Charleston many years later. People forget and you can’t blame them for that. 

There was however, a very kind and empathetic young woman who came to the Chatham County Hospital not long after the assault with a digital camera strung across her neck. She had called ahead and entered the room patiently and with care. Genevieve greeted her and they shook hands briefly. The interview for the paper that Genevieve hardly knew existed lasted about fifteen minutes. All the while, Gerard lay across his recently changed mattress. When the reporter was through she held up a camera insistently and asked if it were ok for her to get a photo of mother and son, of Gerard and Genevieve Auclair. The reporter asked if it was alright if Gerard was put into his wheelchair for the picture. She watched, clearly ashamed for asking, as it took the help of two nurses and his mother to load him onto a full body hoist. Slowly, the hoist that carried Gerard’s useless limbs descended into the chair that sat poised to receive him. 

This photo that the reporter took quickly became highlighted across the city. Some papers even featured the photo as front page news with headlines that read out like, “Beating Victim Survives!” and “’The Effects of Violence Are Difficult’, says mother of assault victim.” The photo displayed a full on shot of Genevieve as she stroked soothingly at the top of Gerard’s head. Genevieve smiled a forced smile in the black and white photograph while Gerard glanced unmindfully to the side, a look of horror across his half-functioning features and the red scars at the bottom of his cheeks and on his chin prominent across the rest of his face. The scars possessed a tint of exaggerated flesh tone and zigzagged across his mouth.

It was not long after this reporter had conducted the interview and after the Georgia State Press had posted the photos in their papers that Andrea returned to see her friend Gerard. As Andrea entered the room, she gave Genevieve a quick glance and then marched across the room to Gerard. Gerard’s face brightened up as she kissed him on his cheek. The bandages had been removed recently and though Gerard’s face was a mess and still healing, Andrea sat down on her knees next to the bed and stroked his red, transparent scars with the tips of her fingers.

Gerard’s eyes brightened softly. The expression of gladness that he was trying so desperately to display to his friend and mother went unnoticed by them. His muted happiness, this break from the reality of the prison that encompassed him was the visit of his friend and was noticeable only to him. Andrea leaned over Gerard, her head across his shoulder at the other side of the bed and her arms embracing him.

After some time in the same position, Genevieve approached her. Genevieve whispered then, “Do you feel like getting some fresh air, Andrea?”

She turned slowly, thought and then responded, “Will Gerard be alright?”

“Gerard’s fine. The doctor said so. I believe him. Anyways, the nurses here all agreed on helping out with his extra care when I am away. I know a great Chinese restaurant down the street.” Tenderly, Andrea bent over Gerard once more, rubbed his forehead with her fingers and kissed him on his closed eyes.

It was noon and the sun shone vigorously across the crowded street. It was a nice day, they commented casually. They strolled down the street with arms interlocked.

Genevieve, after a long pause, was the first to break the silence. She said, “How’s work, Andrea? Are you guys getting along alright without Gerard?”

Andrea smiled here and said, “It’s been difficult for us around the office. It’s been difficult for everyone since Gerard was hurt. But you know that – better than most people.”

Genevieve turned as they walked and looked at her softly, “I want you to know that Gerard is very lucky to have a friend like you.”

Andrea turned away quickly, bashfully and then turned back. “Anyone else would do the same. If anything, I am the one who is lucky to have your son as a friend. I really love Gerard, Gen.”

Genevieve faced forward again and lowered her head to watch her step. She said, “You know, the hospital is a scary place. You wouldn’t believe the things that I have seen in this short a time.”

Andrea nodded.

“There are many kids here,” and there she emphasized the word, ‘kids’ with a sudden inflection in her voice, “Who have absolutely no one. There are adults in the hospital, of course, and as tragic as the circumstances around their being there are, these are kids.”

Andrea nodded again and closed her eyes momentarily. 

“I really appreciate the support you have given us so selflessly. Gerard appreciates it, more than me.”

“I hope so,” Andrea said.

“I see the way he cheers up when you come in the room. It happens at no other time.”

Andrea smiled a meaningful smile.

They stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk together and slipped between the oncoming pedestrian traffic as they spoke. Then they turned, at Genevieve’s gesture, down a path that led to the restaurant. The path crossed through a park. The park was bright and green and they noticed as they crossed the little pebbles and rocks that made up the path. The rocks and dust rose up behind and in front of their feet as they fell and projected. In the middle of the park, the path died out in a slight recess and gave into a puddle of mud. They crossed around it on each side, while they took a break from speaking. They observed the foliage of the early spring. A slight buzzing entered their ears then. And looking up, both of them could see a stunt plane circling about in the sky. The plane trailed behind it, a beam of white cloud. The plane was trying to spell something. So far, it read, ‘Jesus…’

Andrea stopped Genevieve as they converged again after the puddle in the path. Genevieve still gazed skyward. And lowering her gaze, Andrea said, “Let’s see what it spells.”

They both had an indication as to what was being spelled in the smoke but still they waited. The thought of a higher power at that moment was somewhat reassuring. The plane continued to write on the sky until its smoke that followed it, faded out and then stopped. The plane continued across the sky in a straight line to the west. The smoke in the sky read, “Jesus loves you. Jesus saves.” Genevieve and Andrea let their eyes meet and then they continued down the path until sight of the Chinese restaurant became discernible from across another street.

They entered and filled their plates with food from the buffet, sitting at a table far off in the corner of the main dining room. The dining room smelt of curry and basil. Andrea said, “I feel kind of guilty, knowing that Gerard is all alone back at the hospital. And we’re here eating.”

Genevieve looked up, smiled and reached her hand across the table, “Gerard is not alone. Nurses are there for him. But most importantly, God is with him. Now more than ever is God with him.”

“I wish that I could believe that. Whenever I think about things like that, my mind seems to go over all of the people I have known in my life who have suffered extensively. I think about Gerard and what happened to him. I think about my father’s heart attack. And it just seems as though, if there were a God, why is he taking a break while so many people bleed and scream and die horrific deaths?” Andrea put her face in her hand and spoke softly.

“Suffering is a large part of life. Us humans, we’re not immortal. God knew that when he created us. This life is no more than a trial, a period of suffering that we are forced to endure in order to reach enlightenment, or to be saved. But in a sense, you are right. The suffering that my son is experiencing was completely avoidable. His suffering was caused by an intentional human action. The very fact that a man willingly chose to put him in the spot in which he is in, is degrading… it’s humiliating to know that another person played God with him.” 

They finished their meals and walked out onto the street. It was broad daylight. They were about halfway into the park back to the hospital, when heard from behind them was sound akin to clicking. Andrea and Genevieve ignored the noise as its pitch grew increasingly more audible. Andrea turned around slowly and noticed then, a group of teenagers seated evenly about a park bench. They smoked cigarettes and drank from bottles concealed by paper bags. When one of the teenagers noticed Andrea looking at them, he raised his head and stared. Genevieve, by then, noticing the situation, tugged her sleeve and went to pace off. Andrea stood still.

Then, one of the group stood, resting his paper bag bottle on the grass next to him. He walked towards them, followed by another while a third held back. The third looked about nervously until he realized that his friends were not going to stop and pursued after them. When the two women realized that the group was approaching them, Genevieve whispered as she drew in close to Andrea’s side, “Let’s get out of here. This is not safe.”

The kids then walked on a steady path towards them. Turning her back, Andrea moved to step away but she was stopped by the teenager who sprinted over to restrain her. He puffed at a cigarette and then threw it off to the side. He wore on his head, a baseball cap tilted a bit on his head. His jeans hung slightly from his legs, revealing his red underpants. Tightly, a black undershirt clung to his torso, displaying his well-formed muscles.

“What the fuck,” he said calmly, as he spun her about. “What are you girls looking at? You looking for a good time?”

Andrea, out of anxiety, grasped Genevieve’s arm by her shirt sleeve and went to pull her away. Andrea said, “We just want to get on our way.” She went to walk off but was held back. She still clung onto Genevieve’s sleeve. The second of the teenagers turned his head quickly and released a stream of clear saliva from in between his teeth.

The first continued, “You must be looking for a good time considering that you’re on our turf.”

Andrea turned, still nervous and said, “I’m sorry, your turf?” Her courage returned then as she pictured Gerard in his hospital room. “We’ve got to get going guys. Have fun.” Genevieve, for the moment, looked at the ground and trembled in the arms of the young boy who held her.

Abruptly, the third of the group began to dance about like a boxer in the path in front of them. Andrea looked at him and tilted her head. The boy laughed then and said, “I know where we know these bitches from! This one,” and he pointed to Genevieve, “is the bitch mother of that cripple we saw in the paper a couple days ago.” He and his friends began laughing hysterically. 

After they had finished laughing, the first one leaned into Andrea and said, “And you’re the cripple’s girlfriend?”

Andrea nodded in a state of dissociation and lowered her head. All courage within her was abandoned. She interpreted very well of the meanness of his words, the maliciousness of his intent. Still, she seemed no longer able to move. All she wanted at that point was to be able to speak, to defend Gerard, who clearly could not defend himself even if he were there. Gerard, she knew did not deserve to have these jackass kids speak about him in such a way. Still, she stayed silent. She stayed silent out of fear of angering the kids further. But most, she remained silent out of the anger and fear that appeared to move through her as a continuing palpitation. The thoughts came. No words followed to match them.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” The boy asked menacingly. “How do you think he would feel if his precious girlfriend were beaten here as well?”

Genevieve spoke up then. She said, as her voice gradually rising, “He has a name. His name is Gerard.”

The second boy said with a smile building across his acne scarred face, “I’m sure. Yes, I remember now. The kid’s name was Gerard.” They laughed slightly again and Andrea bent over in pain as her stomach twisted. The second boy had punched her. 

“That’s a message for your famous cripple,” the second boy said ferociously. “Don’t let us catch you around this area again.”

The first kid laughed, arching his head backward, which then settled as he let out, “Yeah’, fuck off.”

As Genevieve aided Andrea as they went to run off, they were both silent. Entirely, the only thing that Andrea could focus on was that new feeling of paranoia, of consistent anxiety and that strange feeling in her mind that seemed to want to shut off her thought process. The only comparison with which she could compare the feeling to was that of a small animal within the jaws of a lion. That feeling of shock that seemed to isolate her mind from her body was possibly the worst feeling she had ever felt. But that feeling would come to pass for her.

And as their backs turned, the two helpless women heard a voice. That voice said in one angrier than it had before, “Who the Hell gets famous for getting his ass kicked? Fucking joke, man.” What he said still maintained a degree of jest and the kids as they marched back to their park bench, laughed in unison about it. 

Another voice, loud and cheerful just behind them said, “I should say that she was very pretty.” And the voice let out a cackle of laughter. 

All that was experienced by Gerard during this period of time, while his friend and mother had left him alone to go for lunch, was fear. Gerard never knew such fear. It was as though he were experiencing the fear of some other individual who was being put through an intense vice. And no matter how awful the fear, the paranoia, the anxiety and the isolation grew, the less he was able to express it. His mind, many times during this period, tried desperately to shut off but he denied that presence its power and continued to focus on the thoughts – to confront them. And then, as if in unison though in different locales, Gerard and the two women who walked back to the hospital, experienced a realization. Genevieve and Andrea were pretty shaken up as they thought about what had just happened. They questioned what sort of person would have been able to act so coldly. They pondered over a society whose views and beliefs were so horribly skewed. It started to make sense to them how Gerard could have been thrust into such a situation. What kind of a world allowed something like that situation to happen? An answer had been provided them then as they reflected. A society that possessed an unusual fascination and empathy with criminals and such a suspicious regard of contempt towards their victims was the exact sort of society that could place its members into such awful, unholy spots. It is mad living in a world whose primary means of entertainment comes through the form of schadenfreude. 

The nurse who sat next to Gerard in his hospital room startled then as Gerard began to seizure. She ran for the doctor but it was over soon after she left the room. And when the nurse and the doctor returned, they entered into a room that was silent. The doctor looked earnestly back as he turned, nodded to the nurse and left.

There was a presence developing in Gerard’s mind at that moment. That presence was the thought that there is more to life than what he once thought there to be. He knew that there was more to life after this for him. Still, he was going to free himself. Andrea and his mother deserved that. 

Laying in his hospital bed, alone now, his mind interpreted a pain across his tummy. A pain as though he had just been punched.

 

Grief, Sadness and Hope:

Genevieve Auclair dreamed of her boy. She dreamed of the way he once was. Every youthful feature and trait that would never return. She dreaded the future and continually confronted herself with the question of who would take care of him once she had gone. The guilt that had built, the agony and the dreams that had intruded her mind were both unavoidable and terrifying. In the course of twenty-three years, Genevieve had raised, loved and bled for her son, Gerard. All had come back to her as if in a fleeting nightmare. Every diaper she had changed for him and every bottle made. Every present for Christmas. These thoughts conjoined into the one: Now, Gerard was twenty-six and she was still changing his diapers and feeding him. It was so unnatural. 

The grief was there for her, always rearing its awful face. Genevieve would reflect on this grief over and over in her mind until the precious thoughts and memories of the healthy form of her beautiful son had been transformed into the most severe of dreams, asleep and awake. The kind and precious recollections of Gerard’s agility, even of his angelic eyes and everything Genevieve inherently knew Gerard would grow to achieve – and already was achieving – every good and fleeting memory she held in mind of her son was altered into something evil. Until the obsession that Genevieve held for her son’s memory, created within her a symbol of death and despair – a sinister monster of her son’s lost and beautiful figure.

The days were exhausting for Genevieve, the nights even more unendurable because she couldn’t sleep. These memories existed in unison with her own anxiety, seeming to take on a life of their own. Indeed, living in a world that is not only indifferent to the suffering of individuals, but seemed to exist very selfishly and only with praise and security for those who were in good health, grew cold. Life, its experiences, the good and the bad, blended into the memory of her young son. Seeming to take on surreal qualities. She considered herself quite out of place in it. It killed Gerard that he could sense these thoughts emanating from his mother’s spirit.

The ambulance in which they rode was like a ship caught in the deepest of treacherous waters. Gerard was prone across a stretcher in the back of the vehicle and his mother sat above him, face in her folded hands atop her tightly closed legs. 

The ambulance driver sat up front and did not look back. Another paramedic sat next to Gerard, across from Genevieve. This short man wore the EMS services uniform and consistently leaned back, turning his head and tested the liquids of Gerard’s IV drip. He would then write something, his head lowered, across a sheet in his notebook that sat poised on his lap. 

They had come in the early morning for him. It was still dark out from what Gerard could tell, between the slightly open cracks of his eyes. For the whole night prior, Genevieve sat, over-alert on her cot, in expectation of the EMS transport that would come. She had not slept. And as the EMS, when they arrived, slipped the body hoist under him, they forcibly took him and strapped him onto a rolling table with a mattress over it.

An indiscernible vision occurred to him then. His eyes seemed to cloud over on the under layers of his eye lids and gave in to a vision of sunlight and though he could no more explain it than he could understand it, it was a soothing thing to be before the sun’s rays once again. His eyes squinted with an awful pain. He did not understand the pain. “It’s just a reflex,” the EMS attendants were saying when his mother inquired about the grimace in his face.

All the same, it was morning where Gerard Auclair was. But on Ordell Arrant, restrained and subdued in the Rehabilitation building’s chamber, shone a pleasant glow then as he slept in the contraption built for him. The lights had been switched on in the rehabilitation chamber. Though it was not sunlight, it registered to both characters in a dream. Arrant experienced the light through only his body while Auclair felt it as a vision within his imprisoned mind.

He was shoved into the back of an ambulance on his stretcher and his mother followed. She sat quietly next to Gerard. Genevieve who sat, crying next to her son was not doing anything interesting at that point. What Gerard was experiencing was far more intriguing. 

The trip to the hospital toward which the ambulance drove was an eternity to Gerard. It was not an unpleasant eternity either. The immediateness of the switch in environments, his sudden re-introduction to other parts of the world, the world that could be touched, tasted, smelled, heard and most importantly for him then, saw was very encouraging to him. It reminded him that while he was in the state he was in, a whole world existed on the other side. That feeling he embraced as they drove. He held onto it with all of his strength as though it would slip through his fingers and escape him, never to return again.

Gerard’s eyes went back in his head. It felt like his eyes were rolling down each side of his head. It was as in a dream when his consciousness rose from the stretcher and looked about the interior of the ambulance then. He glanced out of shock, at his mother and the paramedic who sat eagerly beside the boy on the stretcher. He did not seem to recognize the boy, his mother or where he was when he was able to peer out of the windows in the rear door of the vehicle. He did not know them, but he felt some sympathy, some warmth towards them for the suffering that encircled them was great. Turning again, he pressed his face against one of the windows. The window was covered in mud from the ambulance’s tires. But still, he could see fairly well through it. 

He saw trees. He saw the trail on which the vehicle drove, surrounded by a sparser group of trees. They followed the path tightly and gave on to clear and flat lawn on both sides. The lawns were enormous, giving the illusion that they would amass to the ends of the earth. Upon the green grass, on one side of the road, ran a playful group of children. He watched their figures, for there was no way of his hearing them, as they ran a little, stopped and then broke out into hilarious laughter. He watched their bodies keel over and rise as they shouted to each other. One, a little girl turned to face the ambulance that drove by slowly. It was at a large distance she saw him. He reflected then that it would have been impossible for human eyes to discern a figure at such distance and through a window as tainted as the one from out of which he peered at them. He pondered over the incredulity of the situation. Their figures grew closer as they grew further away. It was uncanny then as all of the children turned to face the ambulance driving and waved slowly and encouragingly as it continued down the path and out of sight. 

The spirit of Gerard Auclair then turned about to face the boy laid out, the woman with bloodshot eyes and the paramedic. And suddenly, the situation made complete sense. The identity of the boy became clearer to him as he continued to watch the ambulance attendant as he performed CPR on the lifeless body. The mother, his mother then began to shriek with panic. It all came to him like a soundless scene in a movie, without music or realistic plot, the view of the people over his body on the stretcher as they tried desperately to bring him back to life. 

At that moment, Gerard was reunited with his body and Genevieve and the paramedic gave sighs of relief. Sound seemed to return for a moment until it was drowned out by the blackness that was his unconsciousness again. Genevieve wept as she screamed. The ambulance driver constantly shifted his attention from the road, back to Gerard and back again. Until, his attention re-focussed on the street as the commotion began to settle.

And then, as Gerard’s lucid blissfulness ceased, so did the ambulance. It slowed silently and pulled into a parking spot. Gerard knew they had parked because of the old feelings, which existed in him somewhere that reminded of when he and his father used to drive his old 69’ Corvette about the neighbourhood.

Gerard felt a hesitant tugging at something below him then. The feeling came through his head, though his mind encouraged him into believing that he felt it through his body. He was paralyzed, he was comatose. He was a vegetable. 

With a jolt, his stretcher rose in the air and was pulled out of the cab into the then morning air. The sun was high in the east. Gerard, as his sleeping mind and broken body, were introduced to the chilly, morning environment, he felt his entire bulk seize up under pressure from the crisp, damp cold. It was as though he were being stabbed, though not in one place as a stab wound tends to befall, but rather all across his lifeless body. His neck seized up and to the right of his shoulders. No one noticed the spectacle. He became gradually embarrassed as he was pushed into the front hall of a hospital and his body relaxed. As the streams of warm air from the vent within the corridor passed across him, the feeling reduced in pressure until it vanished. 

Entering the three storey, stucco and brick building that stood before them, they were greeted by a scent of death and survival. The two conflicting themes seemed to enter their nostrils at once. But for the paramedics; they were used to the smell.

The connection was easily made by Genevieve who recognized a hospital as a place filled with both stories of sadness and of grief. But to Gerard, the smell merely frightened him and made him gag. 

In the front hall of the building, they were greeted by a woman dressed in casual wear, seated behind a reception counter. Her smile beamed across the room at them and as they manoeuvred past her, she smiled at the mother first and then at the son, restrained upon a rolling mattress. When she noticed this boy, Gerard, sloppily roll his head about on a seemingly anorexic body, she quickly averted her glance. Only she turned to face Genevieve, this mother once more, in order to avoid making eye contact with the piteous boy on the stretcher. She was frightened and did not know what to say. And though she had seen cases similar to Gerard’s, the pain from seeing a living and breathing, sentient and vulnerable creature in such a dreadful state, was never really easily understandable to anyone. One never really got used to seeing this sort of pain on a day to day basis. In addition to that, every single day, new patients – more severe than the day preceding – were rushed in and introduced to her. A month later, that same patient with whom she had begun to develop a pleasant relationship, was rolled out of the hospital, past her reception desk, either on the way to another hospital or in a body bag. 

“Who do you think that was?” She would say to a nurse, trying desperately not to make the situation seem trivial. 

“Oh, that was so-and-so,” the nurse would groan, “stroke,” or “heart attack, the doctor’s say.”

And the receptionist would cringe, knowing that only a week before that, had she given the individual a lollipop from the front desk’s stash and smiled pleasantly as they wheeled off into the adjacent corridor.

In Gerard’s case, she did not want to upset him, only to make him feel welcome. She wanted to smile at him and knew that eventually, she would build a relationship with the boy. But to Gerard, who laid then, his head turning slothfully as they passed, he experienced a contrary thought as a result of the look of panic she had displayed at not wanting to look at him.

In his half-conscious state, Gerard seemed unable to focus on anything aside from his dissociative paranoia. In his half-conscious state, Gerard seemed to be able to see into his future. The emotions and feelings he would experience in these states, he would write off as nonsense, as only dream. And since the emotions made little sense to him, he would forget about them quickly. 

The feelings that presented themselves to him knew no other solution, no other cause and no other intent. In the dissociative state, Gerard seemed unable to even turn his head away from the woman. And all the while, the paranoia was building. He watched her and as she continued to strain her head to avoid looking at him, what developed in his sense of self, that all embracing feeling that he was a human being, the strange idea that she meant him harm. He could not exactly place the feeling and how it had developed so quickly. It was a reflex. And as it built, so did his anger and hatred of this world, this world viewed by him as hostile, uncaring and malicious. He would reflect on, if he were to recover, whether it would be for good, whether that recovery could in any way be suited emotionally as well. He did not know of his paralysis. He was only aware that he was partially sleeping. He questioned the possibility of his ever returning to normal. He feared the world. And equally, though he did not know it at that time, the world he saw within his own twisted mind, dreaded him. He would assume as fact that people did not understand him, so they feared him. And conversely, he feared a world that he did not understand.

Only for Gerard, the fear grew on a different plain and was heightened due to his hyper-vigilance, his paranoia, his depression and his lack of understanding for this cold world, this lack of understanding for the new self he was thrust into. It was a shame, he reflected. It was a shame that he no longer believed in the ultimate good of society. Through his half-closed eyes, he would watch situations and scenarios as they unfolded before him, and question the very fabric of what was happening. He would no longer reflect on the face-value of individual things, but rather he would be overwhelmingly observant of their form, the way the things were being carried out and of the utter meaninglessness of certain things. He hated himself for feeling this way. 

One day, when Gerard was led out onto the hospital premises by his mother for a walk, Gerard happened to catch a subdued glimpse of a couple making out on a park bench. He would reflect almost angrily at the uselessness of what was happening and the idleness that surrounded them. 

Gerard would come to explain, not long after his awakening that after violent crime, the victim becomes very pessimistic. He stressed that they are unable to focus any amount of energy on positive things. He, at first, would ask with tears covering his still face, if he was going crazy, reflecting on the fact that he probably already was crazy. He was assured by psychologists and hospital staff that he was not crazy, that every victim of violence experienced what he was going through to some degree following a traumatic event. Gerard would also come to explain that no matter how much he tried to fix himself, the worse he would get. “It’s not a matter of trying to feel better,” Gerard would say, crying into a microphone, “It’s almost as though, after crime, you have a new life.” Because of this, an awful pattern would evolve. Oneself vs. the world. You begin to view the world as hostile and uncaring, and it looks back at you with the same view because you choose not to conform. Either that or you are just unable to live a life in what you perceive as this cold society. 

Until, the group composed of the two paramedics, the mother and the boy were pushed out of sight, into an elevator enclave then. The receptionist felt a pang of relief at the moment his stretcher was pushed out of sight. The lift, as its doors slid aside, was crowded with nurses. Their entry was greeted with nods and smiles. 

At last, the speed of the stretcher upon which Gerard lay, then again in a lapse of unconscious, began to increase gradually upon the familiar tiled floor below. The floor was seen through the occasional, rounded mirror on the ceiling by Gerard’s struggling awareness. Then, slowly, very slowly, his stretcher was placed next to some sort of contraption. He was picked up then and slid over to another, an operating room table as the contraption over his head grew more in focus. His dying focus could decipher that it was a black, circular thing but he did not know much about medical equipment.

The paramedics had left after they had brought them into the operating room. Like a series of phantom spectres then, faces began to appear before his field of vision. And as his vision began to cloud and then eventually fade entirely, he saw six men sitting across the room, all seated about a round table. They debated furiously while a sixth, a smaller gentleman sat silently, as he scurried to copy down everything that was said. Gerard could not hear the group that spoke in the corner. He couldn’t really understand the situation at all. And as the last of his vision began to fade, Gerard felt warmth, something like paradise washing across his being.

 

A Glimpse of Reality II:

The words, “I love you, mom,” seemed like joy to the boy, Gerard Auclair. Over the past couple of days, his mind had begun to grow more active. Though, to him, it seemed an indiscernible passage of time had blended across his awareness. He had visions, here and there. His mother inviting his college friends over one day. And the day they came. Gerard wanted so badly to impress his friends. He deeply cherished the time his friends came to visit him. He prized the time as though he would never see them again. He reflected then over the dull memory he had of the time all of his friends came in. And then, sitting in a circle in the lounge area in the basement of the hospital, they all laughed at everything he said. They all encouraged him and showed him photos and get well cards from people from his work and his old school. He was so nervous. His legs were shaking in his wheelchair. He was so happy, he couldn’t stop laughing. All of this time, no one thought he was aware. They thought he was brain dead. They thought he was only reacting. This is what Gerard experienced. The laughing, the memories and the shared experiences. Really, his injury had been so severe that no one expected him to recover. As time was passing, though, it was becoming increasingly apparent of his increasing awareness.

The day had begun as usual. Genevieve was just getting ready for work. Genevieve allowed her exhausted wrist to grasp hold of a silk, purple scarf that was hanging up in a little closet of the room. Her own and Gerard’s clothing were hanging in the closet. She draped the scarf around her neck easily and approached Gerard in his hospital bed. She spoke to herself calmly, almost as if in a trance. Sitting next to him, she released a huff of exasperation and clenched his hand. 

“When are you going to wake up, Gerard? You’ve been keeping everyone in suspense. When are you going to surprise everyone? I know you have it in you. I know that whatever you are waiting for, whatever you’re doing in the sleep, is going to make you so much stronger. I believe that. That what doesn’t kill you makes us stronger. I believe that.” Genevieve started to tear up as she simply rubbed the top of Gerard’s hand with her thumb.

Gerard’s head moved a little. It looked like it was moving back and forth. Genevieve, though she saw this slightest reaction, believed it to be nothing more than a synapse in his brain firing. An impulse. That’s what the doctors told her anyways.

