flex
05-20-2006, 09:46 AM
Note: I wrote this a while ago, I plan to try to lengthen it more, but not on this. I just wanted to post this part up because it's my favorite part. Please comments LOTS on it, and if you want to hear more, I'll try but don't expect anything soon! Thx for reading!
“Everyone thought I went a little crazy after I became blind. But you know, the thing is I didn’t go blind. Actually, now I can see better than before. I can see a world full of love, and happiness, and peace. I can see worlds full of hatred, and war, and death. The only thing about my blindness is that I cannot see you. I cannot see the world. Sounds difficult to understand? Well, then you are the one that is truly blind. You are the thing that is difficult to understand. You are the being that has no light, no hope, no feeling.
“Everyday people ask me what is it like to be blind. I laugh at them. I tell them that they are blind, too, just like you, my friend. Now, you are truly confused. You cannot see... Does it make any sense now, friend? To see is to understand, to understand you must learn the concepts. Would you like to learn? Would you like to truly see? Or would you like to go on living your life, seeing nothing but the problems of the world, the problems in your life? Do you want to be truly happy? I know it is a lot to ask in such short a time. Not ten minutes has passed, my talking to you, and yet I have asked so much. You do not even know my name.
“Ah, names. What importance are names? All you know is that I am a blind man sitting on the street that has just started talking to you. That is all you know, and nothing more. You do not know what I am talking about, or why I suddenly started speaking. You think I am just an old crazy blind man that started rambling. It is just a coincidence that you just happened to be walking by, your feet not even a-tapping on the sidewalk, and I just happened to address you. I know you are there, staring, open-mouthed, with your blonde, or brown, or red, or black hair nicely combed for the world to accept you.
“Acceptance...it is now a thing I understand. The world sees someone either as fitting, or as an incomplete. You, good sir, I do know that you are accepted by many in your work, love, and leisure. I know both sides of acceptance, the appraised and the shunned. You, although, have not yet opened your eyes to be seeing the greatness of true acceptance. I cannot explain, but I know that the little girl whose eyes are as blue as the sea can explain it to you. To be accepted, but to also be shunned is my position. You’re eyes are blank, you see nothing of my words, you cannot read my face. Do you accept me? I don’t care for your answer, but the blue-eyed girl would.
“Maybe you should open them, wide, yes, sir, wide as God’s morning sun. Through them you would see a masterpiece of colors, words, and emotion; ah, yes! Emotion! Your’s at this moment is a jumble of confusedness. For you are listening but you do not hear-you are watching but you do not see... Life is a circle, boy, you start at one place and end at where you started. Maybe my wisdom is a little too, let’s say farfetched, for you, or maybe it isn’t. Maybe you feel content with my words, or maybe you are begging for more, that is why you are sitting next to me in this lonely alley, maybe you should start looking for more information on life... no, no, not from me, but from the experts.
“The wonderful leaders that get paid money they shouldn’t take, or they don’t get the thanks that they deserve. If you talk to him, maybe he could tell you what the secret of life is, or where the Holy Grail is hiding for you to find it. Maybe it is your DESTINY! Ah, destiny. Fate is linked to destiny, my friend, and fate is the little bugger that you should not wish to tempt. Tempting fate is what every true hero does at the end of the story, and he either survives it, only to be carelessly jolted back into the reality, or he dies with a sorrow the whole world will remember for their entire lives.
“DO NOT interrupt me, sir, I am just getting to the greatest part. The Lord has a plan for you, my friend, but only He Himself can predict where you will end up. And oh! The colors of your joyous end! Do not be afraid, but listen, open your eyes to your calling. This world cannot be for you, you tell yourself. Good sir, PLEASE open your eyes and let the radiance of the world be seen, for then you will see them all, in their true state, their true being! Your darkness lies in the light, but the light will overcome the darkness, blinded.”