She continued as though to follow on the same train of thought, “It must be true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be with me. I hope you can sense me, I hope that you can feel my presence. I want you to know I will never give up on you. It’s my responsibility as a mother. I just want you to know how loved you are.”

Gerard’s lips twitched a little at that moment. Genevieve tilted her head curiously, cautiously, as though anything further she would say would hinder him from speaking then. Then reality settled back on her, the reality of her son’s condition and she ignored what she had seen as though it hadn’t happened.

Gerard’s eyes opened then. Just a crack. But enough for him to see her out of. Genevieve shouted, “Gerard! Are your eyes open?” 

A gentle smile came over his face as his lips rounded a little, as much as they were able. Tremulously, his mouth formed the letter ‘o’. Genevieve started shouting. She stroked his hair almost ferociously a couple of times before darting out into the hallway of the hospital. She was shouting, “My son is awake! My son is awake!”

Heads from concealed doorways began to peak out into the corridor. One by one, figures came into sight and began to approach. Genevieve was crying outwardly. She hadn’t forgotten her son though. She rushed back in to the room and started blubbering nonsense to him, laughing and crying simultaneously. She just wanted him to know she was with him and that she wouldn’t leave him. Genevieve was silent for a moment as Gerard began to breathe deeply. Genevieve heard a silent hush behind them then. And turning about, she saw five familiar faces with their hands to their mouths, each of them gently watering at their eyes. Genevieve invited them in with a wave. Gerard glanced over to the people in the corridor with his eyes. He was calm. From Gerard’s vision then was seen several faces filling with emotion, move in over him. One, an elderly man with a son in respite at the hospital, moved in a bit closer and looked in his eyes. Gerard’s eyelids had widened a little. His pupils were darting back and forth as though he were still in an REM state. The elderly man raised his hand into Gerard’s view and offered him a thumb’s up. Gerard smiled a warm smile with restricted facial movement. The elderly man then released an involuntary cheer in his amazement. The other people who had entered the room crowded around Gerard and started to say positive things. At that moment, it seemed as though the reason for their being in the hospital had been temporarily forgotten. It was as though this wonderful news had somehow given the people in the building hope in their own situations. Genevieve called the nurse’s station and announced the news. Moments later, two doctors entered the room. They told the crowd of people who had started to amass in the room that they needed everyone to leave. 

After having cleared the room, one of the doctors said to Genevieve, “Why do you think he is awake?” 

“Look at him! His eyes are open. He is smiling and trying to form words.” 

One of the doctors moved a bit closer to the bed and grinned. “He is sleeping,” he said softly. “Nothing has changed.”

Genevieve was adamant. “He is awake. I swear it. All of the people outside saw it.”

The doctor who was talking to her said compassionately, “You really need to get some rest, Genevieve. Staying here with your son all of the time, in the state he is in, is not healthy for you. You know the severity of your son’s injury and that the chances of him regaining consciousness are very slim. Your son is brain-dead, Genevieve. But you know that. We have told you that.”

“He’s not brain-dead! He just smiled at me a couple of minutes ago. Ask anyone who was in here.”

The doctor was about to lay his hand on her shoulder kindly but she grabbed his hand and spun him around so that he was facing Gerard. Gerard, then was smiling and turning his head back and forth slowly. His eyes were wide open. The doctor collapsed to his knees slowly. The other doctor put his hand over his mouth and said simply and under his breath, “It’s a miracle.”

The doctor who had collapsed quickly regained himself and stood. He rushed over to Gerard and flashed his flashlight into his eyes. The pupils dilated. The doctor’s breathe relaxed and he calmly said to Gerard, “Gerard, how are you feeling buddy?” 

Gerard drew a couple of deep breaths, after which he said in a weak voice, “I’m feeling great. Why can’t I move my legs?”

“Gerard, do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened to you?”

Gerard thought for some time. His eyes started to water. Suddenly, as though in a torrent of emotion, images returned to him. Above everything that returned to him, the images of knife wounds and blows to his head, one feeling stayed with him more than anything else. Actually, it endured through those bad images. That feeling was the feeling of love. 

The doctor was holding up two fingers in front of his face. “How many fingers am I holding up Gerard?”

Gerard ignored the doctor and seemed like he was in deep thought. He turned his head towards his mother for a moment and looked back to the doctor as he asked it again. Gerard said quickly, “Two,” and returned his gaze to his mother. Again, waves of feeling poured over his awareness as he remembered all that she had done for him, the fact that she had never abandoned him. He remembered the words of love and encouragement she whispered into his ear as she rubbed his feet to keep the circulation going. 

The doctor was trying to recapture Gerard’s attention. Gerard seemed fixated on his mother. Genevieve looked at him, smiling. She was exhausted. 

Gerard whispered then, “I love you mom.” 

The doctor had heard him but Genevieve hadn’t. The doctor released a controlled and gentle sob. Genevieve rushed over and began stroking his forehead. She asked him what he had said. Gerard’s eyes rolled up into his head as he drew another couple of breaths and said again with all of his effort, “I love you, mom.”

 

A Re-Emergence:

Ordell Arrant could feel his body as it heaved through the chair of the rehabilitation centre. On every pulse of his veins, the thump grew worse and the feeling eventually spanned his entire body. Waking seemed like the most violent intrusion from his alternate world.

With a fairly growing intensity, the memories of the life in which he had been living flew through his mind and the feeling of déjà vu, excruciating. He was just as quickly disoriented and the escalating dizziness that enveloped his body made him throw up. The discomfort across his nervous system grew, likewise, stronger by the moment. In that instant, he was confronted with the high pitched squeal of a sensory program across the room. The noise grew angrily into a steady and awful commotion that resembled a banshee’s cry. Two men and a woman dressed in a white lab technician’s coat ran across to where he sat. The figures of the three were entirely unrecognizable through the red vision of the visor on his head.

Behind his mask, which was soon torn off, his lips smacked repetitively and pointlessly. Arrant heard voices then but they made hardly any sense to him. 

Angela Deblois was crying, “He’s having a seizure! Get this thing off him!” And signalling to one of the guards with her she said, “Grab hold of his jaw and lift his neck up.”

He stood, rather stupefied and did as she instructed. When he approached Arrant and placed his hand on his jaw, there was drool across his face and remnants of his vomit. He paid little head of this and struggled against his convulsing neck muscles with his hand on Arrant’s lower jaw.

“He’s fighting against it!” The guard cried.

Angela shouted, “Fight against him! He has to breathe!”

Arrant only heard the hiss of pleasant voices at that moment. 

Arrant passed out then. And as his muscles tensed and drew into his body, Angela removed the restraints on his arms and gestured the guards to come nearer. As his arms drew into his chest, a violent moan was emitted from his mouth. Little specks of vomit flew across the chair as his head twisted back and forth in agony. Angela contemplated releasing his leg restraints but then thought the better of it.

The guards had never seen this sort of behaviour and were greatly shocked. Arrant’s muscles quickly relaxed and one of the guards let go of him briefly. Seconds later, his muscles contracted once again and started shaking violently. Angela watched him closely as his eyes rolled back into his head and his tongue curled into the back of his neck.

Slowly Arrant regained consciousness and when his eyes settled and straightened themselves, he looked about confused and lifted his hand tremulously to the side of his lip and wiped away a streak of vomit and saliva. Gradually, he gazed up at the group collected before him and realized where he was. Words could not describe the exhaustion that Arrant felt then. The reassuring words of the woman who stood in front of the chair were only a subtle buzz to his terrified ears. Regardless of his extreme fatigue, he lifted his arm and punched the guard in the face. The movement was swift and calculated, as though he had thought about it for some time before.

He began to stir violently in the chair and tried to stand. He was shocked at the fatigue that had built in his legs. Angela yelled to the guard on the other side of the room and promptly he stood next to her and they restrained Ordell Arrant. 

At last and without cleaning his face, they restrained his arms once more and fastened the helmet atop his head. Then there was blackness and the room started to spin again. 

 

Steps in the Hallway:     

The sweat that built across Gerard’s temples was warm and disturbing. He could feel the itch as it built across his head, from one side to the next and then settled and dissipated. He could feel his nose, as it sniffed hungrily for breath, his eyes twitched about in his head. He imagined the scene as normal – that anyone would experience it at some point and therefore did not put much meaning behind the experience. He had awakened from a disturbed sleep, collecting his hands – in his mind of course – at the spot where his legs used to be. His legs, very much there, but asleep, very much asleep. He felt his legs as they throbbed with blood, engorging his mind over the fact that they no longer functioned. He could not get his mind around the fact, at that moment, that he was paralyzed. He began to scurry about – in his mind of course – while in reality, his limbs rest very softly, as if dead against the cushions below his feet. The cushions had been placed there to prevent bed sores, an awful affliction experienced only by the bed-ridden. 

Slowly, his consciousness was overtaken. Gradually, his presence altered. Bit by bit, his position in time and space repositioned. Until, quite alarmed, though pleasantly, he stood before his work. Slowly, gradually, he began to recognize the day as the last day he had seen Andrea. He remembered nothing of the assault at the time. He seemed entirely unable to concentrate on the impending disaster that awaited him. He was only able to muse, almost obsessively over the sudden, enchanting recuperation of his limbs. He was exasperated, vibrant with euphoria as he walked about noisily across the pavement below his feet. Until, he began slowly to realize that he was alone. Quite alone, his euphoria begat into a sense of doom and despair. He started to shout, crying for anyone who would come to his aid. What good is living a life, physically able if there is no one to share it with? He would think. And he would come to remember his friend Andrea once again. He only recognized the day by the environment. He grew to fear. And then, in the midst of his ravenous thoughts, a bus passed by quickly. Turning to see, Gerard could decipher the emptiness of this bus. It scared him, weighed on him heavily. Neither was the driver of the bus there. Turning about quickly, Gerard let his glance fall desperately on a solitary figure within the dusty street. The man bore a resemblance to someone he once knew, in some far off past life, but he could not identify him. 

Gerard ran eagerly across the street to the man and fell to his knees before him. The man looked up and placed his head on one of Gerard’s shoulders. Gerard looked up easily, somehow assured that there was life left in the world, when this man took from his coat pocket a single, small blade and began slashing at his face. He questioned what was happening as he felt no pain but was rather questioning the integrity of a world in which something like this could happen so unprovoked, so without conscience.

Gerard woke from the flashback at four in the morning but it was not until the following day that Genevieve had realized her son had awakened. He cried and shouted but with the very little energy he had, he found that making any noises was quite impossible.

It was January 27, 2003 – a month and a half after the crime committed against him. Gerard was faced with much difficulty upon his emergence. There was no stretching and yawning as if he had been refreshed. It was as though upon his waking, the depression and isolation that surrounded the coma chased him back into reality and settled atop his consciousness. Gerard lay for a matter of hours. Waiting for his mother to get up. Waiting for a nurse to come in. Waiting for anything. 

A coma and the awakening process is a lot like learning to do something, Gerard would come to explain. It is like living in a nightmare, constantly and for what feels will be eternity, dreams of isolation. For Gerard, it was a lot like having elastic around his mind, only requiring enough energy to overcome that elastic seemed impossible at times. The energy that is there for anyone who is trying to learn something new was simply not present for Gerard. The process of building that energy in order to apply himself at attempting to get out of it, was endless. The coma and the process of coming out of it, Gerard had learned, was more a process of just how much one wanted to come out of it. All the while, he received no help in his virtually empty world. The world of thought was all he had and because of that he attached himself to those thoughts. The problem was that those thoughts were mostly negative, over which he had no control. The thoughts that had developed in his mind, continual streaks of paranoia and hatred, pushed him deeper within this coma state. All he had was his great fight, his paramount courage to aid him in his recovery. 

Gerard often wondered, in his increasing consciousness, as to why he had not been visited by Andrea for such a long time had passed. He had fleeting and sporadic memories of her gentle kiss, the scent of her hair while he was comatose. Then, the good memories he had of her blended into one sensation. They would blend into the feeling of being punched in the gut.

Genevieve and Gerard were alone in the room then. It was morning and through the slightly ajar windows, the fresh dew penetrated and settled atop Gerard’s bed. At that point, Genevieve collapsed across his partially dead torso. She fell lightly so as not to disturb him. Gerard could not do a thing. He could not feel a thing. All he could do was think. He reflected on the fact that emotion was all he seemed to have left. He reflected on the fact that he should at least be shedding a tear for the pain he and his family had endured and equally would endure for their lives. The pain he was bound to endure in the future was all but speculation. He could not wrap his mind around what lie ahead for him. He was emotionally numb – emotionally dead – paralleling the partial death of his physical body. All he had, and to which he held on maniacally, were the memories he had received while comatose. He thought about them a moment, while his mother hugged him tight. The memories he could feel were not memories at all. But rather, they were products of his dissociation. Flash-forwards, he would call them. They were daunt and grim visions of his own future. And though, grim they were, they at least gave him some hope of a future to come. That this was not the end for him and his mother.

Genevieve lifted her head from the body on the bed. She noticed the imprint of her tears on his shirt. She stroked at the damp spot with a tissue from the box on the nightstand table. It was then that she noticed a constant gush emerging from Gerard’s ear. Upon closer examination, she noticed that the liquid, which flowed from his ear, was a dark yellow. This terrified her as she believed it was another manifestation of the vicious assault suffered by her son.

Subsequently, a nurse entered the room with a tray of medications. The nurse walked slowly across to the bed and only looked up when she had reached Gerard. Genevieve greeted her and then pointed as if to inquire about the yellowish liquid streaming from her son’s ear. The nurse started quickly and began to speculate. She said in a collected voice yet with a sense of urgency, “This may not be good.” She said it with her collected fist to her mouth, contemplating. “If that’s what I think it might be.”

Genevieve said heatedly, “What could it be?” And after Genevieve had said this, the nurse ran to the door. 

A moment passed in unease and then the nurse returned accompanied by a doctor who Genevieve had never seen before. She and the doctor spoke briefly at the doorway and then he hurried over to Gerard. Paying no heed to Genevieve, who trembled in the seat next to the hospital bed, the doctor examined Gerard and the liquid from his ear. 

Genevieve spoke reverently yet pressuring this doctor to address her concern and answer her questions. She said, “What’s the matter with him?”

“This may be spinal fluid. If it is, it’s not good.” He continued to look at Gerard and pressed at points on the boy’s body with his eyes on Gerard’s face to gauge any reaction.

Genevieve struggled with the thought for a moment and then asked, “How is it not good? Tell me.”

The nurse approached, then and she took Genevieve aside. The nurse said, “If the liquid is in fact spinal fluid, the extent of Gerard’s spinal injury may be progressing. 

“I don’t understand. They said that his injuries were permanent.”

The nurse smiled compassionately and continued, “They are. Unfortunately, with the long period of inactivity, the effects of Gerard’s injury may be heightening.”

Genevieve and the nurse both turned to face the doctor. He knelt eagerly before Gerard and probed at his head and neck lightly. Genevieve went to move toward him. He leaned into the boy and sniffed at the fluid, drawing deep breaths as he tried to smell at it. The doctor turned leisurely and gave an expression of displeasure. This petrified Genevieve who stood so helplessly. Then he opened his hand, extended his forefinger and collected a fingertip of the liquid. Bit by bit, as if testing the fluid, he sniffed at it eagerly and then stuck the finger into his mouth. Immediately, he withdrew the finger and spit to the side. Turning again, he said with a smile, “Nothing more sinister than plain old ear wax,” and released a gentle laugh. 

Genevieve laughed out loud, ran over and embraced the doctor. He backed up slowly, smiled and left. The nurse approached from behind and handed her a tissue. Genevieve wiped at the wax on the side of her son’s cheek.

After days of empty and endless nothingness, Gerard slowly opened one eye after the other. He was embarrassed for some reason. It was a feeling that extended the course of his body and was so fleeting that he could not really decipher it. He was clearly ashamed of the state he was in. The nurse and his mother did not notice him opening his eyes. He stared inertly into a fixed point on the ceiling above him. A light streak of drool fell off onto his chin and Genevieve wiped carefully at it with the other side of the tissue that she still held.

The injury to Gerard’s brain was thankfully not as serious as originally predicted. But still, there was no party to celebrate Gerard’s awakening. There were no trumpets or streamers. There was only the remembrance of the fact that the prison that he had been released from only introduced another, possibly more terrifying reality. A reality in which he would be forced, in years to come, to watch his own body decay and his despair fester. He knew all of this. He had seen it in visions. And because of that, the hatred he would feel would grow from a small spark into flame, into an inferno. His self-hatred would continue to grow.

Now, he sits, frozen into the depths of the uncomfortable mattress that makes up the bed below him – though he cannot feel the mattress – staring furiously out of the window next to his bed. He did not know why he was furious. That fact made him bitter and mad and his imagination ruminated over and over in his fractured mind of people in that seemingly far-away city lifestyle buying groceries, driving cars with no intent or destination, people eating apples, and you just know that somewhere out there a guy is calling a girl and asking her out. Gerard really wanted to die. He would pray to the mercy of the God that had watched over him this far to take his life before it became any worse. He prayed to die. 

Gerard, even in his limited emotional and mental state figured that no one really knew what it was like to have been told that for the rest of their lives, they would not be able to do these things. A sane person can only take so much before he snaps. And snap he did – from time to time. Realizing that praying for these sorts of things was futile, he would focus his attention to other, more productive thoughts. Because as a kid, he’d prayed for a better build, better skin and to meet the right girl. Gerard always wondered why these prayers were not answered. Just like later in his life, Gerard had prayed for death, these things did not come true because they were contrary to God’s plans. 

Gerard then, smacked his lips and sighed a deep breath. He turned his head to the side in its pillow and gazed sadly out the window. At the forefront is the drooping foliage of several willow trees. Their trunks are not in sight. The long leaves swayed and rustled in the breeze. Beyond the bronzing foliage is a corn field. The corn stalks that stood so high at one time, then dropped heavily. It would stand again.

Gerard spoke aloud to himself as he thought, but only a weak whisper emerged, exhausted. The intolerable was made tolerable only because his conscious thought process was damaged. He thought still. He then thought he saw a vision of his grave future while fighting desperately to replace the images with wholesome ideas as to what he wanted his life to become – in spite of his disabilities. It made him pucker his face as though he had just tasted something sour. He squinted in his mind’s eye because that was all he knew. The conflict in his mind struggled, trying to convince him that he was worthless. He fought. They should pull the plug on him. Gerard imagined his face as looking set and sullen then, a dead look. The risk. The bloody, intolerable, necessity of a risk.

And Gerard would long, in the months to come, for the sight of a sunset. Then, that sun shone only in through the window of his hospital room. He had wished for conversations – oh, he was so lonely – but they never came. The way he fell that night he was assaulted – into silence – he was raped of all of those experiences in his future. He was stripped of his basic right to be a human being and of the ability to share those experiences with others.

He was muttering when his mother entered the room and went and sat next to him. There was a chair next to Gerard’s bed, into which she sank and laid her elbows onto the bed, her face in her hands.

Gerard was still speaking, though incomprehensible. Genevieve looked at him with a quick start of emotion. As she watched him, his lips still moved but his eyes were focused desperately upon the ceiling. Genevieve opened her eyes a bit. She was uncertain. His own eyes were partially opened, which was unusual. Genevieve’s breath faltered as she uttered, “Gerard?”

Slowly and distracted from his thought, his head turned a little and he mouthed ‘mom’.

Genevieve jumped out of the chair and collected her arms around the man’s head and began sobbing in joy. She kissed him on the forehead and released a powerful but muffled stream of air from between her lips. 

Gerard spoke again, “I love you mom”.

Gerard slept then. Genuine sleep. Steps. From within his hospital room, from behind his closing door was hear the shrieks of his mother who confronted everyone who passed, ‘My son is awake! My son is awake!’

 

Schadenfreude: 

It seemed as though a week had passed. The name, being and soul of Ordell Arrant seemed a distant memory. His being now entirely belonging to Gerard Auclair. At least belonging to the confusion that was the state in which Gerard Auclair found himself. Gerard’s awakening, strange as it was – it was as though he was being born again – seemed to cut off any ties he once had from the self who sat jacked up to a virtual reality system, the self of Ordell Arrant. 

He is twenty-three years old and the vague recollection of some distant life that may have been his own, in some different reincarnation, was slowly dying off. To him now, he is caught up in the inevitable samsara that is the hardship of every life. His previous existence as Ordell Arrant clouds his awareness at times. He knows he exists but for a different reason than for the situation he finds himself in now. He is an emotional and physical disaster. One question continually pervaded his existence during that sleep. That question was why? Why had he been subjected to this life? And more than that, the question of where was his God? 

Even more, there was an omnipotent sense of loss running through his mind. He dreaded the fact that it had been him that was subject to this atrocity. He bit his lip hard, as if trying to stir the sleep he knew that he was in. He bit his lip again in the attempt to try to keep himself within its slumber. But no. He did not wake. He did not sleep. He just was. He knew all too well that the nostalgic memories he had of moving about and enjoying the euphoric slumber of youth was all but gone for him. The memories, though, would come alive in dreams for him and for a moment, the dream felt so real that he was in actuality, living those pleasant, care-free days over again. But though he might have been living in these memories and walking amongst them, there was no return. This was a permanent affair. He could never regain the full and old intimacy with those scenes that ran for seemingly lifetimes in his mind. He hated himself as much as he hated the monster who had subjected him to that hell. And for what? For a couple of dollars? 

That day, he was watching the television that seemed curiously always left on. His mother had returned to work. That is to say, she found a new job but the nurses at the hospital had been kind enough to allow her to stay with him at night, every night. Genevieve was at work then.

The television program he was watching at that moment was The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. He would strain himself every time that one of the many characters on the show would hurt themselves. At such point, he remembered vaguely, that the response merited from such simulated pain was supposed to be laughter. The audience was supposed to laugh at the character’s misfortune and reflect that this sort of pain was humorous. After all, these characters were only cartoons. Gerard did not understand this and as his discomfort grew at watching the cartoon figures get hurt, he was confused. In his mind, he grew extremely restless then and he began to cry. The tears fell silently and with haste as he lay there, stationary, bawling his eyes out. An anvil was dropped onto Wily Coyote at that moment and Gerard began to howl. He screamed for the nurse who had left his television on. When she did not come, he screamed more. 

Until the miraculous intervention of a commercial split across the television, he howled and bit at his lip, somewhat embarrassed, somewhat confused of his atypical response. He felt a great amount of relief at the sight of something other than those dreadful cartoons and was actually happy to see the image appear then of an aid fund commercial for hurricane relief in some distant part of the world. Again though, discomfort began to brew in him slowly at first and then as the commercial drew on for seemingly endless amounts of time, he started to laugh hysterically. And quite knowing that what he was laughing at was something so very inappropriate, he tried desperately to stifle his uncontrollable laughter. But still, the hiccoughs of air released through his restrained mouth. The one thing he dreaded most then was the approaching of a nurse or doctor, who would hear first coming down the hallway, him howling with laughter and then the tragic voice of a narrator who appealed to the public’s sympathy regarding these poor souls.

The nurse and doctor entered quickly and without acknowledgement. The nurse, however, gave Gerard a single disturbed and confused glance out of the corner of her eye and then darted her sight back to the television. The television still blared images and appeals of pathos. The nurse shut it off and then stood backwards, watching Gerard as he continued to struggle against this urge to laugh.

The doctor entered next. And as he approached his bedside, he laid an arm tenderly across the metal bed post. He smiled warmly enough and he said, “Gerard, we have a very pleasant surprise for you today.”

Gerard lay there looking upwards, smiling like a fool. The worst part was that he sensed that he looked like a fool but had very little control over the expression of his emotions as a result of his brain injury. He knew he should be doing something contrary to what he was doing, living a life contrary to the one he was living. But still, he just lay there, smiling up at the doctor, eager to please. He nodded.

The doctor said softly, “A class from a local school has asked to come and see the hospital in all of its capacities. They have asked to see particular patients and staff who have displayed exemplary courage in their roles here. I have suggested that you are one of these patients. How would you feel about a group of kind students coming to talk with you?”

Gerard was smitten with anxiety at the suggestion. He feared what the students might think of his appearance. He feared that there may be girls there, in the crowd of students who he thought were pretty. He assumed that the students would be adults, in college or university who were genuinely interested. Most of all, he feared that one of the students would try to kill him. He was so ashamed. But still, he nodded. 

“Good,” said the doctor with sympathetic eyes as he turned and gestured to the nurse at the television. “Come on in, guys!” 

At that moment, there was the scurrying of little feet moving across the tiled floor outside. The scurrying of feet was akin in sense to the scurrying of rats across a subway floor. The echo was there. At least in Gerard’s head, the echo was there. There was the voice of an elderly school teacher who shouted, “Move slowly; you don’t want to disturb this kind man.” 

And then, the door was pushed aside by peeping heads. Fingers crept across the frame, followed by eager little heads, the little eyes like daggers. Gerard always liked kids, very much so. The problem was not them. It was him. He no more wanted to be seen in the state that he was in, than he would be caught jumping off a building. The little eyes glowed as the mouths dropped and the heads tilted. 

The teacher, an older woman with greying hair and a mole on her cheek entered the room, pushing the kids aside with her great girth. They gazed up briefly and then quickly returned their eyes to Gerard in the bed. The kids were no older than seven or eight. Gerard, even in his peculiar mindset, found it somewhat displeasing and morose that school curriculums would have this sort of didactic lesson. Gerard turned his head away slowly and asked for more painkillers. The nurse present paced quickly over the room to Gerard and emptied a syringe into his intravenous. The doctor nodded and the teacher moved inwards from the door very slowly, testing the waters. 

The teacher moved in next to the bedside and addressing the doctor more than Gerard, she said, “Is he aware?”

The doctor nodded again and the teacher bent down next to his bedside and said into his ear in a force of voice that was unnecessary, “Hello, Gerard. My name is Mrs. Thompson. Our class really appreciates your letting us come and see you today.”

The doctor took Mrs. Thompson aside and whispered in her ear. Gerard just let his head turn and fall deeply into the pillow as the drug’s effects began to take. She signalled toward the door then and the scurrying creatures all swarmed in, running and flailing their arms. There was one young girl though, as Gerard turned to see them enter, who held back from the group and kept her gaze at the floor. And as the rest of the children galloped from here to there in the hospital room, testing things with their minds and their fingers, she stood there very politely, with her little hands held tightly before her long jeans. Gerard’s mind was elsewhere. He did not notice the girl looking politely up at him in the midst of the circus that was happening in his room. Gerard’s mind was on death, on hate and on fear. He knew that it was absurd, but he even cared to some degree as to what the little devils thought of him. Even when Mrs. Thompson approached him, touched him on the shoulder, his mind could not focus. The doctor standing behind Thompson, was speaking and his mouth was only visible through the cloud that had become Gerard’s vision. He imagined the look he was giving the two was an expression of irresolute horror and overwhelming uneasiness. The uncertainty of whether or not it was the drugs or the sheer panic that made him feel so was shameful and degrading. His lack of self-awareness was shocking and new. And though, he did not think that the drugs could act in such mysterious ways – having taken them before – he did not deny the possibility. Thompson’s lips were moving at incredible speeds. 

But there was something far more interesting than mere medical equipment in that room. There was a living and breathing, though quite injured, human being there. As the little children then focussed their attention towards the man in the bed, their teacher announced very enthusiastically, “Children, I would like to introduce you all to a gentleman who has been kind enough to meet with us all today. He is even going to answer some questions we all might have.”

The teacher asked them to say their names, for all present to get acquainted. The period of introductions was like a solemn blur to Gerard as he sat there, forcing a smile, to watch each child as it was named off. But still, grave as he tried he could not keep himself interested. Each child seemed to blend into the former like a shadow. The girl at the back, he tried harder to pay attention to. He empathized with her for a reason unknown to him. Her name was Jessica and she was nine years old. After she had spoken, their teacher approached the doctor and spoke briefly into his ear. He nodded ferociously and turned to face this Jessica.

Gerard was heavily sedated after their introductions but he could discern his name being spoken of. He slept and when he woke, he figured he had not slept for long, because these children still populated the room. One, a beastly little boy whose hair was gelled up in spikes, clambered across Gerard’s body as he lay there. Gerard was terrified at first but the feeling, he subdued. As the boy insensitively touched at Gerard’s arms, Gerard was shot in his mind back to the assault that left him there. However brief the feeling was, however dull, it felt like an eternity, like knives cutting into his body. He tried, instinctively, to swipe him away with a brush of his arm but his body did not move for him.

The boy shouted then, “Oh! He’s awake!”

Hearing this, Thompson approached the bed quickly and said, “Gerard, we know you are very tired but could you just take a minute to answer some questions?”

Gerard nodded.

Thompson gathered the children before the bed – there were about fourteen of them – and asked them if they had any questions. And after a dreadful moment of silence, Thompson encouraged them by stating that he wouldn’t bite. Gerard, she meant. A wave of hands went up quickly with curiosity. Thompson gazed gaily over the crowd of creatures and raising her hand, she let it fall, in the air, upon one of the children, encouraging it to ask its question.

The first, a young girl who introduced herself again as Tabitha asked, “What is it like being in a hospital? What’s it like not being able to move?” 

Gerard grunted and cleared his throat powerfully. The noise he made scared the children and they cowered a little. Gerard said, “It’s difficult. It’s really difficult. You guys will most likely never experience it.”

The crowd of children became at ease once more after he had said this. Then another, a young black boy by the name of Sam said, “Do you have anyone here with you? I mean is anyone with you for all of this?”

Gerard again cleared his throat but that time, it did not seem to bother the children. “Thank God, yes. My mother and a couple of friends have been very supportive.” Gerard spoke civilly, and with care in knowing that they were just children. Gerard had come to a realization that they were simply going through the learning process and knowledge of pain and suffering is paramount to anybody’s ability to use that knowledge.

In a muffled, stuttered voice, another young boy spoke. He said, “What happened to you Gerard?”

The doctor grimaced but did not say anything. Gerard, looking around the room, began to tear at his eyes. They waited patiently for him before he spoke. When he did speak, he said, “I was assaulted.”

There was a hush across the room as their teacher looked at the doctor and said to the group then, “It’s alright children. Gerard’s case is a very isolated one. This sort of thing doesn’t happen that often.”

Another boy, the greedy-fingered one who had discovered that he was awake said, “Do you mean that you got your ass kicked?”

Gerard nodded.

The room exploded with laughter and as it did, the doctor, nurse and teacher scrambled to regain control over the room. The teacher grasped the arm of this boy and said over the crowd, “Where did you learn that expression?” as the doctor shook his head and whispered to the nurse, “I knew this wouldn’t be a good idea.” Gerard was able to interpret what was said.

Gerard watched complacently, still drugged as the boy said to the teacher with pride, “My dad told me that. He says that only stupid, weak people who are losers get their asses kicked.” And the teacher looked like she wanted to strike him. The doctor ushered the students out of the room, into the hospital hallway. One student remained still. Jessica, who had remained quiet and had not laughed at the poorly placed joke, approached Gerard in the empty hospital room and laid her hand on his and though he could not feel it, he could sense a warm empathy and an unconditional love built upon that empathy she felt for him. She leaned up on her toes and kissed Gerard on his cheek and stood feebly, almost tremulously. She whispered, “I understand.”

Gerard smiled pleasantly and said, “I know,” and turned his head. He remained aware of a presence lingering in the room. And as he turned back, he saw the young girl was still there. Her hand was on his. It troubled him that he could not feel it.

She repeated once more, “I understand,” and ran out at the beckoning call of her teacher.

The nurse re-entered and switched on the television. She left swiftly.

 

A Glimpse of Reality Part II:

Distant steps were heard from Gerard’s hospital room. They were vapid and familiar as the sound of footsteps had become to him. Though, vapid, because they rarely meant anything to him. The sound was more a reminder of the days when he was able to walk. It was a pleasant reminder. And he welcomed the sound as it seemed a distraction from his self-motivated and busy days of therapy and continuing to better himself.

Moments passed as Gerard fell into his own thoughts. The footsteps had ceased. He had heard a door open somewhere nearby and shut shortly after. Gerard was scheduled for his physiotherapy an hour from then. He looked quickly out of the window as a pleasant thought came to mind. He thought fondly of the company that had hired him, some time ago. He remembered their sure words telling him that when he was well enough, his position would be ready for him. His eyes happened across a clipped newspaper article, slightly tucked away under some magazines, on the table top next to his bed. The article read “A Christmas Miracle”. The photo beside the article was a picture of Gerard, in his hospital bed, surrounded by his friends. He reminisced fondly on the day when he had woken from his coma and had had the opportunity to return home for the weekend.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Gerard moved his head slowly toward the door and announced in a strong voice, “Come in”.

The door slowly pushed aside. The figure, as it was entering became indiscernible to Gerard because of the meeting of the sunlight behind his head and the lights of the room, which shone across the door. As the figure drew nearer, Gerard began to recognize her. It was Andrea. She was holding a small flower and card in her hand and simply smiled. The warmth of her smile made him feel loved. As she became recognizable to Gerard, she dropped the card and the flower on the table top, on top of the newspaper article and rushed over, sitting next to his bed. She leaned in very quickly and kissed Gerard on his mouth. And as she pulled back a little, Gerard savored the feeling of her lips on his own. She kissed his forehead. 

“I know you have therapy in a little while. And your interview tonight. I have a break at work. I just wanted to come to say hi.”

Gerard smiled and said, “Andrea, I love your visits! It’s always amazing to see you. But you need to take a break. You’ve been coming every day since I woke up. I love you and of course I want to see you. But I just don’t want to hold you back.”

“Gerard, you would never hold me back. And the fact that you are that conscious of my feelings is why I have been coming. It’s why I am with you. I love you.” 

She interlocked her fingers into his. 

Gerard smiled. “How is school?” 

“School is very stressful. But I am doing everything I have ever dreamed. I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

A confused look grew over his face. He said, “Thank me? For what?”

“For inspiring me to follow my dreams.”

“How did I do that?”

“Every day since you were hurt by that monster, I’ve replayed over and over in my mind what you said to me the day it happened. Not to mention seeing you. And how hard you are working. Has been so inspiring.”

“I know your dad would be so proud, Andrea.” 

“Gerard, I loved my dad. And you’re right. A big part of the reason I have been studying so hard has been in honor of his memory. But he is a memory. A beautiful one and greatly influential on me. I would rather live for what is here. I would rather live for you.”

Gerard was silent. She smiled a loving smile as she darted her glance away and quickly returned her eyes to his. She said, “Well, I should be getting back to my school. But I wrote a letter for you. It’s in the envelope,” she pointed to the table top next to the flower. “I’ll be back to visit you soon. Gerard, I love you.”

“I love you too, Andrea. Thank you.”

She leaned in and kissed him again. She allowed her open hand to brush across his cheek and she whispered into his ear again, a soft ‘I love you’. 

She glanced back over her shoulder as she pulled the door open and then was gone. 

Gerard sat confidently, a sense of completeness, of wholeness coming over him. He smiled and considered the letter on the table. His arms were able to move a little. But for the most part, there was no way he could reach it. His muscles had atrophied to the point where he was unable to move them in their full range of motion. He would eventually regain control. Still, he was confident and loved at that moment. That feeling was enough for him at that moment. He lay for some time until he switched on the television. On the screen flashed into focus a news program. On the screen, was an image of Gerard, standing with some of his friends before everything that had happened to him. The reporter was saying, “We are all looking forward to his first interview since a violent assault left Gerard Auclair comatose. He has since woken and has been working very hard toward his own recovery. We’ve gone to the streets to get some opinions about Gerard and his recent climb to fame. A climb to fame, which hasn’t been too traditional, some might say. Let’s see what some people have to say about him.” The television switched from the reporter at the desk to a different reporter with a microphone on the streets. The reporter ran up to a young couple and asked them if they had heard about Gerard Auclair. “Who hasn’t?” The man said enthusiastically. “We’re really looking forward to hearing him speak tonight. I’ll never forget where I was when that stuff happened to him. He’s doing so well. Good for him. Can’t wait!”

Suddenly, the door pushed aside once again. Through it, entered Genevieve. She came over to his bed and kissed his cheek. “Another day done.” She swiped emphatically at her forehead. “How was your day, Gerard?” 

“Good, mom. Andrea came to visit.”

Genevieve smiled a knowing smile. “Oh, that girl. She has been so supportive of you, Gerard.” 

“I know. She’s really wonderful.”

“Did you know there was not a day during which you spent in that coma when she did not spend at the least an hour at your side?”

“Really?” Gerard pondered this a moment and then remembered her note. He went to move his arm to point to it as he mentioned it. His arm would not respond. He nudged his chin in the direction of the table and Genevieve went and retrieved it. 

Gerard stopped his mother then and asked her how her day was. Genevieve looked at him thoughtfully and sat down in the chair next to him, Andrea’s letter in her hands. “My day was good. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Don’t you want to hear what Andrea has to say?”

Gerard smiled anxiously, in anticipation. She opened the envelope with a pen and withdrew a card. “There’s something else in here.”

“What is it?” Asked Gerard. 

“It looks like a ring.”

“Read the note!”

She began to read. She read it softly: “To my beloved Gerard, 

I really can’t tell you in words how you have affected my life. What I know is that I am in love with you. I want you to remember that, when you read these next lines. I have been accepted into a university overseas.” Genevieve paused. “Under most circumstances, I wouldn’t want to leave you. But I feel that this is something I have to do. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I know this next couple of years, while I am away is going to be difficult for you. I know for a fact that you will keep getting better. I know you will continue doing everything as well as you have been. I want you to know that you are the reason I have found the courage to do this. You, Gerard Auclair, are in possession of my heart. And as a sign that I will return, there’s a ring in this envelope as my commitment to you. This is my way of asking you to marry me. I know it’s not that elaborate. I just want you to understand the pureness of love that I have for you. I’ll come to visit you once more before I go.”

Genevieve laid the note on her lap, gently tearing at her eyes. Gerard was happy.

 

A Chosen Confinement:

Two years had passed. This was Ordell Arrant. His name had become Gerard Auclair. His being had merged with this man’s. The shadow of silence and solitude lingering all the while. Day in and day out, his altered perception of the television programs that echoed across the room became sour. The nurses speeding to and fro and Gerard’s mother caring for him offered him some company but it was a shallow company. 

Aside from occasional walks his mother would take him on, mostly during the time he was comatose, Gerard had not left the confinement of his hospital room in all this time, since his assault. The nurses, doctors and his mother would try desperately, encouraging him to speak with others, to socialize in the communal lunch room. He was truly ashamed of the situation he was in. He felt it to be humiliating to be unable to move. But even then, he reflected, so many of the patients at the hospital he was at were in some awkward and painful circumstance. They could all sympathize with him. Yet, it was directly obvious to him that he no longer had the privilege of doing the things he once took for granted. All Gerard could very well do during these times was to concentrate on his thoughts. And concentrating on his thoughts seemed only to make fester these emotions of extreme persecution from a force unknown to him. He only felt safe in his room. Thought was all he had. In those long durations of time spent quite alone, he would place a mental block on the television and enter into a world of his own. Much of this world was only noise, screeching and unbearable noise. It seemed far more appropriate for Gerard, in these times, to think. Really, it was all he had left.

Gerard was forced to interpret his own personality not once, like the average person but twice. Once in his childhood and again when he was injured. He was forced to understand his life, physically and mentally again. Only the personality he had developed after the injury was not pleasant to other people. But to him, there in that bed, the personality he had developed within himself for the second time in his life was more of a permanent defence mechanism than an individual character.

Genevieve had gone on welfare again about a year before and had fed herself through this means. But because she hadn’t a job, she could not pay for extra care for him. And so it was that Gerard was left without a wheelchair and was stuck with a spare that the nurses and therapists had dug up from the basement of the hospital. They had pulled it out from behind a bunch of trash and other discarded medical equipment and when they found it shouted, ‘Forgot we even had this here’. When Genevieve went to inquire about insurance they might be eligible for with the hospital administrators, they scoffed sadly at her and said, ‘Insurance does not cover what your son went through. But we encourage you to try. Go and ask.’

Genevieve never did ask.

The television was on; the air system above was on and Gerard stared blankly out of the window of his hospital room. He blinked once or twice during the minutes that his mother had left the room. The expanse of a field of golden corn lay outside the window. And he knew, though he had no way of being sure aside from his memory, that on the other side of the hospital, from out those windows, could be seen the drumming city of Charleston, South Carolina. He longed to see it, to see the city and its murky golden fog in the morning and its bright lights at night. He knew, almost as though reading into the future, that he would probably never enter into such a wonder again. But he at least needed to see it. For in seeing such great monuments, testimonies to the capabilities and desire of human kind, he would be assured that some humanity existed beyond these dreadful walls. Gerard would dream of sneaking off one night to go see some of his old friends. Those friends had forgotten about him as far as he was aware. Gerard would dream of living, getting married, going to church, having children, going back to school and of loving people. That life had forgotten about him.

It was in the midst of a train of thought when there was a knock at the door. He heard the muffled speech of someone he had never heard before. Immediately, his heartbeat began to thump. The anxiety pierced him like a poison-tipped arrow, its poison entering, like that anxiety into his circulatory system and spreading to the extremities of his limbs. Another voice was heard then. It said, “Gerard, can we come in?”

“Who is it?” Gerard asked in a trembling though polite voice.

“We’re patients here too,” the voice said, “we just want to see you. Maybe we can be friends.”

Gerard grew a little uncomfortable then as he grunted to acknowledge their entrance. The door sifted aside very carefully, a little too carefully. The heads peering in did not know what to expect. 

And when the door at last swung open, two cheerful heads emerged into Gerard’s field of vision. The first, belonging to a boy who was no older than nineteen, was a round face with slit eyes and jet black hair. The boy was Asian and though it was difficult to tell from looking at him, he suffered a mild case of Cerebral Palsy. This, he would learn from him during their very brief friendship, when they went around in a circle and discussed what brought them to that particular hospital. He was not in a wheelchair but moved about with difficulty. He called himself Alex.

The second head belonged to a very pretty girl and from judging her age, Gerard imagined her as twenty but this girl’s form, her body was twisted into a knot within her little wheelchair. Gerard watched with muffled anxiety as they entered, the girl first, pushed by the boy behind her. A light trail of sepia drool spotted her little chin and her eyes continually swayed about. At first, he thought she was ignoring him when he spoke to her but soon came to recognize that there was something deeper, something more wrong with the girl than would beam across her smiling face. Judging by her outward appearance, he came to the general conclusion that though she was afflicted with an awful bone and muscular condition, she was happy. The way she would smile really lit the room up. She introduced herself as Alison.

They approached his bed, most likely thinking similar thoughts as he at that moment, and came to a rest before the bed. The little deformed girl beamed with some sort of recognition and the boy said, ``We couldn`t resist any longer… What I mean is… we had to come here to see you. You`re like a celebrity!”

Gerard released a loose giggle and said kindly, “Thanks guys. I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you that it’s pretty rough though.”

They both nodded and Gerard watched them easily, doped and care-free. And as they watched him, a little reverently and a little suspiciously, the scars on his lower face and jaw reflected the rays of the sun that entered the windows. Gerard glanced around the room after a strange moment of silence and said pleasantly, “What happened to you guys?”

Alex lifted his foot off of the ground casually from his seat in the chair next to the bed and said, “I have Cerebral Palsy.”

“What does that mean? I’m sorry, I have never heard of the condition.” Gerard asked and allowed his head, drooping in the pillow to face the two, to smile.

Alex shrugged his shoulders and continued, “It’s a condition. You’re born with it, I guess. I guess I could have ended up a lot worse too.”

Gerard turned and looked at Alison then, sitting in her wheelchair.

Alison continued to dart her eyes back and forth, up and down demurely. For a moment, Gerard was not sure whether she had heard the question. He was just about to ask it again when she blurted out, provoked by Gerard’s encouragement, “I have epilepsy. I had my first seizure at thirteen and have been having them ever since.” She smiled a mildly uneven smile and laughed giddily. As if provoked by a profound epiphany, she shouted, “Oh yeah! I also am autistic.”

Alex and Alison looked at each other as though they possessed some sort of knowledge that Gerard did not. And when they finally turned and let their eyes rest on him, they said in unison, “What happened that day… a couple of years ago… what happened to you?”

“I was assaulted. You said you read about it in the news. Did they forget to mention that I was assaulted?”

“Of course not. We were just wondering,” stumbled Alison as she smiled beautifully and bashfully.

Alex interrupted her, “We were just wondering whether or not you did something to provoke it?”

Gerard, in his fragile and drugged mind simply sat there. One effect the drugs did have, however, was to make him very mindful in his lucid state. And so he responded, “I’m sorry to tell you that I did not do a thing aside from collect my pay check that day. Out of curiosity, is there anything I could have done that would have, in any way, justified this happening to me?”

They stared at him a moment, not quite understanding what he had said. Gerard watched them watching him and said out of necessity, “Why do you ask if I did something to provoke it?”

They looked at each other again and continued their inside joke while Gerard was beginning to become a little irritated. 

Gerard spoke a little louder then, “Why did you ask that?”

Alison cowered and Alex sat calmly, reassured by Gerard’s paralysis when Alex muttered, “Well, now we know you have a bit of a temper on you. Everything is starting to make sense.”

They watched one another again and then Alison smiled politely at Gerard, keeping her eye contact steady. “It’s alright, Gerard.” Her smile continued as she said this and then she extended a shaky wrist in a welcoming manner and said, “Why haven’t we seen you at the lunch room for meals?”

Gerard shook his head, “I’m uncomfortable around people,” he said.

“You seem alright with us,” Alex smiled.

Alison said, “Why don’t you come and have lunch with us?”

Gerard shuddered inwardly then. He could not manage the thought of being around others. It could have been anything to him, the reason for his fear of people. It could have been his long time spent in isolation or it could have been the fact that he was paralyzed and his shame regarding that. What he did not consider was that his fear of people stemmed from the assault. The assault grew into isolation and the isolation into an assault of his own senses against himself. The memories of what did happen stemmed into a long string of memories, all very fictitious and made up in his mind, of the possibilities of what could happen. This vicious cycle of cause and effect would grow until everything was magnified. Everything was magnified, including his isolation, anxiety around people, his paranoia and the degradation he experienced as a result of being inactive. Everything was magnified except a few vital components to the sanity of any individual. Gerard was desperate in his need of safety and though much of what he perceived as threat was not threat, he still perceived it no matter how hard he tried to counter the thoughts. He possessed neither love, for himself nor from anyone else save his kind mother and he viewed most of them as hostile.

“It’s not you guys I’m worried about,” Gerard said as he contemplated the ersatz sincerity he thought these two displayed.

Alison smiled again her curved smile as Alex shrugged him off as though nothing had passed. Gerard thought for a moment on how a kid in such a sensitive state of physical well-being, could act so tough. Alex said, “What do you mean? What is it you’re worried about?”

“To be honest, there is nothing I want more than to socialize. I know that a whole world exists on the outside of this building. But it’s that very same thought that scares me to death. It’s unbearable.”

Alison said in a vibrating voice, “It’s not so unbearable if you give it a shot. That whole world is waiting for you.”

Gerard lifted his head off of the pillow and looked at his lifeless body. He shook his head then. He drew his breath, deep within his lungs and said then, “It’s impossible to conform to this smug and happy society when your body is broken, when you are always in pain, always feeling extreme anxiety and having paranoid delusions.”

They nodded and Alex sunk his head into his chest, questioningly. Gerard continued, “You sacrifice personal relationships for your own solitude, just in knowing that you aren’t living in torture. You sacrifice being friendly to people not out of choice, but out of necessity.”

Alex glanced up and asked, “What necessity?”

Gerard said, “The fact is that either you are in so much pain or that you just are trying to avoid people at all costs. The most unfortunate part about this is that my peer group doesn’t understand because they are too young to know any pain and therefore deny the possibility of its existence in others.”

Alex and Alison both grunted with surprise then and looked at him closely but for different reasons. Alex’s awestruck attitude toward Gerard had been dying since he entered the room. But Alison stared at Gerard with sincere sympathy and fear for Gerard. “Do you actually think that we, here in this hospital, don’t know pain?”

Gerard smiled complacently, caught up in his train of thought. He was happy to have anyone to speak to about the feelings in his mind. “I don’t doubt that you have pain. But it’s a different sort of pain. The emotional toll that violence has on the individual’s spirit and soul is awful. I don’t have to say much about the physical effects of crime here,” here he signalled with his head at his body sunk below him. “Just look at me.”

Alison struggled with Gerard and her thoughts for a moment. She said, “Sometimes, you just have to make the best of situations. It’s the only way you can survive. Look at us. We are pretty messed up. But we are happy. We’re genuinely happy.”

Alex was growing angry and said, “Let’s just leave him in his pity, Alison. He doesn’t even know what you’re talking about.” 

Gerard said, “Does it not strike you as possible that sometimes an individual is too troubled, has too many issues to develop friendships or relationships?”

And they left him to his solitude. As they were leaving, Gerard thought to himself with scorn while verbalizing his thought with a mutter beneath his breath, would you have done any different? Step into my world before you judge me. A world of agony, of re-victimization after an awful victimization. A world of constant fear and doubt.

Gerard continued to think well after the two had left. He thought about his ravenous anxiety. He would come to say that anxiety after trauma is different than the ordinary anxiety experienced by someone with sound mind. Anxiety for the average person has the ability to be controlled through medication or through enormous self-will. On the contrary, anxiety following trauma is a devilish business, it is uncontrollable and exists as its own being. There is little possibility of controlling anxiety after trauma. But then again, Gerard’s situation was unique and the trauma thrust upon him, severe. All trauma is different. Generally, the victim of bullying will find it easier than will someone like Gerard. Just like a scrape on the flesh cannot be compared to the prolonged and exposed trauma that he had to experience.

 

A Familiar Memory:

For the past three years, Gerard Auclair had lost his faith. Three years had passed. The God that he was brought up to believe in so strongly had forsaken him. He had lost almost everything that his salvation had ever hoped for. Everything that he knew and believed in seemed to die with the death of his body. The knowledge he had learned in school was lost in a samsara of thought that enveloped his being. The love he once felt and assurance of a free, uninhibited future, for the belief that a future existed, rest only in the deadness of his lower body. For the past three years, Gerard’s mother had cared for him, quit her job to move into the hospital and collected welfare to pay for her groceries. What sort of existence was this? Having experienced independence, he did not want to return to become dependent. ‘Thank God,’ Genevieve would say,’ that our inheritance from your father would cover the hospital expenses, for now at least’. Then, she would say, ‘Thank God he’s not alive to witness this. It would have killed him.’

For the past years, Gerard has lived in isolation; suffice the visits from the doctors and nurses and, of course, his mother. Not once did he join the other patients at the hospital to socialize in the common room. What he had was the love of his mother, his television and his calendar. He dreaded what may lay on the other side of the hospital door. Even within the umbilical embrace that were the walls of his room, he thought that the few people he did come in contact with were definitely trying to kill him. 

He hated the thought of subjecting himself to even worse torture on the outside. The closest he got was to the edge of the door, during the hustle of a busy day, being pushed in a wheelchair by his mother, when Gerard experienced such a delusionary nightmare that he screamed for her to stop. 

It was a dissociative flashback. A living dream world within a world where he relived the assault that put him there. He began to feel such awful and despairing resentment and hostility against this man who sentenced him to this personal prison. That man could have really no idea of what real pain was like. Gerard wanted revenge but, in reality, he knew he could never exact it.

He is Gerard Auclair. He is twenty-four years old. He is an emotional and physical disaster.

There now, summoning every last ounce of bleeding courage in his veins, Genevieve guided Gerard in the tawdry, old wheelchair through the ancient halls of the hospital. You could count on a handful of fingers the number of times that Gerard had left his room. They were going to the hospital’s Sunday mass. Gerard had asked her earlier in the day to take him. Despite his agonizing anxiety and stifling emotions, he figured that everything else had failed in his attempts to ease the emotional trauma that he may as well try to turn back to God. He felt badly for turning his back on God, though he knew that He probably did not care much about him. Gerard desired, more than any material thing, emotional peace. He would happily sacrifice his physical well-being only to be able to think clearly. Yet here he was, sacrificing his physical well-being and for the gain of emotional distress. 

As Genevieve pushed him slowly through the halls, Gerard gazed heavily into the doors that were open. Words cannot begin to reflect the pain seen, for this pain is appropriate to be euphemized for the reader’s benefit. This sort of pain is never seen by the average person. And when you do see it, it changes you forever.

 Gerard would reflect on this pain and misery of this hospital for the rest of his life. Most, when they think of a hospital, they think of miracles – they see the places only as a place, much like an airport or a courtroom. A hospital is the worst kind of prison for those with whom are not greeted by miracles. For all Gerard could see, first hand, was terror and pain that very few on the outside world will ever experience. 

Then, as he was rolled patiently down the lower level, left wing hall of this hospital, a parent of one of the patients passed him. He could judge only that it was a parent based on their clothing. It could have been a nurse or a doctor. As they passed, Gerard experienced, only much stronger this time, another flashback. He tried his hardest to suppress it, to escape the world in which he had temporarily been thrust into. Gerard must have been twitching for the person passing by glanced nervously at him and then looked at Genevieve behind him.

Something within him flared then as he became quite upset. Gerard could not explain it to himself. He could not explain why he had grown so upset or where the feelings were coming from. The simple fact that, here, in a hospital, where people are supposed to be the most sympathetic, he was experiencing these urges and emotions, didn’t make sense. It still bothered him that the parent had given him the strange look. 

Then another passed. It was a nurse this time. And though she smiled politely at Genevieve and him in the wheelchair as she passed, it was like he had expected her to grimace or to frown. Gerard felt these confusing, angry urges. 

His body was dumb and his mind an eternal ocean of intrusive thoughts and bad memories as they entered the church then. Gerard saw the priest at the back of the room and other people with horrible afflictions strewn across the room.            

The benches, set up side by side in two lines down the room, were made useless for the patients. Most of them were wheelchair bound. Gerard, in a sort of morose way, began to understand or to justify why he had avoided socializing with these people. A good portion of them did not know what they were talking about. Others were so twisted and deformed that if he were to try to speak with them, he would have certainly started to cry. The effect of isolation on the individual is awfully cold. 

The church service progressed slowly and as it did, one of the adult patients, Gerard noticed, was looking at him. Gerard tried so hard to focus his concentration on the priest, his words. But still this patient stared at him with his heavily-browed eyes. Gerard could feel the hate and longing for revenge within growing as this man stared at him. It was completely irrational and though Gerard could definitely recognize that the feelings were irrational, still they came. They would grow stronger with each attempt he made to placate them. The feelings he was experiencing were unrelated to the fact that this guy stared at him. For Gerard well knew that he probably only did not know better. The feelings were in some way associated to the assault and feelings of hatred for a world. This man most likely recognized Gerard also from the media and though he was not sure of his intent, Gerard judged that he was probably resentful of his media coverage.

The anger within him collected quickly. It would rise and then calm, rise and calm like the water on a beach. It was then that Gerard recollected his consciousness and unwillingly concentrated his subconscious thought on what the priest was saying. 

The priest said, “Only through God can you find salvation. Only through God and His Son, Jesus Christ will all the pain in the world make sense. He is the path to your hope, the path to your life and indeed, the path to your eternal salvation.”

As the priest finished saying these words, Gerard broke down. He sobbed and wept in a way he never knew he was capable of. The emotional state he was in had finally crested. As Gerard bawled, the emotions poured through him. One second, Gerard would experience rage. He would yell at the priest, he would yell at the guy who was still staring at him. The next second, Gerard was in anguish and crying his eyes out. He was despondent about his fate. It was as though he were seeing into his hopeless future. After trauma as a result of extreme violence, Gerard would come to tell, one loses their common sense. More than that, the fight or flight reflex is irreparably damaged. 

Gerard apologized profusely and through deep and sobs, imploring the priest, God and all else present to forgive him. The thought of God, of Jesus invoked such powerful feelings within him. In knowing that his only hope in recovering, in this world or the next, relied solely upon the faith, that faith was growing so strong in him there.

On the way back to his room – for his mother had rushed him out, not knowing what was happening either – he saw a doctor approaching. The doctor grimaced softly but kept his face forward, his eyes averted from the scene that was passing him. With nothing on his mind but the fact that the doctor did not look at him, that he had noticed his grimace, Gerard shouted out then, “Why are you persecuting me?” He yelled it at the top of his lungs. After that, people’s impressions of him changed. For one thing, they grew frightened of him and even dreaded passing him in the halls of the hospital. They would struggle at length to manoeuvre over to the other side of the hallway when they saw him coming. This bothered him greatly and only served to feed his misplaced hostility. The truth is that Gerard was entirely unable to discern between expressions, gestures and looks that people would give. He was unable to distinguish malevolent from friendly, whether or not they meant him harm. And because of that and to be safe, Gerard interpreted people as all hostile. Even to the point of believing people wanted to kill him, he thought. And thus developed an awful cyclical pattern of spite and hostility, of seclusion and isolation for him.

He would come to tell that he never really understood how almost no one could understand the fact that he was suffering. It was almost as though they took it as a personal insult. Gerard says that he never really understood a lot of people. Like how after being thrust into the media, at such a young age and because of a terrible tragedy, they almost thought it their right to invade on his privacy. Had he not been in the media, had there not been such a thrilling sensation regarding Gerard’s case, but mostly around the guy who had put him in this situation, his trial and his psychological well-being, he wondered if people’s opinions would have changed about the way he behaved. He wondered if they just would have turned their cheek and imagined him a madman. But no. They took it as a violation of their space. Almost everything about Gerard, down to the fact that he was present, they took as a tremendous offence against themselves. 

At times, Gerard would believe that people were talking about him throughout the hospital. It came in various forms. Such is the plight of the human race. The common person, who has not experienced trauma, would stoop so far as to make their lives a waiting game for the off chance that some manipulative details about some popular person would surface so that they can run off to their next door neighbour to spread their gossip. They spread it with a hot, serpent’s tongue and with such bile. It made Gerard sick. He didn’t understand the society in which he was expected to conform after such violence. Most of all, Gerard did not think he could accept this society’s lack of understanding and willingness to slander the victim of violence. Is it so hard to believe that people, who have gone through such a traumatic event in their lives, will continue to suffer on a great many levels? It was almost as though they fed on it. As if they saw him, having definite trouble breathing even, shouting, shouting at nothing in particular, mostly at himself, the hate that he had held within himself since the assault, and smile in knowing that he suffered. But still, they did not see that he suffered! If only they did! They see the fact that he shouted and cowered and watched the ground as he rolled past them as an insult. They saw him as a misfit, a trouble-maker and worst of all, they saw his recent behavior as somehow justification for the assault that had happened to him. Gerard’s life had been very much oriented, for the past three years, on trying with all his heart and soul to find a gentle sign of life in this cruel culture. He had searched with futility the places where he inhabited for a kindness unseen to him. 

We entreat you to see this!

Genevieve took him back to his room where he continued to cry. She was trying to console him but he could not be consoled, no matter how badly he felt about this outburst. All the pent up anger and emotionally filled buckets within him that had collected during his years of isolation, had finally been released. And how he prayed for God to forgive him. At the same time, he prayed for God to take his life. He wanted nothing more than an end to the life he was living. He never wanted something like that to happen in church. More than anything, Gerard hated the man who had subjected him to this torture. It was definitely worse than any sort of punishment that he would be forced to undergo, the pain Gerard felt. Gerard Auclair had come to resent the remorseless, villainous blackguard who had subjected him to this awful prison… Ordell Arrant. 

 

Environment:

It was not until four years had passed, until he had summoned the courage he needed to confront his fears and go out into the world that he realized that something was wrong. For Gerard, the thing that scared him most was not the fact that the remainder of his life would be spent paralyzed – it was not the things he had awoken one morning and lost – it was the ever lingering fact that he would eventually have to face these fears. What petrified him was not the absence of sex and love that would have otherwise played a very important role in his life; it was confronting people with whom he would never be able to love. It was not the fact that he would live in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, it was the fact that he would be seen in such a distinctly fragile state. 

Gerard was a man – but even more – he was a human being. Gerard would come to describe the hardest part of his journey, not as the initial trauma or injury, or dealing with being paralyzed. Gerard would describe the hardest part as the reintegration. A reintegration into a world where everyone seemed to expect you to smile, to play a part and to play according to its rules. 

A reintegration where the hardest part was trying – and trying so desperately hard – to overcome the coldness and indifference of a society that seems to prey on its weak and ignore those who suffer.

Insurance neither included the psychological rehabilitation of Gerard after his trauma. Insurance was not a guarantee. For those suffering from the effects of violence, there is no insurance. Neither is there assurance. Genevieve had struggled countless hours with the broker, researching and sweating tears. She had called the broker numerous times with her new discoveries of what may apply to the injury of her son. Regardless, these epiphanies that Gerard’s mother had regarding potential avenues through which funding could have possibly been made, were denied vehemently by the boards. Seeing this, in a sense as further victimization, the Auclair family struggled endlessly with the grief they were left to suffer all alone. It was like no one really cared about their family. She could not help but dreaming of the far off and more pleasant world that would have unfolded had her son been in a car accident. Morbid though the thought was.

Eventually coming to a realization that she would receive no funding, Genevieve sought other alternatives to this dilemma. Asking around in the hospital at which they stayed, a psychologist there was willing, out of the kindness of her heart, to help her son, free of charge. Genevieve would come to learn through word of mouth in the halls that she had excellent credentials. The only problem was that she had very little experience and training with working with trauma survivors and victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

When Genevieve went to see her – as a preliminary for Gerard’s treatment – she was very pleased by what she saw. The woman who sat opposite a maple desk, tabled with a glass tray, smiled pleasantly at Genevieve who sunk her head into her neck every time that the psychologist smiled. She seemed very direct and confident that she could help her son. She would turn her head with a passing gesture of her hand when Genevieve would emphasize the trials her son was forced to endure in past. 

“Leave that to me,” she would say firmly.

Genevieve nodded pleasantly, gently encouraged by the psychologist.

And later, when she returned to the room, she told Gerard the news that his therapy would begin the next Monday. In a morbid seriousness, it was the only thing that Gerard had shown any sign of excitement for since his assault. And that bothered his mother to a degree. News of emotional treatment promised Gerard a new life, even though he was physically unable, he would at least regain some of his thoughts for the future, composure while eradicating these dreadful thoughts of hostility.

Monday fast approached and along with the day, equally did Gerard’s anticipation fast increase. It was the morning of his appointment. Gerard lay in contemplation as he looked out of the open window. It was August then. The rays of sunlight entered the window on a slant because the sun was not facing that side of the hospital. Still, the vibrant colors of the corn field and brushes throughout it shone as passionately as the sun stroke the fields. The willow trees were in full bloom with their leaves hanging solemnly across the window. Gerard had grown quite fond of his friends, the willow trees. 

A small path coiled in between the field on which was set up a vendor. The vendor was selling corn and other fruits and vegetables. Further off in the field, eager patrons were bent over in the dirt, collecting strawberries or raspberries. Gerard watched with a longing envy. Customers moved swiftly through the ripe stalks of corn and ran quickly and with excitement towards the vendor’s booth. A couple, young and passionate, holding hands, ran with the group and stopped before the hut. Then, even at such a distance as was discernible, they faced each other and kissed one another on the lips. The kiss seemed to last for an hour as Gerard crowed his head in and out of his pillow. 

Subsequently, the patient in the room across from Gerard’s began to howl again. The incessant shrieks of agony that filled the room for all hours of the night had grown then to omit a solemn grace period of interlude. That is to say that it no longer cried out as much in the morning and the cries had grown softer in the earlier moments of its tragic symphony. It then, in the afternoon and evening and night, only encompassed the pain directly and without any conscience towards the neighbouring victims. The noise was dreadful; it was awful as it was horrible. The blood-curdling bubble would now start off until it would give birth to a sense unknown of this earth. It became the frightening howl of a demon from hell. Gerard still kept respectfully quiet in knowing that the degree of pain it must be feeling was unmatched in the hospital. 

Until like a miracle, the nurse arrived at his door to take him to his counselling session. It was at that moment that Gerard’s dissipating hope grew steady once more and allowed him to smile briefly. He even smiled at the phantom menace that was the figure in agony behind the adjacent wall. He continued to smile as the nurse struggled to get her hands under his back and get into position, the tarp hoist blanket. 

She lifted him up and let him slip gently within his positioned wheelchair. And as he was rolled down the hall, the startling scream followed them. He turned his head slowly and as if contemplating the sincerity of what he was about to ask, he asked it anyway. He genuinely did not know whether he asked out of care or of spite. He said to the nurse behind him, “That person, in the room next to mine. What is wrong with her?”

The nurse smiled over the back of the wheelchair and said, “She has meningitis. She is in a lot of pain. You probably already know that.”

Gerard thought a moment over the meaning of what she had just said and asked, “What is her name?”

She said, “Her name is Julia.”

 

Determination:

“Let me try to walk,” Gerard was saying. The nurse present glanced from the motionless bed toward his mother, sitting in the chair next to the bed. “Let me try. I have to know for certain that I can’t.”

Genevieve smiled a warm smile at her son’s turned head. “You know that you can’t Gerard.”

“I have to try.”

Genevieve looked up at the nurse and noticed that she had the beginnings of tears in her eyes. Genevieve whispered, “I know you want to darling. It’s something that you absolutely cannot do any more. We have to accept that.” 

Gerard still insisted. He turned his head and looked out of the window. It had grown dark. He seemed unable to accept this fate just as anyone would willingly acquiesce to the shellfire of a war torn home country. The fact that he could only move his head and neck was not enough for him. The fact that his muscles were rigid and torn with atrophy mattered not to him. He could not see the atrophy for one thing. And for another, he thought that if he could only get the chance, the opportunity, he would astound everyone. He prayed that his situation was not real. That they had made some disastrous mistake in their diagnosis of his injury. He knew then that if he was given the chance, he could break free of the paralysis. 

Genevieve looked again at the nurse and nodded to her in a comforting way. At that moment, the nurse left the room. It was either out of sadness or fear that she ran out so quickly. She returned some time later with a doctor at her side. The doctor tried to convince him that he was unable to do what he then, more than anything, desired to do. They plead with him to submit to his fate. That was how Gerard saw their pleas. In reality, they only begged him to accept what was a fact. 

The doctor eventually consented, allowing him an opportunity he would not have gotten any other time. Under supervision, Gerard was going to be able to go down to the therapy unit to attempt the parallel bars. Gerard had not seen the therapy unit of that hospital. There seemed little need for it for Gerard. It was futile. Just a dream in his mind. Or so they said. 

He thought occasionally that they just left him alone – to deal with his injury alone – so that they could free up the therapists for other patients who mattered more.

The next day, he was being pushed down the hall towards the small gym in Charleston Centre for Long Term Care. All the while, Gerard was smiling. He was smiling because he would have been freed from the prison his body had held over him for years passed. He focussed all of his attention, on the trip down to the gym, on trying to move his legs in his wheelchair. For a moment, he thought he was successful in moving them about on the footpads of the chair. But then there would come a point of extreme exhaustion. 

The doctor followed by Genevieve pushed him into the room. And as they were rounding the corner of the door, Gerard saw a young woman emerging from another room at the back of the gym. At the other side of the room, a child started to cry. Gerard turned in the direction of the sobs and noticed that it was a young boy. It was most likely, the son of some patient at the hospital. 

The woman approached them quickly and smiled. She introduced herself as Tabitha. She opened her mouth and Gerard could see the full set of her front teeth as she smiled. The crying of the child off yonder in the gym died down.

“So, I understand that you want to try to walk,” said Tabitha encouragingly.

“More than anything,” Gerard smiled at her. 

“You understand that you won’t be able to at first but with a lot of work, you might regain some use of your muscles.” Gerard paid no attention to her. He was so convinced that he could do it. It was a feeling as sure as that the sun would rise every morning. He absolutely had no doubt in his mind that when presented with the opportunity and challenge, he could accomplish this. It mattered little to him that he was unable to move in the wheelchair. He thought that only if he were given the chance, something within him would triumph. 

The doctor glanced at Tabitha in a manner of jest and said, “I have already told him.”

Genevieve did not doubt her son’s conviction but did doubt the possibility of the situation that presented itself as transpiring the way her son wanted it to. She worried about the effect that the inevitable failure would have on him. And she worried that he would hurt himself. But she had to let him do what he needed to do otherwise she would have hurt his dignity and destroy his optimism.

He was pushed in front of a set of parallel bars. And collecting all of his strength, he focused on his task. They all watched him closely. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not move a muscle. He remembered the night before, in his bed, when he definitely thought he could feel his muscles inching off the mattress. But then, not a thing happened for him. And as they continued to watch, he only sat there with a look of panic, yet of sheer determination across his face. The wrinkles in his forehead stressed and the deep, fading scars on his jaw became infuriated with color. His eyes bulged and his breathing increased. But nothing happened. He thought, after realizing that his legs would not move that he would try his arms and hold himself up with them. Nothing happened. In utter humiliation, Gerard sank into his chair. 

Genevieve, seeing this, went to move toward him. But the therapist held her back. Tabitha said then, “Do you want to stop Gerard?”

A thought came to him then. If only he could start from a standing position, he may be more able to get his muscles to respond. He thought that it would serve as a sort of kick start and the innate memory of his leg muscles would return. 

“Help me up,” Gerard said in an exhausted voice.

“I don’t understand,” said Tabitha.

The doctor encouraged her. He said, “Just do it. Let’s see what happens.”

Tabitha moved forward with Genevieve following her. They both, although knowing quite well what to expect, knew that it was something he had to learn on his own. Genevieve walked around him and laid her hands on his shoulders. And though he could not feel her touching him, it was assuring for him to know that she was there. 

Tabitha anchored her feet between Gerard’s legs on the foot rests of his wheelchair then and braced her arms around his torso. She pulled with her legs and succeeded in getting him off of the seat. Gerard’s limbs were dangling below the weight that held him. He still seemed to think that he could do it. Tabitha’s look of determination, the strain in her face, the creasing of her wrinkles matched Gerard’s own then. 

Just like that, Gerard was then in the air, standing and though not quite standing of his own accord. But though he could not feel his legs, he imagined in his mind the memory of what it was like to stand. And those feelings were again replicated for him as he hung off of Tabitha’s weight. So sure of the fact that he was actually standing on his own, so sure of himself and the memory of being able to stand that he shouted then, “Let me go!” He did not notice the sheer burden that his own weight was on Tabitha’s.

Under that stress, Tabitha twisted herself and glanced at the doctor. He nodded softly. The look of deep hurt cut across his face. But still, he nodded.

So Tabitha released him. And he fell like a ragdoll to the floor of the parallel bars. Tabitha managed to ease his fall by quickly curling her wrists around his arms. Genevieve rushed over and comforted him as the doctor shook his head with that same softness of hurt with which he had nodded before. Gerard wept then. On his stomach, his damaged limbs stretched out below his torso. The arms pulled in what appeared to be painful positions. The legs strung out, dead across the floor behind him. Genevieve quickly maneuvered to release his arms from the strain of the position they were in. Then it dawned on her that he could not feel them anyway. 

The doctor moved across the floor and helped Tammy to place him gently back into his wheelchair. The child at the other side of the room started to howl again.

 

A Glimpse of Reality Part III:

Another knock at the door. Before the door had opened, the voice of Tabitha entered the room. “Gerard?” She said playfully. 

Gerard answered in a playful manner as well: “Ahh, Tabitha! Do I really have to do physio today?”

She pushed the door aside fully. Genevieve greeted Tabitha with a nod and stood back to allow her to do what she needed with him. Tabitha smirked at Gerard and approached him quickly. “We’re going to try something new today.”

“What is it?” Gerard asked. 

“I can’t tell you that until we get to the gym!”

Gerard smiled. A nurse entered the room and helped Tabitha to get him from the bed to his chair.

Gerard was wearing Andrea’s ring that she had gotten for him. Gerard was lowered into his chair as he indicated toward his hand with his eyes. Tabitha looked down and smiled warmly and giggled. “Ohh’. Somebody has a girlfriend. There go my chances.”  

Gerard smiled and looked up at her as she moved around to the back of the wheelchair. Looking down, Gerard could see the tiles on the floor of the room as they began to blend into one another.

Tabitha brought him to the gym where there was a team of physiotherapists waiting for him. When he was pushed into the room, the physiotherapists rose and moved toward him. Tabitha introduced them and she came around the wheelchair to face him. Kneeling down, she smiled and said, “Gerard, we are going to try to walk today.” 

Gerard was shocked. Up to this point, he could only move his legs a tiny bit. He doubted whether he would be able to accomplish what they were considering for him. But he felt very emboldened by the love of Andrea, which gave him a whole new source of strength. He darted his eyes back and forth and said boldly, “I’m ready.” 

Tabitha smiled and said, “Since this is the first time we are trying this, I don’t want you to be upset if you are not able. Do you think this is a good idea?”

Gerard kept his head high and smiled. 

Tabitha said, “Gerard, we want to get an idea as to how your body responds under the stress of muscle memory. Maybe this might spark something for you.”

Gerard seemed not to be listening but instead psychologically preparing himself. As if he were preparing himself for a boxing match or sports match. He said simply, “I am ready.”

Tabitha nodded to the other physiotherapists there and pushed him a bit further into the room so that his chair was in front of a set of parallel bars. 

Tabitha approached him and stood in front of him. She placed her feet under the chair and told Gerard to try to move his feet as much as he was able. The other therapists approached from behind. One held his shoulder and the other, his chair. She nodded to Gerard as she backed her head away a bit. She said, “Are you ready?” 

Gerard smiled. 

He was lifted out of his chair then. He started laughing hysterically then. It was an impulsive reaction. He fell back into the chair. Tabitha asked him if he was alright. 

“I’m fine!” He said proudly. “It just feels so good to be close to standing. Out of the chair.”

“We’re going to keep going. I know it’s exciting. Try to concentrate.”

Again, he was lifted into the air. Once he was upright, Tabitha went to release him. She did this slowly and kept her hands close by. For close to a second, he felt like he was standing of his own accord. His muscles collapsed then. Tabitha seeing this, reached out and helped him regain his strength. She grabbed his hand and guided it toward the railing of the parallel bars. He was able, with some deliberation to clench the bar. She guided his other hand toward the other side of the bars. Then with both hands clutching the bars for dear life, he looked up at her. She smiled. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It gripped his shoulder reassuringly. 

Tabitha knelt down in front of his legs. “Okay, Gerard. Focus. I want you to move your left foot toward me.”

Gerard concentrated. A bead of sweat fell from his brow and landed in front of his feet. Tabitha didn’t notice. “My hands are starting to hurt,” he said.

Tabitha looked up to him questioningly. “Your hands? Why are your hands starting to hurt?” 

He released a huff of exasperation and said, “I’m holding on so tightly.” Tabitha laughed gently and encouraged him to focus. 

He started to feel some tingling sensation in his hip as he felt himself trying to lift his leg at the waist. It was like a subtle burning sensation that grew each time he put his mind to moving his leg. Suddenly, he couldn’t feel anything in his lower half. He was so tired. But he was still standing. 

Tabitha started to shout with determination, “You’re doing it! You’re doing it! Keep moving. Come on, focus!” 

Gerard started to cry. Tabitha saw this and encouraged him. “You’re doing so well, Gerard. You can do this.” 

Gerard regained his feeling. He focussed on his arm then, which he moved a little bit along the bar. Then, he focussed on his feet, moving them a little bit. Tabitha had stood and was about a metre away from him, encouraging him. He struggled to look behind him a little and noticed that the other therapists had let him go. He was walking. He was walking on his own! He felt so great. He continued to move along the bars until he came to the end of them. 

Tabitha started to cry. She reached out and hugged him then. He couldn’t release his arms from the bars, otherwise he would fall. He lowered his chin into her neck and started to cry too. From behind him, the soft and gradual growing of applause as the therapists and other patients in the room were all amazed. Tabitha guided him back into his chair. He collapsed the moment he felt it beneath him, exhausted.

 

A Turbulent Conversation:

The hospital administrative offices were in a wing foreign to Gerard. He was unfamiliar with the setting, the air, which smelled unbelievably fresh, and the people. It was like landing far off on a new planet. The people in that wing seemed better than Gerard and his fellows on his side of the hospital. He felt a little anger then. It was not that he resented the fact that they were better off physically than him. It was more the fact that he was so badly injured and the contrast within that same building, of hurt and recovering people who had an element of hope in their recovery, that somewhat disturbed him. 

The office in which Gerard’s wheelchair then rested was one of the larger rooms of the building. It was big enough to allot for seven cubicles, each larger in part than every individual hospital room. But they weren’t in there for long. As soon as the nurse spotted the psychologist who was pacing across the carpeted floor, they turned and left the room again. There were no introductions. Perhaps the woman did not think that Gerard had the ability to speak. Otherwise, perhaps there was some underlying reason why she acted that way. Gerard thought a moment. And in his ill mind, he came to the somewhat paranoid – though not far off from the truth – explanation that maybe she just felt entitled, like she was doing Gerard some massive favour. And indeed, she was in fact doing him a great favour. His mother had explained that much. Even graver still, maybe it was only the stigma of Gerard’s being a victim of violence that had caused her, in addition to her helpfulness, to act so shamelessly.

Regardless, Gerard knew well enough to keep his mouth shut. He was watching the divisions in the tiles fly by as they pushed him along when the psychologist said finally, “It is a nice day, wouldn’t you agree Gerard?” The statement caught him somewhat off guard. First, because that was the very first thing she had said to him. Second, because he simply was not paying attention. Otherwise, if it had have been his mother or someone else pushing him, and on any other day, Gerard would have been fused with not only anger but the worst kind of anxiety and paranoia as he passed the people in the hospital. But, that day was his day. That day was the first day of the rest of his life. He was just caught up in the euphoria that was the knowing that he had taken, finally, a proactive step in his recovery.

Gerard looked up, over his shoulder and nodded, squealing a ‘yes’. There was a gentle smile across his face and the scars on his jaw gleamed and stretched. Comforted by this sign of affirmation, the psychologist grinned, looked over at the nurse and turned her head away from the wheelchair. “I knew it wasn’t as bad as they said,” she was heard saying.

They entered another wing of the hospital then. And though Gerard had not physically been in the wing, he knew what it represented. He had heard horror stories from both his mother and his nurses – who thought he was sleeping when they spoke – about the wing. It was Unit 36 and its notoriety spread to every reach of the hospital. The wing was the severe asphyxia unit and in it were countless horrors that amounted to nothing but living death. The heart beats that pumped deep within the patients of that ward pumped at a slower rate than elsewhere. There was one patient on the wing, his mother had told him who had accidentally hung himself and had been officially pronounced brain dead at the time the ambulance arrived. Gerard’s questions as to how the man hung himself went unanswered with an air of hesitation. So, they resuscitated this man. But to what? What was he living for? To hear the story was awful enough. But to actually witness, firsthand, the effects that the sort of thing can have on a living and breathing human beings was devastating:

The speed of Gerard’s wheelchair slowed as the psychologist chatted with the nurse in front of her office. She spoke with her back turned while she fumbled with her keys in the door of the office. It was then that Gerard realized that one of the doors of the unit was slightly ajar. It was open enough for him to get a clean look inside. He saw, as his vision ascended the room from the floor, a picked, yellow rose withering on the tiled floor. And next he saw the frame of a family photo resting on a bedside table. Then he turned his head a little and saw that the television there was on as well. On the television was playing a nineteen-fifties cartoon. Gerard watched as the characters walloped each other and then ran about a lot, their figures gyrating heavily. Shifting his vision once more, Gerard then saw the foot of a hospital bed. It was occupied. He could tell that by the presence of twisted feet at the end of the bed. Gerard’s vision rose steadily and naturally until he saw the full figure of the creature within the bed. It was disfigured beyond all possible belief. Words could not describe the sight. The legs were misshaped and deformed into little balls below his pelvis and his torso, seemingly the only amount of mass in the boy’s body gave on to little balls of arms. The head was also disproportional to the rest of the mass. It was larger than a usual head and its little mouth and nose gasped for breath every twenty seconds or so. It would surge as if shocked by anxiety and suck back at the air at these moments. The eyes were bulges and the brow deep. Gerard thought very hard at that moment that this boy was a human being. Chances were that this boy was not always like that. He had a mother and a father. And God knows what else before he was subjected to that torture. Gerard was beginning to see that maybe he was in fact very lucky.

As if in trance, Gerard then became aware of a light tugging again, that sensation of being pulled or pushed somewhere. He awoke from his dissociative state and realized what was happening. He was being pushed into the office of the psychologist. And entering her office, a small closet of a room, with dusty, brown carpet, she sat across from him on a swivel chair. She introduced herself as Linda, not even looking at him. Her back was to the desk when she said, “How are you feeling, Gerard?” There was a slight pause before she said his name.

“Pretty badly,” Gerard sniffed.

“What’s wrong?” Linda asked patiently with a turn of her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Alright,” she spoke quietly, “let’s start off with feelings. What sort of emotions and feelings are you experiencing – have you been experiencing since the assault?”

“Bad ones. And pretty badly.”

“And what do those feelings make you want to do?” She asked.

“If you’re asking if I have thought about suicide before, of course. I don’t think that there is one victim of trauma that hasn’t. It makes me want to hurt myself.” 

She turned her head softly and muttered, “I see.”

Gerard turned to face her and gave her an abject look. He was struggling to understand the de-familiarization of this woman who was supposed to have been trained in psychology, to suffering.

She continued, “What does?”

Gerard stumbled and then looked up at her, “Hmm?”

Linda said, “What makes you want to hurt yourself?”

He sat quietly for a moment and licked his lips quickly. “What is the point of explaining yourself, of asking for help when you genuinely do not have a clue what is going on inside your own head? What’s the point of talking about the ocean of shame and awful emotion when you can’t express it properly? I had a vision a couple of nights ago – actually right after I heard about our meeting being scheduled.”

Linda gazed at him, more at the wall behind his head as she struggled to comprehend his thought. She nodded to encourage him to recount his vision.

Gerard continued, “You see everything with an extreme cynicism. A cynicism where absolutely everything, at a glance, exists only to condemn you. A cynicism where everything that can go – not only wrong – but horrifically wrong, will. You sit back and go with the flow, continuously repeating events in your life with an utter contempt; not knowing at the time that you’re living in an eternal recurrence but when you can discern a hint that that event may have happened already you are so filled with despair that you just want to run.” He was starting to think, though not entirely convinced that she perhaps was someone with whom he could open up to. He thought that maybe she wanted to listen and to emphasize. He thought that, she being a psychologist, must have heard these thoughts countless of times before. These feelings were a result, more than anything, only of the vulnerability he had placed himself in by opening up.

Gerard said, “You want to commit suicide. But you don’t just want to commit suicide in a normal way. Your life is too cruel for that. You have moments where your mind is filled with the horrific, foreshadowing glimpse of your death. That vision is the shameful way your body lies across the floor, filled with antidepressant and liquor, vomit spoiling the rug beneath you. Before your eyes begin to shut, for the eternal wait until the next universe, you think. Your inclination has always been easy, but the events of your life have made you so incredibly doomed to failure that you desire with all heart, with all bleeding soul to express your dread of this life to the people who happen to discover you.”

Gerard, awaking then from this moment of epiphany, noticed the look that Linda was giving him. Her head on a slant, her eyes partially shut, her jaw dropping even as he watched her, she said then, “What do you think that I can do to help you? I understand that you have these thoughts, I do. But I really think that the root cause of the thoughts and feelings is the assault. I think that it served as the catalyst for the world you live in now. Am I right about that?” 

She was thinking. The thoughts that Gerard subjected her to were like an intrusion on her own sanity. It seemed to possess the bile to threaten her emotional safety. Normal people, she would think, do not feel this way. She thought, however briefly, that this man must have been evil for such thoughts to encompass him. She then reflected on just how long he could have been feeling that way and whether or not he felt like that before the trauma had happened. It must have been so, she thought. That he was like that before.

Gerard nodded and grimaced slightly. He drew a breath. A deep smile grew across her face as she thought over what he said. She was about to speak when he spoke again, “It’s hard – having these thoughts I mean.”

Linda said then, “It’s been a while. Has anything changed for you? Gotten better I mean?”

“You know, there are times when I think that it is getting better but those times seem to be getting fewer and fewer. I started reading the Holy Bible about a month ago and after reading it, I felt true hope for my future. It was the first time in my new life that I felt that hope. It was nice. But like a cancer, the feelings would return. I would soon be right back where I started from.”

He breathed heavier than usual. Linda asked him if he was alright. He said yes. He continued, “I can only hope that future years and societies can find the will to smile upon me and what I have gone through. Because it is clear that the world in which I live now has neither understanding for the suffering individual, nor the care to develop that concern.”

“Can I ask how you might know that? I mean you have been in your room for a long time.”

Gerard said, “My mother tells me a lot.”

“Like what?”

“She told me about a couple of kids who taunted her and my girlfriend after figuring out that they were my family. She tells me about the guy who did this to me. And she tells me that he could care less about what he did to me. She tells me she lost her job. A whole bunch of things.” 

Linda winced and said, “That doesn’t really make a lot of sense, Gerard.”

Gerard interrupted her, “What doesn’t? That he shows no remorse?”

“Yes, in part. But more that kids would taunt your family. How do you know that they knew who you were?”

“Respectfully, I think that the world you are living in is a sheltered one. Have you been outside lately? Have you seen the news lately? It’s just getting worse and worse.”

Sharon said, “I just think that anyone could have been taunted by those kids. They were probably looking for someone to do that to. Boys will be boys, I suppose.”

“That is entirely what is wrong with our society.”

She stumbled on her words, “What is?”

“That people are so willing to encourage fighting and other forms of abuse and violence. It’s like a novelty. Like a fucking charade.”

“Gerard, I am not encouraging those sort of actions by saying that. I was just…” she paused to think about what to say then. And when she couldn’t think of anything she said, “I think we are getting off topic. Let’s try to focus on the assault and the associated feelings that resulted from it.”

Gerard nodded with a defeated attitude. His mind had grown blank. When the moment of dissociation passed, he said, “Alright”.

“If you had to give a summary as to what you have been feeling, what do you think that would include?”

Gerard thought a moment and then said, “I can’t really describe the feelings that everyone who passes me in the halls is trying to kill me. I can’t describe it because no one really can. I have difficulty expressing the isolation that those feelings have forced me to create around myself. The fact that I had the injury, in addition to the trauma only makes things worse.”

Linda nodded, beginning to recognize Gerard as a human being and not just the crazy man she had thought him to be earlier. She said, “You know that this is a hospital. You are very safe.”

“I’m not asking you to justify or to rationalize my feelings. I’m not because I know, in my own mind, that my emotions are irrational. But they don’t stop coming. No matter how hard I try, they just keep coming. It’s almost like a cancer of the mind. These are only feelings – the psychological response to crime as I see it. My mother tells me stories still about other things. My thoughts are clay. That clay molds with the event that happened to me. Everything seems dead to me now.”

Linda smiled warmly.

He continued, “I think that all victims of extreme violence can sort of empathize in one way or another. Whether the world we see is real or not, I have yet to figure out. When you have become subject to violence, the world cripples itself in front of your eyes. All of the joy and pleasure you once took from her is replaced with a profound hatred and extreme scepticism.”

“Can you give an example?”

“I cannot live in this world. A world where humility and modesty are sins. Because of my humility and very bad anxiety, when I pass someone in the hospital, I lower my head. Every once in a while, I hear a deep sigh followed by the caution of curious eyes as I pass someone. Tell me, why do they want me to look up from the ground when all they are going to do if I look at them is cringe? I think the worst part about all this is that no one really understands.” 

“I really think that that is your paranoia. But I think that is an important area to start. Why do you feel it is so important for people to understand you?” She asked.

Gerard could feel her partly laughing at him, partly trying to empathize. But, she having no solid bearing upon which to begin the process of empathy, Gerard saw more of the farce she would make of his situation in her futile attempt at compassion.

“I don’t understand myself and it is hard to understand something that no one else truly understands.” He lowered his head a little. He concentrated on the heat of the room as the heater fan above where she sat blew its warm air.

“It will get better Gerard. From my understanding about trauma, it is not permanent. There are ways to overcome it. I think an important place to begin now, is to revisit exactly what happened to you.”

After all of the time that had passed, Gerard was still just at the gates of understanding what was happening to him and what the plight meant to him as a person, for his future. But it was not like he had never felt the feeling before. He felt it all the time. The questions that roared through his mind at that moment were endless. He understood completely at that moment what had been done to him. And he was outraged. He hated everyone... everyone who was involved, everyone who he ever knew. He hated Linda, although temporarily before his reasoning kicked in, for stirring up the emotions within him. The truth was that Gerard had been letting the feelings of that one event brew within him until the hatred and fear became such a part of him. And not having anyone to talk about it with only made these feelings worse.

Gerard only sat there, his torrential mind contrasting the physical death of his body below him. With the swift second hand on the clock that was before him, above Linda, they went into a harmonic rhythm. "Gerard?" she asked numbly, "how are you doing?"

"I’m sad," He started with a gentle turn of his crying head. His lips were swollen and his eyes, bulging then. 

“What makes you upset?” She asked sincerely.

“Thinking about what happened, I guess.”

She asked, "Tell me, Gerard, what you remember of that night?” As she spoke, Gerard began to feel the collection and slithering of sweat on his forehead. He smacked and wet his lips.

Gerard asked her softly to repeat what she had said. She says again, looking about the room, ‘Do you know what happened to you?’

Gerard acknowledged.

‘Then tell me, what do you remember of that night?’

He started out to answer. No matter how he tried to think, he could not find the words. He could not understand the justification for the question. He began to feel his stomach being altered, almost as though it were being torn out. His head was beginning to throb. He was shivering with anger. He cried out, louder than anything he had heard come out of himself, louder than the muffled cries that radiate about his hospital room and the horrid bed at night when the groans and screams come from the next room. He gathered up the strength to look up and see what Linda was doing during his display of emotion. His head arched upward and with his mouth wide open, he cried. He cried like a baby. He observed Linda’s compassionate look as she touched his knee gently. He could not feel the hand on his leg. And when he glanced down, he cried more. Linda started and raised her hand from his knee up to his cheek. He was embarrassed from his cry. It was loud. At that moment a woman passed by the open door. He fastened his sight on her as she passed the door. She just stared. Her expressionless face was unbearable and it fueled his rage even more.

He continued to cry.

 

Father White:

Soon after Gerard’s meeting with Linda, someone else came to visit Gerard. Whether or not Linda had told this man about Gerard, was a thought that continually bothered him. Gerard’s mother was out looking for a job at that moment.

Spending his time in exile, in a prison commissioned by his own mind, Gerard was waiting for something. He waited for anything though what he really prayed for most never came: death. He saw himself as non-existent. He viewed life as a series of trials, a period of suffering that could only be broken by death. And that samsara of life and death enveloped him, the concept of it, into the deepest of woes.

The room in constant surveillance by the frequent visits from nurses and the assuring presence of his mother acted as respites from these long periods of isolation. When Gerard had to eat and when it came time for him to bathe, it was typically at night. His meals during the day were brought to him in the morning and at lunch by his mother. People, anyone really, reminded him like a plague of the uncertainty of life – that is that the injury and assault that had happened to him could happen at any time, anywhere. 

Though Gerard enjoyed the hospital food, which seemed ample, he dreaded meal time for only the reason that it seemed a reminder of his inability to interact socially. It was a reminder of his hyper-arousal to fate and the question of whether or not fate had failed with him and was waiting patiently for him to leave the sanctity of his room so that it could finish its job. Gerard was a person, a living and breathing human being. And though he could not see that fact, it was quite true.

He dreaded the time that he would have to face strangers again. He feared the night that fate would come swooping down in the form of death itself and wipe the life out of his body like the swatting of a fly. He no more deserved the inevitable and imminent fate that awaited him, than he did to be imprisoned to his own body, that hospital and those thoughts.

At the same time, he somehow knew that his death would not be the end. He knew – a morbid thought – that life would continue on without him. He knew that his leaving would not make much of an impression on our ever-moving world. Although he accepted that fact as inescapable, it scared him still. He contemplated over the lifetime that he would never live on the outside world. He pondered with rage the girlfriends that he would never have, the experiences he would not live to see. He dreaded the relationship with Andrea that should have blossomed. So beautifully had it grown in his imagination. He was a twenty year old virgin of life and thrust into the pains of a man, late in years, on his death bed. It happens, he would think, but it did not have to happen. This was completely avoidable. And it all was owing to the avoidable actions of one man. He despised Ordell Arrant.

That day a man dressed in dark clothing entered the room followed by a nurse. The man turned and whispered kindly to the nurse behind him. Gerard could tell, as he turned again, that the man was a priest. He could tell it by the white collar around his neck. The nurse turned and left, closing the door gently behind her.

Gerard watched feebly as the man approached. He had a kind and compassionate smile on his face. He lowered his eyes. At that second, Gerard remembered where he knew the man from. He would never forget. As a matter of fact, he was surprised that it had not registered sooner. The man was the priest at the hospital. At once Gerard averted his eyes, thinking that he was upset with him as a result of the way that he had behaved at the hospital church service some years earlier. Still, he approached and raised his head to shed a smile. Gerard returned his glance once again and smiled briefly, a fleeting expression to display his welcoming anxiety.

The priest stood easily next to the bed and then lowered his hand and touched Gerard on his forehead softly. “Hello Gerard,” he said.

Gerard looked around within the range of motion that was permitted by his head and neck muscles. A series of dreadful thoughts crossed his mind then. He had the thought, though he lost it immediately after, that the priest had come to deliver his last rites. He thought that the priest knew something that he did not. Gerard, looking around again though that time in a panic, the priest said, “I assure you that I am here to help. We haven’t seen you at chapel for a long time. Do you believe in God, Gerard?”

Gerard thought for a moment and his lower lip twitched heavily. He said, “Of course I do, sir. Although, following what happened to me, his presence has not been seen that much by my family.”

The priest focussed his sight on the floor of the room. He asked, “Would you like to go for a walk Gerard?”

Gerard looked at him.

“I can arrange for the nurses to put you in your wheelchair and we can go for a walk,” he clarified.

Gerard nodded politely.

And so, the priest turned slowly and called out to the hallway. The nurse must have been waiting for him because she entered quickly after. Another followed her. While the nurses worked at getting Gerard into his chair, the priest introduced himself and continued to speak while Gerard was being prodded at and lifted through the air. His name was Father White. At that moment, Gerard had a flashback to the one and only time he had visited chapel service with his mother. He remembered the heavy brows, the strange shape of the man’s head that had watched him.

He said as Gerard was lowered into his chair, “I have arranged an hour for us to walk the grounds. Does that sound alright, Gerard?”

Gerard nodded. 

“If you get tired, just let me know and we’ll come back.”

Outside, the day was just starting. Gerard’s early recollections of the outdoors, the memories he had of going for walks, of the sun, the clouds, trees, animals, had been replaced almost completely by the long period of time spent indoors. He had his television but it was not the same. The sacrifices of good things, of pleasures and of sensations are swiftly replaced by a sense of being alone. So eager are you to forfeit these good things for the sanity of knowing that nothing bad can happen if you avoid not only the bad, but the good as well. That day, the feelings were not as overwhelming in part because this priest accompanied him but also because the hospital was generally quieter than usual. 

The day was a good one. A good day it was for him to reintroduce himself to these good things. The sun caused Gerard some pain at first. He was not used to its brightness. It was good to see the sun again. It reminded him in a vague way that he was human, that he was a living creature. And as he squinted and blinked heavily, the priest said, “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

But Gerard did not hear him. He was concentrating, as his vision returned after adjusting to the intensity of the sunlight, on the birds in the trees. The exterior of the hospital was heavily forested at the back and gave on to a lovely, golden field of corn beyond that. The front, of course, was a driveway large enough for a wheel-transit bus to fit and a large parking lot beyond that. But behind the hospital was a heaven of sorts. 

In this forested area, they traversed through a little path that cut like a blade through the trees. The sun; likewise cut through the branches. Gerard would watch with a lingering euphoria, the rays of light that shadowed across the grassy ground. Through the trees above was visible the luminous outlines of white clouds over blue sky. That sight filled him with an eager joy. And as if a culmination of all of these wonderful joys, at that moment, a light brown squirrel ran across the path before his wheelchair and the vibration of a woodpecker’s knocks became audible. Gerard would remember then where he was and feel sad for a moment. But then he would focus on the light again and feel like he were in Heaven. It was just like what he thought Heaven might be like. Turning his head, Gerard could see through the woods, a playground off in the distance. No children played on it but it made him feel good still. A strange thought came to Gerard’s mind then that only through bad can you really appreciate the good of life; to see the light. But the feeling would stress and plateau and then descend again and again as he watched his lifeless limbs, juxtaposing the effects of life on him and the effects of life as it was happening. Gerard’s sadness returned all the less. 

The priest, guiding him through the path, would watch with happiness as Gerard would smile, grimace with painful pleasure and then laugh outwardly. He did not even notice he was doing it. “What a wonder,” Gerard would say. “If only people knew this feeling that I have right now. If only they realized what was right before their eyes…”

Father White giggled pleasantly, genuinely enjoying his time with Gerard as much as Gerard was enjoying his. Father White said then, “You’re a good person, Gerard.” His words passed over and across Gerard’s shoulders but he heard them. They were taken very sincerely by Gerard who heard them with an immediate tear that fell, solitary down his cheek. His words seemed to spark an instantaneous emotional response for him. It was like he had not heard these words for centuries. His mother had told him that all the time but, after all, she was his mother. It was her duty to say things like that. 

“Don’t forget that,” White was saying, “that you are a good person.”

Gerard nodded then and White continued. White said, “Why haven’t we seen you at church service for such a long time?”

Gerard said, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He laughed and continued, “I guess that it has become really difficult for me to deal with people. That embarrassing outburst only made things worse for me. I’m truly sorry about what happened all those years ago at your service, Father.”

Father White nodded. Gerard could not see it, but he knew he did. White said then, “I know. You truly haven’t anything to apologize for.”

“I find it hard to believe that God was not looking while I shouted at him in church.”

“What you did was only a very natural reaction to what you viewed as hostile.”

Gerard was comforted and shocked by his words. He found what Father White had said to stand for everything that he had felt for such a long time. Gerard was equally shocked that he was the first and only person to openly understand what he felt. Or at least to take his understanding further than a simple nod of indifference. 

Gerard thought a moment and then said, “Can I ask you a question?”

White acknowledged this by emitting a kind noise through his closed lips. 

“Why don’t people like me?” Gerard asked.

Father White stirred a little, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“It feels as though everybody really hates me in that hospital.”

“They don’t hate you. I think you’re imagining this situation.” Father White continued, “I know what you are feeling, Gerard. I have felt it in the past. It is really different and extremely painful, I know.”

Gerard, then curious, said, “How is it that you are the only person that seems to understand what is happening? There have to be more of us. How is it that you came to find out?”

Father White pointed, his outstretched hand came into Gerard’s view, as he signalled a group of geese between the wooded area and across a small pond. As if that meant nothing aside from bringing Gerard’s attention to them, he said, “It was a long time ago.”

“What was?”

Father White said, “A long time ago, seemingly in a different life, I was hurt. It was similar to what happened to you; but different at the same time, in many ways.”

Gerard lifted his head and turned it a bit so that he could see out of his periphery, Father White’s hand. His hand rested across the side of the wheelchair, he continued, “Except the injuries were not as severe as yours. It was all about superficiality. Money, that is.”

Gerard asked, “What happened?” 

“He beat me. Took my wallet. And I guess he wasn’t through because as I lay unconscious from his many blows to my head, he found my address from my driver’s licence and walked to my home, which wasn’t far off from where we were. My family was home and asleep. On entering, this guy started sifting through our drawers on the main floor. My wife must have heard the commotion and went downstairs after telling my son and daughter to stay in their rooms. He saw her as she came down the stairs and he killed her. Thank God,” he paused here and repeated, “thank God, that he thought she was the only one in the house. And I guess, startled from the intrusion on whatever he was doing, he left. The kids were safe. But when I woke up, I ran back home. There was no way for me to anticipate what happened when I opened the door then. The children were upstairs still but when I pushed aside the already open door, I was faced with the body of my beautiful wife there on the ground before me.”

He shook his head softly. Gerard could feel him doing it. Gerard said nothing. 

“And so, I turned to God. My life was changed. I wouldn’t let it change me for the worse. My daughter is turning sixteen next week and I owe her life to God. I owe my children’s lives to fate – to that impressionable essence that controls people at times. I owe the fact that the guy did not go upstairs to my God. I owe to God that He prevented that man from going upstairs and hurting my children.”

Gerard shook his head and said softly, “I’m sorry.”

After Gerard had said that, he could feel a tremor run through the broken frame of his rental wheelchair. White behind him had started, however briefly, to sob. And shaking his head, Father White regained composure and said, “No, it’s alright. God works in mysterious ways. This must have been my calling to Him.”

Gerard thought for a second about his own problems. At least he had his mother. At least everyone he knew was alright. He could not imagine losing someone like Father White had. “Maybe.” Gerard said. “Why did you bring me out today, father?”

Father White said, “I wanted to tell you that you aren’t alone. I don’t want you to give up on God. I know from the little media about your story, what happened and I have to admit: I felt a connection of empathy between our lives. Most of all, I want you to know that God is and will always be with you.”

“I know. I appreciate your sincerity. But why, with such a good God, are there such tragedies in this world? Why are there so many evil people?”

As they moved across the path, a gentle sound of a dove emerged above them. “Evil will exist. It will exist as long as we as a civilization do. Life is a period of trials, a road of confrontations kind of like tests. Suffering… Suffering is like leaving a door open for the Evil One. It is all him. Because, it is when people suffer and are at their worst that the fallen angel finds his way into their hearts and begins to tempt. Life is a period of trials. It’s only how we manage to triumph or fail at these trials and tests that predict in which way we will go.”

Gerard nodded as a bird swept down at the path in front of them, about fifteen yards off. 

White continued, “I have a theory. It’s that not until we as a society learn to empathize, to understand, to care what happens to our weak, our wounded, we will not achieve peace. They are these things that make people evil. These things that make people evil like: greed, hate, a lack of understanding that are real. The darkness blinds many still. If you think about it, it’s really a universal cause. Everybody suffers, it only differs by degrees. You can never escape the insanity and personal anguish, humiliation of being injured – emotionally or physically – at the hands of another human being. It’s so easy to be spiteful, so easy to be hateful and so difficult to love, so impossible to show care for other human beings. Until we learn to help, as a society, sufferers of grief and pain – not just in the immediate aftermath but many years after, that love will never be able to grow.

Gerard nodded and said, “That’s a great theory. I think it’s ideology. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to love on a mass level. Just like you said, there is too much evil, too much hate.”

Father White was silent behind him. It was a comfortable silence though. Then White continued, “You know, there are some native communities that still exist today that had that ideology perfected. Maybe we can learn something from them. I’ve heard that they go to great lengths to help in the reintegration of their warriors and others who have been subjected to severe trauma. They bring them to sweat lodges, hold monumental celebrations for them. But here,” he paused again and gripped harder on the handles of the wheelchair, “here, we just have sorrow. The lives of those who are hurt are left to die; to fend for themselves. The only drive that has ever existed in this society is one of selfishness and greed. On a mass level at least. It’s really evil. People on the whole are good, kind and loving. People generally possess beautiful hearts. It’s just…” 

Gerard said, “I feel evil in me. I feel the desire for revenge. I see the world change around me and then am reminded of my own fate. I am a prisoner of this hospital. I have been served a life sentence here. What’s probably worse, not in a vengeful way but for the good of society, the very concept of rehabilitation has grown off course.”

White shifted, “What do you mean?”

“It’s a good concept. It is. Rehabilitation for criminals. There would be nothing better and more heartwarming than to see a criminal become successfully rehabilitated, turn their lives around into productive members of society. Merited, there are some offenders who are terribly remorseful for their acts. Remorseful to the point of bringing about their lives in such beautiful ways. But on the whole, it doesn’t work. It can’t be successfully accomplished at this point. There is an incredible gap here. No one considers the victim of violence. You know, while the guy who did it to me is out there, most likely receiving tax paid criminal rehabilitation that won’t work for him anyway, I am sitting in this hospital, frightened out of my wits that he’ll return, that he hasn’t forgotten about me, with not even a constant therapist or counsellor to help me adjust back into the world that was stolen away from me. Where is the victim rehabilitation?” Gerard laughed.

White agreed. The pigeons cooed.

 

An Old Friend:

Over the past several weeks since Father White had visited Gerard, the shouts of agony and despair that emanated from the room next to Gerard’s had grown from once or twice a night to span entire days. The shrieks were the farthest thing from human. What bothered Gerard about the noises was the fact that the girl, Julia, in the room next over from his own, seemed to think that she was the only one suffering in that hospital. There were times when Gerard seemed to think that she was only crying so to make the pain that she felt noticeable by all those in the large hospital. He hated her. He had grown to detest the high pitched wails at night and during the day. From time to time, he would actually shout out. He would shout when he noticed that her room had grown quiet. He would call for her to shut up, that she was not the only one suffering and that he needed sleep. The second that she heard these pleas, the wailing would commence again, dry and aggravating to the listener. Gerard really had no clue as to whether she could understand what he shouted. But still, he shouted. Until one day, the crying stopped. It had grown steadily worse for past months. That was when he heard a most frightening sound. 

One day, literally moments after the shouts had ceased, he heard the thump of something heavy set down onto something that sounded like the give of a metal frame. Following that, he heard the muffled voices of a doctor and a couple of nurses speaking softly. There was a gentle sob and then a smacking sound, as if of a kiss. And the room was emptied of its contents quickly to make room for a new patient.  Julia had died, painfully and slowly from the meningitis, which slowly destroyed her brain. He felt true remorse that for countless times he had grunted, shouted out of spite and yelled at this poor girl to be quiet. He had no idea as to how much pain she was in. He felt his stomach clench up into a little ball as his mind told him that what he had done was wrong. It was a hospital. He knew that well. He supposed that he did not think, for a long time that anyone could feel worse than him.  He was ashamed and sad, watching this girl as she was pushed by the open door of his room. Her face was twisted painfully, catatonic with the freeze of death. 

A new patient was admitted to the room immediately after, in the same day. His mother, bringing him his lunch, told him with a look of fearful scorn across her face, “He’s the kind of guy you want to stay away from.”

Gerard looked at her questioningly.

She continued, “Apparently his photo is all over the news. He was almost beaten to death after brutally raping, the sister of the guy who hurt him.” That was all she said about him. The thought of having a violent rapist next to his own room, where he slept, scared the life out of Gerard. 

It was in a lapse of conscious fear that another visitor arrived at his door. Genevieve was there. The visit surprised Genevieve as much as it did Gerard. Gerard’s memory of Andrea Conchie had grown stale and a little old. The vague recollections of her had been frozen in time, as the girl he once knew. But the woman who entered Gerard’s room then was older, more beautiful and moved more gracefully than what remained in his memory. 

She entered slowly, majestically. Her movements, which to her, were meant to instil an ease of recollection for him as he lay there. Those movements, to Gerard, bred only disdain within him. At that moment, regardless of how pleasant it was to see his old friend, he seemed only able to reflect on the fact that he had missed an opportunity with her. He seemed only willing to accept then that she had abandoned him. He reflected, irrationally that he should have done something more to keep her around. He seemed only able to focus on the simple fact that she had not come to see him for so long. Andrea, there in the open doorway, nodded sympathetically to Genevieve. Genevieve sat with wide eyes and smiled at her. 

She approached the bed cautiously but with love. She was very beautiful, Gerard thought. That was when she spoke. She said, “Hi Gerard.” She said it slowly and with calmness he was not used to. “You’re looking good.”

“Hi Andrea,” Gerard said, “It’s nice to see you.”

“Yes, it’s nice to see you too.” She smiled. “I’m sorry that it has been so long.”

“What happened?” Gerard asked.

“I’ll be honest with you Gerard.” She sniffed, her eyes beginning to well, “it was just too hard for me.”

Gerard, hearing this, started to become a little aggravated. “I guess you think it’s not hard on me?” He said.

“That’s not what I meant. I think you know that was not what I meant.” They both breathed heavier than normal. Gerard, out of inactivity and anger, and Andrea, out of sadness. She doubted that her presence, after so long, could be good for Gerard. But she had to tell him what she had come for.

Snapping her head to the side, Andrea said, “You were… you are a good friend. I cherish our friendship. You know that I have always enjoyed your company. I loved you so much… So much.” here Andrea put her head in her open hand and cried a little. The cry continued as she said, “The injury affected a lot of people. I can’t explain to you the way it’s affected me. Your mother…” Here she paused. “Gerard, I have some good news. I am getting married.”

Genevieve started up to say, “That’s wonderful.”

Gerard cut in before his mother could finish her words. “Why did you come to tell me this? Is it not enough that I’ll never walk again? You have to show me that I’ll never marry either?”

Andrea’s tears now fell steadily and as a continuous stream. She said, almost blubbering, “That’s not it at all, Gerard. I want you to know how much your friendship means to me… to us. You were my first love. I hate myself every time I think that it was unable to go on.” She paused, “We want you to come to the wedding. Of course, all arrangements will be made for you to be picked up and transported. We’d really love to have you there, Gerard – my beautiful, sweet friend.”

“I can’t do that, Andrea.”

Andrea drew back her tears and said, “Why not? I’m telling you how much you mean to me.” 

“I can’t go because I don’t want to be seen in this condition. Besides, why did you stop coming to see me? I used to think about you every day. Every day! And I don’t expect that to mean anything to you but for a while you were my only hope. You gave me hope where there was so little. I kept thinking that if you, my first love to, could have hope in me, maybe I can have hope in myself… and in my future. I love you so much Andrea.”

Genevieve left the two alone, closing the door silently behind her. 

Andrea said, “I am so sorry Gerard. I love you… I loved you so much. I will be honest with you. Because I think you deserve that. It was really, very hard for me the day your mother and I were confronted by those kids. It scared the life out of me. I started having terrible dreams. Terrible feelings. And I didn’t know where they were coming from. And for a reason I can’t really explain, I started fearing even coming to see you here. Believe me Gerard. That has nothing to do with you. I still truly love you so much. But, we have to face reality. Come to our wedding. I assure you that you’ll be safe. Your mother can even come if you’d like. You don’t have any reason to be embarrassed or to fear.”

Gerard started coughing. Through his coughs he managed to say, “Especially at a wedding! Weddings are a symbol for growing, for becoming an adult. It just reminds me that I will never get that opportunity. I want to come. I want more than anything to be there for you on this special day. Every inch of my soul is so terribly envious. I want to come. I really do…”

Andrea said, her voice quickly becoming softer, in a sense hurt, “Then come.”

“I can’t, Andrea. I wish you and your husband a good life.”

She looked around to see if Genevieve was present. And when she noticed that she wasn’t, she said, “Gerard, I’ve heard stories about you here at the hospital. I hear that a lot of people don’t like you. I hear that you stay here in your room all day and only come out when it’s safe – when no other people are around. Why have you abandoned people?”

Gerard, picking up on her tone, said quickly, “Why did you not come back to see me?”

She said softly, “I was hurt. We already know that.”

“It’s the same reason that keeps me imprisoned to this bed, to this room,” he moved his head about the room slowly. “My mom told me a story about a year ago. Do you want to hear it?”

Andrea said, “Yes.”

“She told me that the last time you came to see me, you had a run in with some kids. She said that they scared you pretty badly. I always wondered, before my mother told me that, as to why you had abandoned me as well. It was then that I knew. It is the same feeling, only intensified in my case that leads us to abandon things. You chose to abandon me because of that. I chose to abandon people because of what happened to me. The effects are quite proportional to the causes.”

“What happened to you Gerard? I am so sorry that you feel like that. I love you so much. Please do not interpret my absence from your life as an insult. It was just difficult in a way that I never understood. Call me weak. It was easier to run away from… to flee from the emotions it all brought up. You really have to move on though Gerard. This all happened so long ago. It kills me to think that every time I come back here, it’s still troubling you so terribly.”

“Andrea, look at my legs. Look at my arms. What do they represent to you? To me, I’ll tell you, they represent a perpetual, grim and terrible reminder of what happened to me. It’s like I was branded for being kicked in the head, having my neck stomped on. Do I have some sort of obligation to please people? I’m sorry that my lack of conforming to this society’s interpretations of what is right and what is unacceptable, disturbs you. How is it possible to move on? Tell me,” at that point Gerard was shouting through his blubbering lips, “with the body I have. It acts as a continuing reminder of what happened to me. Of the cost. The little consequences the justice system can possibly put to the guy who did it cannot be compared to the kind of life sentence I have been thrust into. It’s easy for you to say ‘move on’. Nothing happened to you.”

“Gerard, I love you. Gerard, I love you. I guess that feeling has kept with me. The last thing I wanted to do today was to upset you. I am so sorry. Thought about all this with my fiancé. I am so sorry. I am so sorry Gerard.”

As she moved to the door, she looked back continuously and despairingly. Gerard was coughing. Genevieve came back in the room and wiped his chin with a tissue. On the tissue was a streak of yellowish blood. 

 

An Invisible Divide:

Days had passed. Slowly, fearfully, they passed. And just as they passed for him, so they passed for Andrea and the whole outside world. Gerard had grown contemptuous of that outside world. He had grown to hate all connections with it, just in knowing that he would never be able again to participate in its simplest pleasures. Though this feeling existed many years before for him, it became magnified in the last year of his idle stay at the hospital. Within his mind, had grown an indivisible divide, one where the hospital was at war with the outside world. His last and only connection to it, the television, had been removed from the room at his request. When his mother tried to encourage him to let her take him for a walk, he utterly refused. He would shake his head with scorn building in his eyes and begin to shake in his bed. He no longer considered the effect of his plight on his mother. It was as though the world became a distinct evil to him. And so, as a defence mechanism, his mind was closed to his senses. An awful world is it to live purely within one’s own mind.

It was in these last days that a nurse had visited Gerard while his mother was out, searching desperately for the job she needed to secure her own and her son’s future. The nurse was kind and helped him to bathe. The nurse was a lovely, middle-aged woman and had a distressed look in her eyes. It was as though something in her soul was screaming but she hadn’t noticed it yet.

It was on this day that the nurse was leaning over Gerard to administer his medications when a thought crossed his mind. He said as she drew her body across his torso, “Do you have anything? To ease the pain, I mean.”

The nurse drew back and looked at him silently. She said, “I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.”

Gerard plucked his lips at the air as he drew a deep breath. He coughed deeply then. It was a deep, profound cough, one that would only develop in a person immobile and sick. She noticed the cough. She noticed it for a moment. Another sad look washed across her face as she looked down. Her eyes fell on the metal frame of the bed. 

Gerard said again, “Anything to make the time pass easier. Morphine. Even Tylenol, for crying out loud.”

The nurse looked up at him, her eyes met his and she said, “You know that I can’t do that, Gerard.” She made gentle light of his question even though she could see the sincerity behind his own eyes as he asked again. “Please,” and drawing another breath, “Please. You don’t know how much pain I’m in. It’s not quite like I am asking you to help me commit suicide. I’ve read articles about that. All I want is a little relief.”

“It’s not that I doubt you’re in pain. You’re very brave. I’m just afraid I’ll lose my job.”

Gerard said, “If only I could show you the world that I’m living in. No one will find out if you help me with this. My lips are shut.”

“It’s not just that. What you’re asking me to do is not right.”

Gerard moved his head away, towards the window and closed his eyes. He said, “I’m asking you, with nowhere else to turn. My life is awful. I only need your help. It will only be one time.”

She looked at him a while and then nodded hesitantly. And going across the room to her tray of medications, she fumbled about for a moment and then returned. A small and clear bag was gripped in her clenched fist. She rested her fist with the bag on the mattress of the bed and then put her mouth close to Gerard’s ear. She said, “This is morphine. I hope that you understand that I can only do this for you once. It’s a favour. Remember that.”

Gerard nodded impatiently, already thinking that he was feeling the effects of the drug. With a familiar care, she hung the transparent bag on an IV drip and jabbed at his wrist with a needle attached to the tube that was adjoining. He nodded again. Almost immediately, he fell into trance, embracing the warmth that swept across first his forehead, then his jaw and mouth, next his shoulders. He was paralyzed. He shouldn’t have been feeling the effects of the drug within his lifeless body. The drugs worked fast and possessed magical qualities. Within his lifeless body then was felt the subtle pull of his central nervous system as it struggled to regain itself. And for a brief period, he felt his body again. It was a distinct and unique heaven. It was as though he had been given a second shot at life. 

And then, the feeling came crashing down. Suddenly, he was swept into another world. It was not like it was a bad place. It was only very, very strange. And it was in that place that he was faced with yet another rip in his own consciousness. He struggled at first, but the struggle was in vain. He soon became a part of the world as though a vacuum had twisted him out of the comfort and safety of his bed at the hospital and spat him out across the state. 

He was watching his heavily shuddering body as it lay motionless across a raised bed, tilted so that he was almost standing up in it. The bed, still, was partially reclined so as not to allow him to fall over. And still, the restraints that held him were quite strong enough to hold him up. The setting was filled with an intolerable racket. The noise that penetrated his being, both in his out of body sensation as well as in the material body that lay stretched out, was awful. It was a vibrating hum and a dull whistle all mixed together. The only respite from the noise was the interval of a lower frequency that still shot coldly through him.

He was facing something but the way he was watching, out of body and as a spirit behind himself, he could not make out what it was. He forced himself to move but he was stuck like glue to where he was.

Slowly then, something seemed to push him to the side a little and it was at that point that he realized, on seeing, what his body was facing. It was a sort of respiration device that was hooked up and across his face by a strap that held on tightly around the back of his neck. And as Gerard’s spirit swung about, around side of his material body, he could see his chest as it heaved heavily. Every expiration gave way to an immediate drawing of breath that was sucked at like there was an expectation that the air was disappearing. Gerard could not express his sadness at the sight of his weak and paralyzed body as it fought for every free breath with such passion and such desire for life. He thought over the life he had been living then. That thought, in turn, made him increasingly sadder. He did not want to return to his life in the bed. If only knowing that he no longer possessed that very fight, that instinctive and unconscious need for life, he prolonged his return. Then, turning once again, Gerard thought for a second that he saw the image of seven seated men across a table in the corner of the room. He shook the impression off. It did not make any sense. 

Stammering, Gerard awoke then. He had returned to his former being. The nurse still sat quietly next to him. And as the sadness that he felt was gradually replaced by the effect of the drug, she turned and saw that he was awake. “Good morning,” she said. 

Gerard asked, “What do you mean ‘good morning’?”

”You slept through the night. I came in about an hour ago.” She laughed a little and then said softly, “How do you feel?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Gerard muttered and then turned his head aside. “Where is my mother?”

The nurse stood up slowly and turned to face him. She said, “I’m not sure. She didn’t come back last night.”

A quick wave of terror came over him then and he shouted, “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. If you want, I’ll ask about the hospital. I’m sure that nothing is wrong.”

“It’s not usual for her to not come back,” Gerard said, his voice calming bit by bit.

The nurse said, “That’s why I don’t think that anything is wrong. It must be difficult for Genevieve to stay here day after day and not get away.”

He lifted and shook his head side to side. “Alright,” he said. And the nurse left the room. Even then, under the influence, dying away though it was, of several doses of morphine, he felt the anxiety return.

 

Helpless:

Ten years had passed since the assault committed against Gerard. And it was on a cold day in mid-January that Genevieve Auclair, Gerard’s loving mother, died. Gerard was thirty-two years old. The memories of the lives he had once lived had left him permanently. The unrecognizable ghost of Ordell Arrant ceased to even possess the force to stay alive in his memory. The memory of the man who had hurt him had grown stale. Likewise, his early life as Gerard Auclair, his recollection of the sensation of being able to walk, to move his limbs, the ability to have sex, were all but distant memories. Like something he had seen off the television, he would think.

He is Gerard Auclair, the fractured remains of the man at least. His anguish ate away at his soul on that unholy, January day. The anguish he felt existed as an entity of its own, a living and breathing creature that he had created. A decade he had spent in the confines of that insufferable building. His only contact with the outside world, his mother and a window that was always closed. And now, he had only the window.

Gerard, even now, can feel her gentle soul embrace the room, the air about him. Now, he is only visited infrequently by the nurses. Doctors would come from time to time, though Gerard had grown quite suspicious of them. In his misery, he thinks about the lives lost since the senseless tragedy fell upon his family. If it had not have happened, he could have provided for his mother, given her a better life. He reflects now that if only he had made more of an attempt to socialize with the others at the hospital, maybe he would have had some support and guidance to help him through this new tragedy in his life. Even more, he reflected now on the way that he had treated his mother, who only wanted so much good for him, in those last ten years. He imagined in his veins, his isolation, which in turn forced Genevieve into a similar sort of isolation. He regretted the times that she had left the room and not come back for long whiles. He regretted them because it, most likely, was he who drove her to that point. He regretted being so miserably selfish. What choice had he had? The effects of the crime were crippling. 

His mother died of grief, or so the doctors would say. At the offset, ten years before, she was perfectly healthy mentally and physically. And so the emotional effects of trauma eat away at the body just like a metaphorical cancer. His mother, Genevieve Auclair never once left the building for a night. She slept in his room, ate and drank in his room. And she died because of the room. She died of a cardiac arrest on the empty night street of South Carolina.

Genevieve, before her death, arranged with the banks of South Carolina, that all of her proceeds would be inherited by the hospital. She did this not out of ignorance or spite to her son. She knew well that he would have been unable, in his future, to manage the affairs. Rather she did it out of a promise by them to see that he was taken well care of after her death. 

It was that day that another nurse accompanied by a doctor entered the room. They approached him softly and quietly. He watched them approach apathetically, with indescribable abjectness and baseness. He watched the nurse as she turned to the doctor. She was opening her mouth to speak.

She said in a voice equally impersonal yet sympathetic, “Gerard, first of all I would like to express my deepest condolences about the passing of your mother. She was a good woman and a good mother, as we have come to know. Regarding your situation, we feel it best for you to move on.”

Gerard let his lips whistle. He said, “What do you mean, ‘move on’?”

The doctor continued, “Unfortunately, your estate cannot afford to pay your stay in this hospital any longer.”

“What about my father’s money?” Gerard asked. A light sweat had grown across his brow. He started coughing.

“It has all been used up,” she answered. “We feel it would be best for you to go to a new place, a new world. It would be good for you. See new things and meet new people. After all, you have been cooped up in here for a very, very long time. Everything that we can do for you is over. It’s time to move on.”

Gerard said gravely, “I don’t want to go to a new place. I’m comfortable here. My mother was with me here. I can’t leave her.”

“Your mother is gone son. It’s best to let her memory be. What do you say? Do you want to see the outside? Or do you want to just stay here?”

“I’ve seen the outside. It terrifies me. I’m quite comfortable here.”

The doctor said a little louder, “I respect that. None-the-less, I’m afraid to say that you cannot afford to stay here any longer.”

Gerard whimpered, “Tell me how my father’s money has been used up. It was an ample sum only the week before my mother died. She kept me up to date on the progress of it, lest something like what’s happening now should happen.”

As soon as Gerard had finished speaking, his cough flared up once again and a thick trail of mucous fell from his lip. He could not see it but he felt it as it escaped his mouth. At that moment, the doctor noticed the saliva and the trail it had left across his chin. It covered a portion of the scar that ran across his lip. There was a green and red tint in it, he noticed, before Gerard sucked it back in. The doctor and the nurse were both silent.

Gerard now shouted, “How can you do this to me now? Where has my father’s money gone?

The nurse suddenly turned and left the room. Gerard had felt the situation building up to that. He had watched her from his bed as she felt her face at every word he spoke. And then, she raised her hand to her mouth and bent over a little in a gesture fit for crying. That was when she left. She slammed the door behind her. One could hear, quite distinctly, the sobs on the other side of that door. 

The doctor remained composed. In answer to his question she said, “It has all been used up, Gerard. Your mother must have been trying to assure you while she looked for a job. In addition, the funeral expenses will be a hefty sum. I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you that.”

Gerard breathed deeply. It was growing harder for him to breathe. He said, “Alright. When is my mother’s funeral?”

The doctor lifted her arm across her mouth, into which she coughed lightly. She said, “We are still working on that. It’s difficult to plan a funeral and to work at the same time.”

Gerard simply shook his head.

 

A Glimpse of Reality Part IV:

Gerard sat patiently at his mother’s kitchen table. She had invited him over for dinner. She entered the room, this time, to find Gerard with his elbows on the surface of the table. His head was collected in his hands. She approached him silently and lay her hand on his shoulder. He glanced up briefly and uttered a breath of exasperation. 

“You remind me so much of your father, Gerard.” 

“How so, mom?” He asked, concealing a tender smile. 

She lay a plate before him, which seemed to appear out of nowhere and reached for the bottle of red wine in the middle of the table. He gently took the bottle from her and opened it with a corkscrew on his keychain. 

She drew a breath and said, “I remember the day when you were born. Gerard, it was the most wonderful day. For both me and your father. Your father, though, was so happy. I don’t think I had ever seen him as happy. He was always so passionate about you Gerard. I remember, when you were younger, he would take you to the zoo. He would take you to beautiful parks. He enrolled you into swimming lessons when you were no older than six months. You were no older than that by the time he brought you onto a boat for the first time. The reason this stands out in my memory is because your father encouraged you to use what you had learned in your swimming lessons there. Wow. Do you still know how to swim?” She paused here, nostalgically and sniffled a little. She continued, “Your father. For some reason he got it into his mind about a year after the two of us were married, before you were born that what you experienced in your childhood would greatly influence how you reacted to life later on. He always used the words foundation and development. He was convinced that were you to offer a child enough love in their cores, they would be unstoppable. He was always very insistent, when I questioned him about this that what a man was meant to be, what they were to experience and accomplish were dictated by God. Who can stop the plans of God in a man? But he still insisted that the lives children would lead would be so much fuller if they had solid beginnings. I just want you to know how hard he worked to give you a beautiful life. I want you to know, more than that, how loved and adored you were as a child. I think he would want that. He worked so hard to ensure you became that man. And I am so proud of you. You have proven his theory right. I guess that’s what I mean when I say you remind me of him. In that you are working so hard towards your future, which is still very bright and open. But in spite of everything you are doing for yourself, you’re still working so hard for me. Your father would be very proud.”

Gerard was silent. He smiled warmly but could find nothing to say. The muscles of his face shifted a number of times in the attempt to speak but he couldn’t help but feel greatly surprised by these memories, which seemed to be flooding into his mind then. 

She continued, “You have accomplished so much since all of that happened to you. You went back to school, the company where you work seems to be in love with you. I don’t know of any other company that would hold a position for so long for anyone else. I don’t think there is a person in this country who doesn’t know who you are.” Gerard started to visibly blush. 

The phone started to ring. He looked at her carefully and stood, moving with a pronounced limp toward the phone. Genevieve squinted her face as she stood simultaneously, as if telling him that she would get the phone. She picked up the receiver as Gerard seated himself again with a bit of difficulty. She smiled across the table to Gerard a knowing smile and spoke into the phone. She was saying, “It’s so nice to hear from you. Are you still coming over tonight?” Gerard shifted uneasily in his chair. “Oh’, yes! Gerard will be so very happy to see you!” She placed the receiver back and looked at Gerard, waiting for him to say something. 

After a moment of anxious waiting, Gerard said, “Well, are you going to tell me who that was?”

Genevieve was silent and smirked.

Gerard continued laughingly, “Mom, who is coming over for dinner?”

Genevieve smiled again and said, “You’ll have to wait and see.” She exited the room slowly and smiling. 

Gerard called to her after she had disappeared from sight, “Where are you going, mom?”

A call from the kitchen. She said hurriedly through the partially open doorway, “I have to finish preparing dinner. If there is going to be another guest, we’re going to need some more food.”

Gerard called out in an equally hurried voice, “Are you going to let me help you cook?”

He heard a forced hush and a quick drawing of breath. Genevieve said, “Don’t worry about a thing. Enjoy yourself while you’re here. 

Gerard smiled warmly to himself and reached down to his bag beneath him. From the bag, he drew a copy of the Holy Bible. He flipped through its pages for a moment and as if by letting chance decide what he was going to read, allowed his fingertips to stop them at random. He came upon this verse: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous hand.” Gerard allowed his mind to reflect for a moment over the events of the past several years. He smiled a reassured smile and closed the Book slowly.

Suddenly, there was a soft knock on the door that slowly increased in its strength. Gerard sprang upright and walked uneasily toward the door. Genevieve came through the kitchen door and leaned against the frame. She had view of the front door from where she was. Gerard eagerly pulled aside the door. Genevieve could see his knees buckle a little as he struggled with his breath for a second. He was trying to speak. He was unable. Genevieve watched as the door was pulled aside a bit more and revealed behind it, behind Gerard, was Andrea Conchie. Her eyebrows were raised in loving anticipation, as she slowly extended her arms to Gerard. Gerard released a strong stream of air and collected his breath once again.

“Andrea!” He said with care and shock. As soon as he had said it, he moved forward, trembling and put his arms around her. “You’re back!”

“I told you I would be back. I missed you so much.”

Gerard seemed still in shock. He whispered, “But, your school. Are you done?” 

“That was a long time ago, Gerard. I’m done school. I hoped you would remember me.”

Gerard fumbled with the gold ring that was in his pocket; the ring she had given him some time earlier. “Remember you,” he stopped for a moment, in thought. “Of course I remember you. I was certain that you would find so much more to live for where you were.”

She moved her hand across the back of his neck, “There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t thought about you.” She laughed a little and continued, “That would have been pretty hard considering your story and everything you are doing is pretty huge. You’re like a celebrity.” 

Gerard’s breath became erratic and he swallowed a couple of times quickly. He smiled warmly as he continued to hug her. 

Genevieve approached the two after a moment and whispered, “Why don’t you come inside, you two?”

Gerard went to release his hold on Andrea. She held him tighter for a moment and then allowed her own arms to release. The two smiled at each other. Andrea lowered her eyes a little. Then they entered the house together.

Gerard withdrew a chair from the dining room table and gestured for her to sit. She sat slowly and with deliberation and gazed upwards to him as he lay his palm on her shoulder. Following this, he pulled a chair out for his mother. Finally, he sat himself. Gerard and Andrea smiled at each other. They said nothing. 

Genevieve spoke first. She said, “Shall we give thanks before our meal?” 

Gerard looked to Andrea. She smiled a kind smile and lowered her head. 

Genevieve said a short prayer. Following this, they each raised their heads slowly and opened their eyes. She looked to each of them and smiled. Then, she reached for a knife on a plate with a turkey on it. She carved a slice off of the turkey and placed it on a plate, handing it to Andrea. 

Andrea said softly, “It’s so great to see you guys again.”

“You too, Andrea,” Genevieve said.

After Andrea had told them a bit about her travel experiences, they ate their dinners with an air of silent reverence.

Once they had finished, Genevieve went back to the kitchen. The television was on in the other room. Its volume was low but they could hear the voices on the show that was playing. It was a familiar sound. Gerard was being interviewed about his most recent book he had published. It was a book about his experiences that he had written in the hopes of it being able to provide comfort to others. 

Andrea, who was speaking to him then, noticed his eyes looking over her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder and saw him on TV. Returning her gaze to him quickly, she struck him playfully, grabbed his hand and they entered the room together.

Andrea turned up the volume and they sat down. On the television, the reporter was saying, “It’s been ten years since what happened to you, Gerard. For those of you who are just tuning in, our network just finished playing the movie about Gerard’s life. Gerard has a very unique and inspiring story. Actually, it is one that has warmed the hearts of many around the world. Tell us, what are you doing these days?”

Gerard watched himself on the screen with a degree of pride and joy.

Gerard was saying, “You know, since that movie came out, I’ve really been concentrating on myself, finding ways to achieve my dreams. After that injury and everything that happened to me, I returned to school to further my education. I’ve been with the same company I was with since that injury. They stuck with me throughout. So, it just seemed natural that I would stick with them. I’ve recently written a number of books. I’ve just been so lucky and so blessed to have been surrounded by all of this amazing love that no one could have anticipated. One thing I am learning is that in our continual self-development and finding ways to achieve our dreams, we sometimes find ways to touch and leave impressions on the lives of others. That’s why I wrote the books. Especially this most recent one.”

“You, your story has definitely offered hope to a lot of people. But it wasn’t always this easy. We know you have had many difficulties since what happened to you. What was happening? How did you overcome them?” 

“There was a couple of years right after that attack that happened to me where I was struggling. I had PTSD. I don’t like to label myself but the symptoms of trauma have the potential to be pretty severe. Thank God I was able to overcome this. I feel strong in saying that it was not a result of anything I did that I overcame that. With everything else, with the drive to continue and to keep living and to keep positive. In the drive to regain control of all of my muscles, I never gave up.” On the screen, Gerard watched as he looked slowly to the ground, in thought. He continued, “I think I have got to give myself credit for that. At least. When that movie came out about me, I was still having a lot of difficulty. I was really struggling with flashbacks. I’ve got to admit that I never really felt worthy the love that came my way after that attack. I probably did not treat people like I should have. I feel terribly that it took me so long to realize how great people have been to me, especially with everything they themselves are going through. You know, I still receive emails. I still get emails telling me what my story means to a lot of people. The only way I was able to overcome these issues and the PTSD and symptoms of trauma was through Christ. My relationship with God has grown so much since what happened to me. I was very blessed to have a lot of love around me during my recovery from that injury. This is how I was able to overcome.” 

The news reporter thought a moment and smiled warmly. 

Gerard rose and turned off the television. Grabbing Andrea’s hand, he helped her stand and then led her to the front door. He pulled it aside and led her out onto the deck of the backyard. He indicated the stars that were luminous above them. Andrea acknowledged but just kept looking at him. After a moment, he lowered his head and slowly pushed his forehead against hers. They gazed into each other’s eyes a moment and then Gerard kissed her. From his pocket, he withdrew the golden ring that she had given him years earlier. Still kissing her, he unlocked his fingers from her hand with his other hand and placed the ring in her hand, closing her hand around it. He pulled his head back and she looked down. A soft tear built on her bottom eyelids and she kissed him again. 

 

Something for the Pain:

Ordell Arrant’s toes shifted uneasily in the restraints of the lab. They were they only part of his body he could move. Moving them allowed some relief from his intense discomfort. His vision continued:

It was a rainy day. The rain that fell, fell hard and deep into the freshly planted grass and the soil surrounding the graveyard. Regardless of the bitter weather, birds chirped here and there across the morning air. The cemetery was empty that day. It was a solemn day in February and the minister who spoke, spoke gravely and sincerely. Across the field could be seen the tall buildings of the inner city of Charleston and on the other side stood a thick and dense wooded area. 

The few who stood erect before the open grave said nothing. Few tears fell and few hearts sank at the passing of this kind woman. Only across the city, in the midst of those taller buildings that stood above the field, in which they all then stood, a heart was indeed breaking. Tears did, in fact, fall at her death. He did not know that the funeral was taking place for his mother. Nobody had informed him of his own mother’s funeral.

The funeral spectators included a minister from a nearby church, two of the hospital administrative officers and Genevieve’s old boss from the bakery at which she had worked so hard for years. There was a grave dismissal of the passive effect of Genevieve’s kindness at the ceremony. The truth was that no one really knew her as well as her son. And now, he was even stripped of his right to attend his own mother’s funeral.

“There is a lot to say of Genevieve Auclair. She was a kind woman, a mother and a hard worker.” The minister repeated then, “She was a kind woman. In her last few years, she had devoted herself to painstaking efforts at keeping alive her only son. The real pinnacle of Genevieve’s life came not under good circumstances. But rather, it was through the injury of her son that she proved to herself, to her community and to God how devoted she was. It is so, that only through tragedy does light truly shine through.” 

The minister stopped and looked about the gathered bunch there to see if he could see her son, Gerard. He was not present.

In the hospital room back at Charleston Centre for Long Term Care, Gerard twisted his head across the weak pillow. He twisted it hard, so as to assure himself that he still felt. He desired so much to die in those last days, only to be with his mother, father and ancestors. There was little left for him in the world he was in. Loneliness shot through his heart especially in those past couple of days without his mother. He would feel guilt, rage, shame, humiliation and penitence. He prayed to God countless times. He wished that Father White would return for only a moment to instil in him some courage, some kind adage to help him pass the time. Most of all, he just wanted someone to speak to.

It was that day that Gerard was interrupted by another visit. He was in the act of reaching for his chest, which throbbed in pain when he realized that his limbs did not work. He never was able to accept that fact. The nurse entered again. She lowered her head softly, so gentle were her actions as she paced the floor. He watched the grace of her movements as if he had never seen such elegance. From his position, Gerard could see, in her hand, another small and transparent bag. Gerard’s excitement built then.

She stood next to him then and looking down upon him respectfully. She said, “I thought… I thought that this being such a hard time for you, Gerard, that you might want some more morphine.”

Gerard huffed, “All I can get.”

She stood, looking at him a moment and then hooked up his intravenous and watched his face slowly relax. A light, care-free smile came across his face at that moment. And as she was watching, she said to him gingerly, “I’m sorry about your mother, Gerard.”

A slurred voice was what emerged as he tried to say, “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

The minister’s mouth twitched at not having seen Gerard. He grew sallow and displeased at not seeing him there. He too had heard rumours of Gerard and his behaviour at the hospital. He took his absence as an insult to both his mother and God. 

The solitude that seemed to fester and fall before the congregation at the funeral was thick. There were few words spoken by all present. And when the minister went to ask if anyone had anything to say about Genevieve, they all shook their heads slowly.

Sunk into utter bliss, Gerard rest his head into the pillow once more. He had regained his ability to speak. The effects of the drugs had not had the same effect as they had the first time the kind nurse administered them for him.

On waking, he opened his eyes quickly and eagerly, as if revived from a fresh period of sleep. His body was calm but the anxiety had returned to his mind. He gazed about the room cautiously and seeing the nurse still there, asked her how long he had been out. She said only an hour.

He was filled with disappointment then. He asked, “How much did you give me?”

She said, “A whole dose. It’s usual for the effects to wear off when you take the drug so soon after the last time.”

Gerard began to whisper, “It doesn’t feel the same as the last time.”

The nurse laughed gently though in her mind, she was questioning herself. She was wondering whether what she had started was good for anybody. She doubted its goodness, especially for him.

Gerard thought a moment and then the nurse saw a sudden gleam of intelligence come across his face. He said, entirely in earnest, “I want you to give me an overdose.”

At that moment, the nurse regretted the choice that she had made some weeks earlier. She was disdainful of the decision she had made to help him initially. She reflected that she must have known that the small dose she had given him would build into an addiction and even possibly build into the situation, which then presented itself. Even still, there was little chance, she would reflect, of any kind and compassionate human being to have denied him this small relief, small though it was, when he asked her. She remembered the deep, wide eyes and the quivering lower lip that had plead with her to give him something. 

The nurse and Gerard now sat, staring at each other imploringly. She said finally, “Are you serious?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that I want so much to die.” 

She turned her head about to look behind her. A wave of disappointment and anxiety swept across her chest on seeing that no one was there. She wanted someone to come to her rescue. For a moment, she forgot where she was and that frightened her. At the same time, she feared that someone was waiting on the outside of the door, listening in. She highly doubted the possibility but it scared her none-the-less. Searching within herself at that moment for something to say, some kind and welcome words for him to hear, she breathed deeply. She knew that those words did not exist. Regardless, she tried.

The rain had let up for a while over the graveyard. Still, the presence of a collection of dark clouds lingered over-head. And though the birds still chirped, the minister’s voice died abruptly. The presence of the bird’s cooing acted as a relief from the agony of the long and dreary pause of his voice. The congregation of the funeral focussed on the birds with all of their collected might. 

Slowly, agonizingly, the casket, which had lain next to the open grave, was lowered into the open hole in the earth. There was a disagreeable accord about the cemetery. They all just wanted to get away. They remained, fixed like trees into the soggy earth below their feet. 

It could be seen then, the minister’s wrist manipulating a flask of holy water across the open grave. The water fell soft and blew a little in the wind. Raising his hand, he said slowly and in a voice trembling with sadness, “We commit the body of Genevieve Auclair to the earth. Our Father in Heaven, we ask that you accept her soul into your kingdom. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The nurse said imploringly, “There is so very much to live for, Gerard. I want you to see that. I know that in this hospital, it can get kind of dull – even scary at times. In any hospital it can get like that. Remember that you have been in here for a long time. There is a whole world on the outside. A world of love and care that thrives on wonderful things. I want you to see this world that I’m talking about.”

Gerard sniffed, “I have faded memories of those things. They don’t exist to me anymore. This place is a prison and I’ve been handed multiple life sentences. I have been handed them while what I really wish for is the death sentence. I wish that I had have been the offender in this case and committed some assault on this pathetic and weak kid named Gerard Auclair. That way, maybe I’d be taken care of. That way, I wouldn’t have these thoughts. That way, things would be easier for me.”

The nurse whispered into her palm, which she held across her mouth, “You don’t mean that, Gerard. You have the opportunity to live your life, to make whatever you want out of it.”

Gerard laughed outwardly, “I can’t move. What worse punishment is there than that?”

“I can think of many things.”

Gerard lowered his voice a little as he said, “The matter is that I was the only one punished for the crime against me. Anything that Arrant is getting cannot be compared to this hell.”

“Regardless, Gerard, I’m afraid that what you’re asking me to do is out of the question. The morphine was just a temporary thing. Remember we discussed that.”

“Please,” he paused and repeated, “Please, I’m begging you to do this. I can pretend that I’m having a seizure and you can say that you found me like this. Please.”

Gerard started to cry, knowing too well that what he was asking was absurd. That did not change that he indeed, wanted his death more than anything. Knowing that there was some kind of divine presence, he encouraged his death to come all the faster. He suddenly felt very ashamed as she left the room in a hurry. He shook his head again and twisted it into the hard pillow.

 

Like a Thief in the Night Part II:

The following day, another doctor – one with whom Gerard was unfamiliar – showed entered his room very quickly and started collecting his personal belongings, all the while asking Gerard if he was ready to go. Gerard would demand to know where it was that he was being taken. The doctor would act obliviously, carefully eyeing the pieces of scrap paper that lay scattered about the hospital room nonchalantly. 

Minutes later, the doctor turned and left the room. He returned some time following, accompanied by two nurses. The nurses each held waste paper baskets in their hands and they went to work on the garbage on the room’s desks, on the cot on which his mother had slept in a past life and on the night table. But it wasn’t garbage! These things belonged to his mother. Gerard started to scream but only a gentle and weak hiss emerged from behind his lips. He was quite aware that something was dreadfully out of place but he could not distinguish exactly what it was. He had little clue as to what was happening. He accosted himself for everything that was going on. It was like he was being hurt all over. The scene brought him back to his assault, then, over ten years ago.

Some time passed and the orderlies said nothing. They only rummaged through files, bins containing Genevieve’s personal items. They threw away all of her books and her clothing. Gerard, then whispering out of sheer anger, for them to leave at least the book she was still reading at the time of her death. They tossed it away without a glance back at him. 

And finally, when the room was emptied of their things, the nurses left and in their place, entered two ambulance attendants. They came in with an air of arrogance and set to work at preparing Gerard for his transfer into the wheelchair. They did so extremely roughly. And though, Gerard could not feel anything while they clawed at him to get the hoist under his dead body, he resented the force with which they used. Surely, he deserved respect. The doctor present watched with complacency as they did it.

Gerard scrutinized in passing blurs of rage and bewilderment, the patients who stood calmly in their rooms through the open doors as his wheelchair passed them in the hallway. Patients were inspecting the scene with curiosity and concern as they tread by so quickly. Out of a couple of rooms from behind the speeding wheelchair, a few heads popped out to watch after them as they went. Gerard’s head bent with every turn of the chair in which he sat. He looked back, as if intoxicated, at the other patients of the hospital. He tried to yell, to scream but absolutely nothing came. He fought for every breath. One of the doctors stood in front of Gerard’s old room and had already begun plans for the next patient that would be admitted there. The elevator descended quickly, without a word from the attendants. They had been instructed as to the urgency of the situation and treated it as they would an emergency. There was no explanation for this treatment. No explanation given or in his mind.

Out in the cool, March air, an ambulance was already waiting. It was all very calculated. Hastily then, the attendants lifted Gerard from his wheelchair and lay him roughly across the cold mattress of the stretcher. The stretcher, thus, was lifted with him on it and rolled into the back of the ambulance. The car started fairly soon after he had been placed in it and the attendants leapt in after him. They left the wheelchair, his wheelchair – the chair that had come to remind him of his disagreeable home – behind. It was disagreeable. But it was a home for him none-the-less.

As they drove, no one said a word. He thought, however briefly, that he must have done something terribly wrong for that sort of behaviour to be inflicted upon him. Then the possibility came to linger and rest in his mind. He thought about his mother’s death, which realistically, had been the only real major event in past weeks. And he thought that maybe the hospital admin thought that her death was his fault. This upset him. He screamed out then, ‘I loved her! I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her!’ But the attendants remained silent. Every so often, the driver would occasion a glance backwards and nod. He nodded not at Gerard, but at the other paramedics. Gerard wanted to know what he had done but all words had escaped him. All fight that had built in him for the last decade of injustice was muted and stifled by this seemingly new injustice.

More than anything, he only wanted to talk to someone. He needed to have his questions addressed with answers that were not ambiguous. Gerard lay still. He did not know where they were going and did not care to know. He simply watched the arching willow trees out of the vehicle’s window as they left the parking lot of the hospital.

Gerard slept then. Under extreme distress and anxiety, he slept. The wake was not pleasant as it had been under the influence of the pain killer. But rather, awaking, there in the back of an ambulance, destination entirely unknown to him, was like being under the influence of the spikes and torments of an iron maiden.

It was when he woke, in that period of sorrow that he saw the tops of new trees as they slowed before the window, from which he stared. The ambulance attendants stood and the car came to a full stop. He became aware that the back doors were opened as a blanket of sunlight fell upon him. He squinted. The doors were flung open then and he was pulled out. On the stretcher still, Gerard was pushed hastily across the floor and into a building. The crease in the doorframe, where the door snaps into it, the recess in the doorframe giving way to the ceiling above, the first light fixture, the second and an awful yellowing, off white wall passed by him so quickly that these things made as little sense as his being there.

As he was pushed farther down the corridor, he happened to glance once to his left. He saw a sign. On the sign, above the reception desk, was dictated in heavily bolded letters: CHARLESTON CENTRE FOR PSYCHIATRIC CARE. 

His stomach turned on edge at that moment, as he became quite aware of the word’s meanings and equally, what their meanings were for him. He was not mentally ill! He was only emotionally hurt. He was traumatized. He was paralyzed. In a deeper voice, made deeper only by feelings of desperation and hopelessness, he began to yell at the ambulance attendants. He called them obscene names and shouted taunts backwards and upwards from his position in the stretcher. It was entirely useless. It was not useless though. And he knew his father’s money was still there. But he shouted, only contributing to the wrong diagnosis that he was insane. He was angry and he thought he had a right to be. He saw his only possibility of convincing someone; anyone that he was not insane was by getting upset. At the same time, his anger made him appear, to anybody who passed in the halls, insane.

They pushed him into a room. The room was white-walled with cushions. They transferred him quickly over to the bed when a couple of mean looking nurses entered the room. The nurses took to him immediately as he shouted, with sedatives. He screamed and shouted. He hoped and prayed. No answer came to him. He called for his mother, his God, his doctors. No one came. Then, the nurses took to him again, groping about at his limbs and flailing them about. They restrained his legs and then his arms. 

Why would they restrain him? He reflected painfully on the idea that they would restrain a paralyzed man. It was then that he remembered his mother’s things from the other hospital and his father’s estate that he would never see again. What had been done with his family’s property? He cried and screamed even harder. He demanded to know where his possessions were and damned all involved in this sinister plot. He implored someone, anyone to let him know why he was taken there. 

No one listened and no one came. The only sound in the room was the dying echo of his voice against the cushioned wall and the steady hum of a heater well above him and under the continual observation and surveillance of a small, room-wide camera on the ceiling, tucked into the cushions.

 

Submission:

That night, Gerard’s stomach began rumbling with hunger. He could not stand the simulated sensation that grew in his mind, reminding him of where his stomach used to be. 

He had grown quite used to forced self-control and not eating when he wanted to at the first hospital. But that day, Gerard had not eaten a thing. In slowly increasing intervals, Gerard’s food was brought to him less and less during the days. And while his self-control was strong, he had not eaten a thing. He started yelling again for food. But his yells were in vain and were drowned out with the other yells that filled the hospital corridor.

There was no clock in the room and no window to gauge what time of day it might have been so when the nurse came, he was not sure if it was the same day or not. The rustling of footsteps from outside of the door sparked a feeling of excitement in him. He wondered what the food might be like. It did not really make a difference to him. It would have just been nice to know. He would have eaten a scrap of jagged aluminum with some cinnamon spice on it at that point.

There was a knock at the door and an older man’s voice announcing that it was meal time. Gerard waited as the door was opened a little and on the ground before the door, was placed a tray filled with wonderful delights. He waited, a little more patiently then, for a nurse to come in and feed him. 

But no nurse came. The food was left on the ground where it stayed for an hour following. Gerard could smell the food, the meatloaf, the French fries and the pie, which after some time he guessed was cherry from its distinctive smell. He waited and waited but no nurse came to help him. Another hour passed and Gerard was becoming angry. He started to shout again and cursed the single, tawdry light fixture, which was held by the ceiling. He cursed everyone. Everyone he had ever known had grown villainous in image to him, suffice his mother and father. He remembered his family as if in some vague and distant recollection then. The recollection existed as if in a dream. There was no certainty to say that he had lived the life that he had definitely lived for so long. He was growing, however slowly, to believe that his God in whom he trusted so very much to be some sinister force that was bent on the humiliation of and making of pain for him. He believed that fate was playing with his needs and expectations.

He tried so very hard to explain that he did not belong there. Or to at least explain that he was paralyzed and could not move, so that at least he could get some food. And so was the development that for four days, the trays of food were lined up, one after the other, at the step of the door.

There came a voice from outside the door from time to time, encouraging him that if he did not eat, he would not have the privilege of social time. Gerard merely shouted back that he could not move. That social time was not going to happen for him unless they realized that he couldn’t move and even more, he was tied to his bed with restraints. The nurse at the other end of the door would laugh and walk off.

On the fifth day, a doctor on duty happened to come across the closed door of Gerard Auclair’s room. The stench within had grown insufferable and was turning into a musky and putrid odour outside in the halls. The patients did not complain in that wing. As a matter of fact, a few even found the smell enjoyable. Inside the room, Gerard rested still and quietly. He had given up on his life. All was hopeless. All possible courses of action and thought were futile to him then. He could yell. But what made his yelling any more important and distinct than the other’s shouts that filled the hospital day in and day out? All was silent in his room except for the occasional, muffled cough and hacking up of mucous in his throat.

The on duty doctor entered the room questioningly and said, “Gerard, why aren’t you eating?”

There was no reply. So the doctor moved toward him slowly and withdrew his chart from the case he had rested on the floor. He looked at the chart and approached Gerard compassionately. He sat on the bed next to his restrained arm and stroked his forehead kindly. Again, lowering his eyes to the chart, which he still held in his hand, his mouth dropped. Quickly, he moved across the floor and out of the room. Gerard, then in a semi-conscious state, could faintly make out the sound of footsteps running off in some other direction. The door was left open. The doctor was shouting something but in Gerard’s weak state, he could not make out what it was that he said.

Moments passed and the same doctor and a nurse entered the room again. In the nurse’s faced-up palms, she held a tray of fresh food. The doctor walked across to him and smiled warmly at him. He did not see the smile. His head had been turned into the wall for some time. And so it remained. 

Even as the nurse sat next to him on the bed, removed his restraints and began prodding his cheek with the full spoon, he did not move. Gerard could hear scuttling about, somewhere near the doorway. And then the noise stopped. He finally turned his head to the open side of the room and he saw that the full and rotting trays of meat and pastries had been cleaned up. Gerard nodded in understanding and opened his mouth. The nurse placed a bit of cut up beef on his tongue and watched him as he chewed. A look of hunger came over his face then, like he had forgotten the necessity of eating. The sensation was fresh and had brought back feeling and emotion to his mind. 

While he chewed, he coughed heavily and deep. A small piece of food spat out of his mouth and hit the collar of the nurse’s uniform. The nurse didn’t even flinch. She just continued loading up a fresh spoonful of food. Wonderful food! Gerard, for the first time in weeks, had seen some flash of light. He saw, for that time – seemingly the first time, the ability of humanity to have some kindness and care for its fellow being.

Gerard chewed quickly and without pause. 

 

An Epiphany:

A year had passed in that place. And though at times, he was treated better than the ways in which his care was handled in his final stay at the Charleston Centre for Long Term Care, he still knew that he did not belong there. Even though his treatment was administered more kindly and with a seemingly gentler heart, Gerard still isolated himself. That year passed quite bleakly. In the first month or two, he had nothing to do but stare into the cushioned wall of the room that rose into the ceiling next to his head. He managed to count every strand of fabric in the cushions before him that were in view. He did so until the lights were switched off in his room. He would make up little stories and back stories for each strand. 

One, he would come to remember, was a little boy who was abused sexually by his parents as a child and into the early part of his adolescence. When this little boy was a teenager, he was assaulted and thrown into the whirling depths of a three month coma. Because of that injury to his brain, the memories in his mind of the abuse that had happened to him had repressed themselves and he was angry for a long time, getting himself into more trouble and seemed to be amplified by the injury that had happened to him. Ten years after the injury that happened to this boy, the memories became clear to him. Only then did he have the ability to turn his life around and develop healthy, lifelong relationships and deal with his anger. Though most people treated the boy with great respect, he remembered reflecting over the indifference of a few people to his plight when he told them what happened to him. To these, the boy would say quite simply: ‘You seem to think that I fell off my bicycle and scraped my knee.’

The strangest thing about the absurd little universe, which Gerard had conjured up inside his mind regarding the community of strands on the cushions, was that all of them were happy stories – in one way or another. They all had happy endings. He wished that life worked in a similar way. But he knew, even then, that his life would end quite tragically. He embraced that fact. He embraced it openly and believed it to be true because his life to that point had been tragic. Gerard would taunt death and laugh in its face.

April of 2023. The nurses started to realize from their visits with him that he was definitely not insane and did not belong there. The hospital admin, a man by the name of Dr. Loïc Léglise, even secretly started to plan a way to have him moved out. Loïc made an effort to visit Gerard personally every couple of days. But still, even with Loïc’s idealistic plans of Gerard moving out, where was there for him to go? How would he provide for himself? For all that doctor knew, Gerard was destitute and without money. And so he was. Regardless, he continued to work at the problem. The doctors and nurses who knew this well did nothing to display outwardly, to tell him that he did not belong there. And so, Gerard’s anxiety and shame and guilt built. Increasingly, did he start to think that he had done something drastically wrong to deserve this treatment.

 It was in about the third month of his stay that the nurses took pity on him and sacrificed their own orderly television set from their office and hooked it up in Gerard’s room. They had to unlock a jack in behind some cushions on the wall of his room. And when they had, an electrical socket became evident. Gerard was very grateful but did not see the act as unusual. He simply suspected the staff’s suspicions that he did not belong in that particular hospital any more than did a perfectly sane and able-bodied person. He was afraid for this fact. He had heard stories of normal people being admitted to psychiatric wards in order to keep these individuals silent. He suspected that all working in the building had a hidden agenda. Even still, Gerard strived to confirm the belief that he was sane by acting very courteously and politely. This better treatment; the more frequent visits from different people and additional food offered him some relief from his thoughts. He had lived for the eight or nine months with a wonderful distraction. The television set was always on. It was even left on at night and it had grown to keep him company and became his dear friend. He would laugh hysterically at the funny bits and cry at the sad.

But this period of stability all soon came to a crashing end. Without explanation, his television was removed from his room while he slept one night and the visits gradually decreased. They still came to feed him but less often. Building up to this change in treatment, Gerard had slept an unusual amount. It was in these times and in a state of pure panic that Gerard once again grew into a dissociative lapse. He could not shake the fact that he must have done something as a catalyst in deserving this treatment. 

And one day, as he slept and semiconscious from the effect of the flashback he was experiencing, a nurse entered the room. The nurse was new to the hospital and was given little information regarding Gerard’s particular case and only knew that she was to feed him.             

She entered softly and called out almost inaudibly, “Gerard?”

There was no answer. 

She called out again, “I’ve come to give you your food.”

Still no answer. 

She entered and closed the door tightly behind her. She moved easily across the white floor over to where Gerard was restrained and sat on the bed next to him. She sat, unintentionally across the man’s restrained arm. She started quickly and sat up. Then she gazed slowly back to him and noticing that he made no noise, no movement as indication he had felt this, she looked at him with sad eyes. It was almost as though the man, there lying before her was in a catatonic state. She rubbed his hand quickly and harshly to get his attention but there was no response. Then, lifting the fork in her hand, she began tempting him gingerly with it, beckoning the utensil before his turned cheek. Still, there was no response. 

Next, she poked at his leg, beneath the recently changed, yellow gown. She manipulated her fingers about the tender hairs across the revealed part of his chest and then bent her head down to smell his neck. There was no response.

Looking about the room and back at the fastened door, she turned back to Gerard then. It began with her gently lifting his yellow, hospital gown. She examined the naked and limp penis cautiously. She prodded it gently; thinking that that would get his attention. She rubbed the top of it tenderly. Then she turned and looked at the doorway once more. The anxiety within her built slowly and passionately. The shape of this otherwise handsome, young man’s penis had the appearance of not ejaculating in a long time. But still, there was something about its structure, something sad. It was as though, it needed to but could not.

She lowered her knees to the floor next to the bed and moved down it a little. And placing her head next to the man’s pelvis, she blew warmly across his pubic hairs. She was distressed at his lack of response. For a time, she thought that maybe he did not find her attractive. But then, she remembered where she was. She released a moderate laugh and then lowered her face across his genital area. She wrapped her lips tightly around the penis’ shaft. There was no response. 

And then, a flash of paranoia swept across her. Looking around, almost knowing that what she had done was terribly wrong, she stood up and left the room quickly. Before she left, she bent over and across Gerard’s chest and whispered into his ear, “Our little secret, right?”

Gerard was silent. And as the nurse bent back up, she noticed that his eyes were open a little. She looked into them and saw that his pupils were twitching back and forth very quickly. She grew scared and moved toward the door. Gerard slept. Gerard coughed greatly then. The noise frightened the nurse, who was then walking away from the closed door behind her. 

She approached him once again silently and with a degree of shame. When she got near to his bed, he started into a coughing fit. Every successive noise that he made frightened her all the more. She looked down at his heaving and convulsing mouth and saw thick wads of sputum lying on his cheek and chin. The sputum was opaque in color – not transparent as normal saliva – and streaked throughout it, was shades of yellow, green and red. 

At that moment, Gerard woke. He experienced a wave of violent rage pass across his existence. And seeing the nurse standing bashfully at the entrance to his prison of a home, he started to shriek. He began to yell out curses and awful howls of agony. On seeing this, the nurse bolted out the door. He did not know what he was shouting at. She returned some minutes later and gave him an angry look. He was yelling at the world, at his state in life, at the fact of his being there. He had blacked out while she had her way with him. The look she gave him only served to feed his fear that he was not whole. The look fed his isolation.

The nurse bent across him and stuck a needle into his neck. He slept again.

 

Catatonic:

It was on the next day, around lunch time that the hospital admin, Loïc Léglise, a tall and husky fellow called this nurse into his office. When she entered, she was surprised by the presence of two other doctors in the room, each standing around him. Loïc sat comfortably in a swivel chair behind his desk. At once, he called for her to take a seat.

She said, “Gentlemen, is there something the matter?”

The doctors looked at each other quickly and then lowered their heads. Loïc glanced over her sincere face casually and with caution. It was as though he was gauging something, as if he was testing her. 

She repeated, “Is something wrong?”

Loïc said then finally, “I should say so,” and paused, “we were just reviewing the security cameras from yesterday and happened upon something very interesting.”

The nurse bit her lip. Anxiety built within her quickly and ravenously. At the same time, a fleeting thought crossed her mind. She was almost certain that there were no security cameras in the individual rooms. After all, that would be absurd. Steadily, her anxiety settled.

The admin let his eyes fall heavily on the nurse’s brow. Once in a while, the other two doctors would sniff and cough gently. Loïc said again, “We were reviewing the security tapes from yesterday,” and sniffed a breath of air, “and saw your visit to Gerard Auclair’s room.”

The nurse, growing agitated, said in a muffled slur, “Oh. Which one is he?” Her lips were trembling and sweat started to collect across her forehead. The sweat soon fell in steady streams down her cheek. 

Loïc paused and replayed the surveillance video on the security television set before him. The screen of the television was visible to him and the other two doctors but was imperceptible to the nurse. He noticed how hard she was trying to remain casual as he pointed to the screen. The two doctors nodded patiently. He could not see them nod but he felt the movements. 

The nurse, breathing heavily then, realized that they were looking at something on the desk. She did not know what it was but she knew that there was something there. 

Loïc glanced at her harshly then and said, “The gentleman you were supposed to feed. That is Gerard Auclair.”

She drew a breath and held it then.

The doctor to the left of Loïc said then, “Did he enjoy his meal?”

She stammered quickly, “Oh, yes. He doesn’t say much though. But I could tell he liked the food by the look in his eyes.”

The same doctor shook his head, his face becoming ashen with distaste.  

She said just as quickly, “I’m sorry, is there something you need? I have a busy schedule today and the other nurses are probably looking for me.”

The other doctor, to the right of the desk, said then, “I assure you that they’re not looking for you.”

The nurse hesitated and turned her head a little to the side inquisitively. 

Loïc then said, “We’ve seen you. We’ve seen you with Gerard Auclair. We saw you sexually abuse him.”

The nurse shook her head violently and shouted, “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

He lowered his head and spun the television set around on the desk so that she could see its image. The tape was paused on the image of her as she was placing her mouth across his genitals. She started to shake vehemently then and bit her lip hard.

She said, “Oh my God. Thank Heaven there was a video in the room because I was afraid to come forward before. He tried to rape me. You must have that on tape as well. What’s his name? Ge…”

Loïc nodded and emphasized his name, “Gerard. His name is Gerard.”

“Gerard tried to rape me. He made me do the most awful things for him. You have that on tape don’t you?” It was not so much a question as it was an accusation. 

Loïc glanced back at the other doctors behind him and scowled. He said quickly and sternly as he turned his face back to her, “Gerard Auclair is a quadriplegic. There is no way that he could have tried to rape you.” He hesitated and then continued, “And even if he had have tried to convince you, you could have resisted. Your job was to feed him.”

Loïc picked up the phone then on the desk and spoke into it. He said, “I would like security assistance in the administrative offices,” and he placed it back on the receiver. 

At that point, the nurse was frantic. She was yelling, saying that he forced her to do it and called him every possible name. 

The two doctors were restraining the nurse then as she was flailing her arms about, demanding justice. The security came and led her out of the building.

 

A Quiet Passing: 

He lived in that place for two years. His mother’s possessions, never returned to him; his father’s money lost to him. He grew impatient in waiting for his death and continuously angrier at life. How could people be so incredibly cruel? It did not really matter to him. He simply posed the rhetorical question for sanity’s sake. He thought that that might be what a healthy person might ask at such a time.

It was in the second year of his stay at The Charleston Centre for Psychiatric Care that Gerard Auclair died. It was a January day, early in the morning when Loïc Léglise entered his room enthusiastically to announce his wonderful news. After countless nights of agonizing over Gerard’s case file, he had finally arranged with Health Services to provide Gerard with an apartment and a permanent social worker. 

When Loïc entered the room, the usual hiss of Gerard’s heavy and deep breathing had ceased. Loïc moved toward his bed slowly and with lightness. And then, gazing down across the middle-aged man’s body on the bed, he tested him first, beckoning with the words, ‘Gerard?’ 

Not a peep came from the cold body. Loïc watched him sadly for a moment more to see if his ceased breathing was not only a case of apnoea. Not a breath. He fumbled with his body and prodded it to stir up any sign of life there may be left and jumbled about with his wrists to check for a pulse. There was no heartbeat. 

Then Loïc saw his face – a sight, which would come to torment him in many years to come. His head was turned into the side of the wall and his face was tightly packed into the crevice between the wall and the edge of the bed. Loïc tugged lightly at the head, already set with rigor mortis but succeeded in manoeuvring the head across the pillow on which it rest. From the mouth, had collected a puddle of dark and thick vomit, across the side of the bed and smearing his lower jaw. The eyes protruded from the skull as though begging for air and the nose was pasted in a thick layer of snot that ran down into his mouth. The pasted nostrils, crusted with awful, green snot made Loïc’s stomach turn on edge. The smell was entirely unbearable. It was something like crystallized putrefaction. And then, from the wide and gaping mouth of his friend, was emitted something awful. It was like a musky gas from deep in his lungs.

And in the ensuing silence that begat the hospital room following the admin’s placid observations, Loïc grew immediately sad and uneasy. He thought, and rightfully so, that Gerard had a chance – a chance to make more of life than what he had been forced to endure. More so, Loïc considered Gerard more than only one of his patients. He considered him a friend. In his research over the boy’s case file and in his casual visits to Gerard’s room, they seemed able to develop a kind and equivocal friendship. One that needed few words to be said. Gerard possessed few of these friends. Loïc, equally had very few.

In a hurry that was unnecessarily futile at that point, Loïc moved across the room and out into the hall where he announced briefly and with ringing discontentment, “Gerard Auclair has passed away.”

One nurse in passing said as briefly, “Who?” and then continued down the hall shouting, “Stretcher needed in hall eight. Make that a hearse.”

To Gerard then, it was almost as though he were immersed in some cruel and mocking afterlife. Seemingly trapped in this spiritual limbo, he screamed but no sound came. He scratched at something, anything he could reach but he wasn’t in reach of anything. All that was left for him was the tunnelled vision of his obsolete body. The image was cold and frightening. The edges of his vision possessed a running fluidity, something like a waterfall. However, the focal point of the image was clearer than daylight. He cared so very much for his body there, in the image. He wanted some answers. Where was he now? Was this Heaven? Was it Hell? The possibilities led him more to believe that it was his own personal hell. He saw his lifeless body, still restrained across the bed on which it had sat for years and he felt empathy for the poor soul. 

He struggled some more and then gave up like an extinguished spark. There was no more that he could do. All that was really left for him was watching, waiting and praying. It was at that moment – not that time mattered to him then – that two nurses entered the room quickly and almost angrily. The nurses hardly even looked at the face, which was twisted in suffocating agony. Gerard was desperate. He began to cry, ‘That’s my body! That’s the body of a human being. His name is Gerard Auclair.” The nurses withdrew the restraints and flung the body onto a stretcher with some plastic covering. He began to shout again, “That’s a human’s body. It may be dead but it once possessed a life. It possessed a life full of hopes and ambitions and dreams – of care and compassion.” But there was no sound.

And then, Gerard’s body was taken away and his spirit was left with the sight of an empty bed. The picture of the empty bed lasted for what Gerard thought was a long time. But there was no way of his telling of the time. He judged the space of time’s passing only by the vision that was still present. And then suddenly, another nurse entered on stage and began changing the sheets on the bed. She threw the old sheets into a garbage pail that she had brought with her.

Gerard shut his eyes in the vision but the image stayed clear in his mind. It was as though the whole damnable thing and event had been injected into his mind. He seemed to remember being able to blink but no longer did that happen for him. The image was burnt into his vision. 

The empty bed again. Gerard waited patiently and thought meaningfully over his life. When he encountered a negative thought, he contradicted it and thought the opposite. He was sure that through positive thought, he could manage to escape this awful prison. And that was what it was. It was all a prison far worse than any material prison. The whole situation – his whole life – was a prison. He wanted people to know what he had gone through so that it could be avoided for others in the future, so that his story might avert some criminal hurting another human being. He contemplated over the thought that only when it’s all over, when it’s too late, do people finally realize.

It was when he had given up, when he had forfeited all of his feelings and hopes of aspiring to some form of heaven, that the vision changed over. This new vision was one that was situated around some form of mechanical fireplace. He would question this and its meaninglessness and then feel emotions of sadness mixed with humour. He waited again for what seemed an eternity. Nothing came. 

The spirit of Gerard Auclair examined the carapace of this furnace closely. He played games with it and gave it names only to pass the incredible solitude. In reality this solitude was hardly different than the solitude he had been subjected to in life. There was never the possibility of interacting with people in life just as there neither was now.

Finally, he thought briefly, that he saw movement across the field of vision. And so he did. There was a finger and then an arm and then the head following the arm. A man dressed in dark clothing moved across the image then. And following the man, moved in from the foreground of Gerard’s vision, was rolled in on a stretcher the body of his old self. 

The body was bloated and the face possessed a bluish shade. Even then, the body possessed an enormous beauty to his spirit. It was his body. He had lived with it for so long. And across the chest, were the fresh scars of the post mortem autopsy. His spirit quivered. 

Next, the fireplace was opened and Gerard knew all too well exactly what was happening. There with no one present for the ceremony, his cherished body – even though it had not worked for him for a long time – was being cremated. It mattered not that his body was paralyzed. It served him as his material vessel for the life he had lived. It acted as receptor for all of the wonderful things that life provided. But then, Gerard remembered how that vessel had failed him. He remembered the isolation, the fear, the desolation. He remembered the anxiety. 

It was at that moment that the body there was injected into this fiery pit. Silvery tongues of flame spat out at the first contact of his body with the fire. His head was first. The body was pushed in hastily and without care.

And now, in watching his own body spark up and melt within the fires of the oven, his spirit form began to feel the flame on its being. He knew that that would pass. He knew that the flame could not hold his spirit for long. It was simply a matter of his not being able to estrange his own sense of self from the body he once connected innately to that spirit. He grew sad in the ensuing silence and watched pitifully as the crematorium worker swept out his remains onto a plate and then dumped them into a plastic garbage bag. He watched, through his particular tunnel vision, as the worker threw the bag meaninglessly across the lawn of the place.

The fiery intensity of the flame that his body had felt never did go away as he thought it might. It instead, grew in bounds as he waited again in uncertainty. The vision had grown black and his sense, his ability to think was altered. He could still think, only it was a jumble of irrational thought and visions recollected within his mind. Did he really deserve this sort of treatment? Was he a criminal? Had he committed some heinous crime that was just so awful that it merited the sort of abuse he had experienced for so long?

It was then, in a moment of sheer exhaustion and pain from the invisible flame that Gerard Auclair woke. His vision grew fuzzy and then spastic with hesitation. He could discern a figure, there, across a wide and white room, seated on a chair behind a desk. And then the vision became clearer and his mind appeased itself from the torments of a life he had lived – a life he was not supposed to see. Gradually, the heat from the flames that transcended his corporeal body and into his spirit essence subsided.

 

His Name is Gerard:

When he woke, reintroduced to his former self as Ordell Arrant, it all came in one big flash, as if taunting him. Every memory was etched into his own. All of the sudden and without his control, Arrant then began to shake violently in the chair he sat in. The restraints and the device atop his head kept still. The plugs and wires attached to his body remained glued to him. The shock at that moment was utterly indescribable. He regained his vision slowly and could see through the rouged visor of the helmet on his head, Angela Deblois, sitting cross-legged behind a desk at the back of the room. Everything to Arrant seemed a blur. Everything seemed further away than it actually was.

He grew overwhelmingly angry. He demanded to know exactly what had happened and how it had happened. Angela approached him slowly. Her movements invoked a flashback of the doctors from his life as Gerard Auclair. He struggled to regain his freedom. He was shocked at his inability to move. 

Angela spoke into a communicator on the wall next to the desk, into which she said, “Therapy is complete. Will you please return to the treatment room, gentlemen?”

Only a matter of seconds later, seven men entered the room slowly. Arrant recognized two of them as the guards who had come to take him to this awful place. But the other five, he had little recollection. He remembered men all seated around a table before this experience began. The unrecognizable men looked at Arrant suspiciously and then backed up against the wall. The two guards approached him steadily.

Angela approached him again with the guards at her side and she said, “Do you feel alright, Mr. Arrant?”

Arrant screamed then, “I do! Just let me go.” He started to cry.

Angela said, “I’m going to undo these restraints,” and then gesturing to the two guards, “Gentlemen, do you mind assisting me?”

She released the restraints on his arms first. Arrant’s sole intention, after she had done this, was to strike her to the floor. But he was horribly surprised, when she unfastened the grips, he was totally unable to even move. His arms remained like glue to the armrests. She unfastened the second restraint and the same thing happened. 

Arrant took a deep breath and said, “How long has it been? What year is this?”

She turned and looked approvingly at the men against the wall. When she returned her glare, she said, “The treatment lasted for a total of six hours, Mr. Arrant.”

On hearing this, Arrant was filled with as much rage as he was with relief. The emotions ran through him like a wonderful waterfall. He laughed and bellowed outwardly then. He had been given a second chance! Ever so slowly, Arrant regained the use of his arms and the sensation returned to his upper body. 

Angela approached once more and asked him if he was ready to go home. The word was bittersweet. It possessed something of the uncanny. It presented such an ambivalent meaning. He did not know if he, in fact, wanted to go home. And as he relaxed, the memories and emotions from the life he had endured came back to him and settled in his mind.  

Angela again asked him if he was ready to go home. To this question, he responded with a simple, ‘Yes’. She beckoned for him with his hands and said to stand up. He tried so hard to move his legs. But with no success. His legs were now paralyzed as they had been in his life as Gerard. 

“What have you done to me?” He started to cry out. They simply turned their backs on him. He bellowed once again, “I can’t move! What have you done? Tell me, you evil bastards!”

They seemed to be only waiting now as Arrant shouted distastefully at the top of his lungs. The receptionist from the other room even came to inquire into what was happening. It was truly a terrifying experience for him. He was not sure, having lived so long as a quadriplegic, if he could do it. Making that first step was like an eternal hell.

An hour passed before he summoned the mental will to be able, once more to move his legs. His legs and arms trembled so very violently with determination and focus. But that was not the only reason. His legs had in actuality become atrophied in his own mind. On the hour, he stepped down with the help of the two guards and stood by himself. He shook so hard that it threw him back several times. His buttocks were going limp and his knees caved and drew backwards as he fell continually backwards. The guards would have to catch him when he did this. But when he was finally able to stand stable and sturdily once again, he laughed uncontrollably. He laughed and laughed to no end. He laughed for what felt like hours.

It was empty laughter. Only a natural response. Similar to the reaction one gets when waking from an awful nightmare to the brightness of morning, reminding them that there is a new day. The truth was that he was unable, and would grow more so as time passed, to accept his former self. There was a resistance. Regardless of how painful the life he had lived for that small period – oh! Such a lifetime it felt, such an awful eternity – he was attached to it as a part of who he was. The crimes he had committed in the past made this painful life of which he was offered a glimpse, so much more virtuous and so much cleaner.

As the two guards led him out of the treatment room, he glanced back and to Angela said, “His name was Gerard Auclair. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

She nodded indifferently and continued looking at the empty desk before her.

 

A Television Show:

His name is Ordell Arrant. He is thirty-five years old. This treatment took place over ten years ago. He remains in transient thought, haunted by the life that was shown him. And he is still haunted by his own speculation as to what ever happened to the real Gerard Auclair and his mother. He exists, terribly haunted by the emotions that he experienced in that life. Arrant states often now and with utmost sincerity and earnestness that he simply never knew what his victims were forced to endure. He is sad, very sad that he had committed these crimes against so many people. Especially now, reflecting on the fact that in that life, he had grown to resent and hate his assaulter. He longed for vengeance upon the offender who, in point of fact, was himself all along. The irony behind this makes Ordell Arrant want to throw up.

Some gaunt figure had arrived at his new home some time after the therapy had been completed. The figure, Arrant observed from within his house – terrified to confront the man on his porch, had laid something onto the ground before the door. When he moved out among the shadow, Arrant opened the door and gazed down solemnly upon a copy of the Bible.

The difference in Arrant now is evident in his face. Almost as if by some miraculous chance, he was given the opportunity not to live a life. And if only for the purpose of living a life without harming others, he would embrace his idleness. But it was upon his second reading of the Book that he began to recollect instances from his the extremity of the trauma of his own childhood. 

And now, ten years later, Ordell Arrant sits on his front porch of the home he has been assigned to live in. He drinks cup after cup of whiskey. The bottle is close at hand. His social worker is coming tomorrow. He has that to look forward to. Mr. Arrant repeats over and over again how he just never knew, how he is so very sorry. He rocks back and forward while in these momentary lapses, repeating the words like an autistic. His life is shattered because he never knew. 

A man passes on the street before the porch. Arrant gazes up quickly and vigilantly before collecting his bottle of whiskey to his chest, cradling it as a child would a precious toy. The burning embers of the cigarette held tightly between his lips fall to his chest, across his shirt.

For some reason he has grown accustomed to this sort of behaviour. It’s like Arrant has given up on life. Equivocal to his time spent in the hospital as Gerard Auclair – and he sees both his life and Auclair’s as one – the loss of self-respect, the shame and the fear exist in symbiotic relation. He nodded then with the trembling thought that everyone suffers from violence. He shakes his head violently then and reflects bitterly upon his own childhood. He made the choice to place Gerard Auclair into the awful hell he had lived in for so long before he died. There are no justifications, no excuses when it comes to hurting another living and breathing human being.

Arrant stands shakily and wipes the ash from his shirt. He enters his where he is greeted by occasional nods and sits, alone, at the back of the room. On the television set then, is emitted the fractured image, through grey and black streaks, of a man in a wheelchair who is speaking and crying. Arrant calls out to turn up the volume. A hefty elderly man stands and turns the dial. 

The figure across the television screen held something, some trait faintly recognizable to Arrant as he sat forward in the sofa. This man sitting upright in his wheelchair, a baseball cap gently concealing his balding forehead, turned his head solemnly and sucked back a tender sob. He lifted his head and to the side. In the background was a stage with dancers across it, moving about quickly and agilely. 

Finally, after a brief close-up on the boy’s face, the picture drew back and revealed a bunch of his supporters. With him, all stood around his wheelchair, were a priest, a bunch of men in suits, a young girl and an older woman. One of the people with the guy on television, though he could have sworn he recognized. She was kneeling next to the guy’s wheelchair and watching him with loving reverence. 

The figure in the wheelchair was saying in response to a question, “Yes, there comes a time when forgiveness is not so much a tool as it is a necessity. In order to truly forgive, you have to know exactly what that means – to forgive. Forgiveness is divine. Forgiveness is coming to realize that you had nothing to do with what happened to you. It is a handing of the blame, only in recognition, back to the person who was responsible. I saw a lot in the hospital. There were times when I chose to isolate myself. I will never forget the horror that otherwise would have shattered me to pieces after that attack on me. It is a base fear that has kept me positive throughout. But you snap yourself out of the bad memories. It took a really long time for me to relearn how to use my muscles. Those first couple of years were awful. I remember laying there in my hospital bed, trying desperately just to move my pinky finger. And then, one day, what do you know. It starts moving. I looked at everything as a challenge after that. Until, now. Look,” he waved his arms around, “Even after what happened to me, I am able to see light. I am able to see God’s wonderful creations every day. And I think that is a miracle. I thank God for every day I am blessed with. I want to introduce you to my wife, Andrea. She has been with me from before all of this. Say hi Andrea!” And he glanced over to the pretty woman kneeling next to him.

It was then that Arrant recognized the man on the television. It was himself. It was Gerard Auclair. And Andrea! Arrant sat forward a bit in his sofa and uttered a pleasant sigh. And as he struggled to comprehend what exactly was happening, the television streaked out and the signal faded.

 

-

The End

-

 

Afterword

The following is an excerpt from Mr. Ordell Arrant’s personal report composed with the help of a scribe, following his treatment:

“I will say it now – to get the record straight. I am not proud of what I did. There was a time that I was, a time when I took a certain thrill, a certain proud excitement in hurting others. All that changed one day not long ago.

“I never knew that much about the state justice system. I never knew, even though I had committed countless crimes. I just never got caught. And when I was, I was released without as much as a slap on the wrist. Perhaps that is why I continued to commit these awful offences. Perhaps if I had have been caught, they could have changed me sooner. I can’t believe that though. I can’t believe it because it’s not true. 

“I had watched my own friends as they were sent to jail after the violent offences they committed and then were enrolled into a rehabilitation program so that their sentences would be reduced. They were sent to professionally trained psychologists and they would simply act remorseful and apologetic. They would look for the answers that the shrinks wanted. They would play their games. And they would be released based on the ersatz guilt that they would parade. The problem was that the shrinks, in their wanting so much to believe in the goodness of humanity, in the hope for these individuals who had been led astray, they were made blind to reason. I was different. I was the voluntary subject in an innovative psychological form of rehabilitation. 

These guys I’m talking about here were not the sort of guys you would imagine. They were good people. Take from that statement whatever you want considering the fact that I, myself, am a thief of human life. They were murderers, they were rapists and they were thieves on tops of that. I would still say that most of the time I spent with them, they were human, just like everyone else. They expressed sadness, joy, humiliation and the irrationality that possesses all of us at one point or another. They were not animals. I would have gone hungry just to see most of these guys eat. After all, I guess they are animals. If that’s true, I’m an animal too. 

“I was twenty-five when I committed this inexcusable crime. I was twenty-six when I was sentenced to my prison term. And I am now, ten – almost eleven years – following the treatment that saved my soul in many ways, stating for public record that I just never knew. I never realized the effect my actions had on other people. I will never be the same, for in that glimpse of reality, I experienced a lifetime of cause and effect and the ripple of that same cause and effect, which I had caused. 

“The hardest part for me to understand as a man is the fact that if others knew about my situation, my crimes and how I felt after the treatment, they would say I utterly and entirely deserved the painful world in which I exist today. This thought is hard for me because I am truly repentant. I have seen the error of my selfish and irresponsible ways. And yet, I fear that this does not matter. Something inside me felt as though I truly did deserve this. I cannot express my pain. Words are a lost art and they fail me incessantly. Words are an enemy to a man like me; a man who does not even deserve the ability to use them, to express them and to have others read them.

“I truly suppose that this new form of punishment is the most effective and just form utilized by the state’s justice system. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but what I am saying, what I am feeling is too awful for me to even contemplate committing a violent crime again.

“I remember seeing on a television interview one day, before this whole situation, a very prominent victim’s advocate who was practically sobbing in front of the camera. I was laughing at him then, but like I said, I have changed. I have changed in so many ways. One thing this inconsolable victim said during this interview is the fact that until we, as a society, learn to appreciate and strive to understand the emotional turmoil of people who suffer and the varying degrees of suffering out there, we will continue to put people through this torture. He said that the worst act a person can do to another person is to subject them to violence. It didn’t make much sense then, before my treatment, but it does now. It does now that I have experienced a small fraction of what these poor people experience. 

“What amazed me more than anything, about this young victim was the fact that even while he sobbed before the camera, he managed to find equilibrium and organize his thoughts effectively. If it were me in front of the camera, being bombarded by questions about the very devastation that I had endured, I would definitely become so unnerved that I would have hit someone.

“So, you ask me now, how did the treatment change me? Even now, with the equivalent of the lifetime and a half that I have suffered through, I cannot really explain how I have changed since that day. Some days are overwhelmingly difficult. And others, I seem to be only able to reflect that it was my imagination, that it was not really me who was subjected to that dreadful and despairing life. Regardless, most of my thoughts, now, focus not on the life that I am currently living, but rather on the events of that life of which I was offered a glimpse. Those days were certainly much better than any other and I would look forward to them with an unhesitating anticipation. I’ll only say that I never knew. 

It seems stupid to me as I read this. It seems unreal that I had estranged myself to the pain of others. After all, is it really that difficult for someone to understand that those who have suffered will continue to suffer? Some will continue to suffer indefinitely. I suppose it would be unjust to call the ramifications of the treatment upon me as savage or undeserving. I am aware, more than anyone else, of just how much pain I caused.

“Albeit, these days that I would reflect upon the experience as though a figment of my imagination, these precious days that I longed for, offered me some release from the life I had been living, but they were not all that much better. In fact, only by imagining the idea that this whole damnable experience was only my imagination, made it intensely more difficult. For I knew inherently that there was someone out there who was experiencing the pain I was forced to endure for, God knows, so damned long. 

“The thought was etched on my soul, the deepest part of my soul, the part that tells you, you are unconditionally good, that everyone is unconditionally good. How could I be unconditionally good if Gerard Auclair was out there, suffering this much, as a result of my own blood-covered hands? 

“It filled me with an incredible sense of delusionary madness, of impossible despair, to even think of this poor man. How many others had I done this to? How could I have committed these acts? Alas, how could I have known? 

“Years from now, when they come to check up on me and to ask if their therapy had worked, I will fall before their knees and beg the forgiveness that only that one man deserved. I will ask for a cure, some prescription that would make it all better, the prescription I knew that did not exist. 

“Of course, I am reminded now that I never really was the victim of a crime. My parents were awful, really. The embodiment of Satan I would go so far as to say. And the things they did to me in childhood and adolescence were the works of demons. Regardless, it was me who made the decision to enter onto the path I had chosen. I had the choice to heal myself from the deep, repressed and uncannily violent scars that my parents left me with. Just as they could have healed themselves so that they had not committed their acts upon me. It was not until some shadow of a man placed, tenderly, a copy of the Holy Bible upon my doorstep and upon my second reading of that Good Book, that I began the long and arduous process of recovery for my own self. I had little memory – and what memory I had of it was blurred – of my childhood. Then, reading the Book, I started, slowly, to remember the viciousness of my youth. Then, I was able to heal. I thank God for that. 

Children are like plants. If you plant a seed, neglect it, plant it in bad soil and deprive it of water and sunlight, it will grow crooked. If at all. The same applies to living and breathing children. If you neglect it, rape it – viciously as it was in my own family – and expose it to the most gruesome of violence, they will grow crooked. If they grow at all.

In Gerard’s case – and so many others – I was the victimizer. Again, my loins tremble upon thinking that I indeed have experienced what he had, that in my mind I share an empathy with this boy, with my victim, with all victims who suffer. It exists only in my mind. 

“And now, I am left with only the emotions of what happened in that life, that distant life so far away. It’s funny. I cannot remember the events in every detail. Only the emotions involved ien the memories exist to me. All the while, these emotions have taken a tight fisted grasp around the neck of my salvation. All I feel now, no matter the situation or circumstance, are the emotions of that life. That life that I cannot even remember. Still, I feel the emotions. I feel the pain, the heartbreak, the queasy, nightmarish desolation that seemed to encumber the abode of that existence.

“I hope you will understand me when I say that those six hours of therapy, which seemed to me like an unendurable eternity, have changed me in many ways. There was a time, early in the treatment that I was in denial. The sense within me that I had been stripped away from my former being remained. But what happened was that as time went by, year after year of insufferable inactivity, I began to accept my fate as Gerard Auclair.

“I began to accept it, not as though I were living my own life in a stranger’s body, but as though I had in actuality become this paralyzed man. You must understand that when you live in a dream for a lifetime, you begin to accept that dream as reality. 

“Understand that these are only scattered memories of my treatment. My own naivety regarding the entire life I had lived makes me, in a sense, unsuited to even write this very report to which I am submitting for public consumption. The real person who should be telling his story it is the man I injured. 

“He was Gerard Auclair, sentient and fragile, his name mattered little. Far too many sentient and fragile beings rest in spiritual limbo as a result of completely avoidable and yet very intentional human actions.

“What world is this; my once so clear and consistent identity and self-image that one solemn glimpse into the life of my fallen prey could subject the invulnerable image I held of my character into the darkness? 

“There is no sense in getting poetic. I am lost to that art. I can only hope for the future. I cannot even hope for that. Shame that the future that unfortunately appears to me in no less than emotion and heartbreak will continually be haunted by the icon of a life that was not my own. Indeed, my future does not exist to me.”

Mr. Ordell Arrant, dictated

Recorded by Mr. Colton Hardy

In conclusion, the treatment under the program of Psycho-Law proved very effective. The results were quite unexpected in that no one had a clue that it would work so well. Merited, there will be individuals out there who call our system barbaric and savage. To those people I ask only one thing: Was not the crime that was the catalyst for a candidates being chosen for the program, barbaric and savage as well? 

 

About the Author

Jonathan Jehanne-Elias Wamback, born in North York, Ontario in January of 1984 is a graduate of York University where he received a degree in English Literature. He has obtained a diploma in General Arts and Science and has been published in Crime Watch Canada Magazine and Jobopolis Magazine Canada. He was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. He began his writing career at a very early age and has helped to direct and has contributed to a great number of university publications. He is the author of 'Radio Silences', 'Producing Reality', 'Ladirae' and 'Hraefen'. He is currently in production of 'Charadrii' the third installment in the Vias Aves Heroes Trilogy.