Seth watched as the old man shifted in his position, then stood, and held out his walking stick. The long white stick and red lines made the young man feel strange, although he didn’t wonder why. The old man’s white eyes seemed to smile as he turned both ways and crossed the street. Seth almost jumped up and helped him, but he knew it would avail to nothing. Helping the blind didn’t help him face whatever he was afraid of in his own world. The young man laughed, shaking his head. Whatever happened to good ethics?
The New York sunshine reminded him that he had to get somewhere. He stood, stretching out his legs and checked his watch. He was almost late. The old man had taken almost twenty minutes out of his busy schedule, but for some reason Seth had the urge to ask him questions, listen to his rambles. His light eyes had a glimmer of regret in them, but he knew that he had to be on his way.
As Seth came to his building, he greeted the usuals, again wondering why the old man had suddenly spoken to him. He knew that the blind usually gained better perspective in their other senses, but why had he said the word blinded at the very end. Seth’s co-workers couldn’t help but see the tension in his eyes.
“Good Morning, Seth!” Isabella, the front desk clerk, chimed. Her eyes were exceptionally blue today, and her strawberry blonde hair seemed childish, not the uptight-due that she usually wore.
Seth looked up, his own reddish hair swishing into his eyes. “Hey, Isabella!” He scratched at his beard as he listened to her next thought, and his fingers tinkered with the papers in his hands.
“You look unusually confused today, anything I can help with?” Isabella’s pudgy smile flashed and then disappeared, and it was replaced with some kind of delight. She reached a hand up and flipped her bangs out of her face.
Seth chuckled and shook his head. Without saying anything else, he started for the elevator. In the first floor of his building, there was the security desk, the main help desk, and then there was the lobby and the elevator. On your way to the elevator, there were many interesting faces that you’d see in the cushy chairs, and Seth couldn’t help but notice a pretty little thing sitting in the corner. He quickly looked away, knowing that he was in a workplace and that he really needed to get to work.
The elevator was completely empty, the horrifying morning time races to see who could get in first because in any minute they’d be late were long gone, and Seth stared at the blank silver doors closing rapidly, and the image of the pretty girl in the corner disappeared. He realized he hadn’t yet pressed his floor, but he just stood there, staring at his image in the sideways frame of metal. His reddish-blonde hair was neatly combed, the oils making it shine like a woman’s hair, and he looked silly with his hair that way and himself holding a briefcase. His tanned face held light amber eyes, and his thin lips were in a pursed position. His handsome nose, as his mother told him, jutted, as he thought, from his face, not being an obstruction, but more like a fascinating mountain on a monumental continent, including his low cheekbones and rounded face. After fixing his suit, light green and gray pinstripes, he reached for the number five button, but not before he was startled out of his mind by the image of the woman in the metal. In the brief moment that he saw her, standing with a razor back and lovely skin, the elevator seemed to rumble, and fall, and yet nothing happened. Seth retraced the image of only himself in the elevator and then reorganized and pushed the five button. He braced himself for the ‘swoosh’ feeling of the upward motion of the elevator, and then counted the floors. Second Floor, Third Floor, Fourth Floor, Fifth Floor...Sixth Floor, what a minute. Seth watched as he kept going higher, higher, higher, and then he stepped out of the elevator at floor number five. Feeling dizzy, he recognized the familiar hallways of his workplace.
The fifth floor was organized like a dorm hallway. You go into the main door, find yourself in a long hallway with different doors with signs on them. Only instead of names, you find commercial names, like Fox and NBC, but smaller, way smaller, companies. There was Rendezvous, the international company that focused on advertising big foreign events that were happening in the city, Hot Casino, Fine Dining Inc., and other strange names. Seth wandered to the farthest door on the left, and opened in wide to the sunshine. This room was a huge lobby, with marbled floors and a help desk at your right. You could see offices, with glass walls, and there were waiting chairs just like the first floor. Seth usually never saw people waiting in this area, but today there were three. They all looked up at him with blank eyes, staring at him as he walked toward Nancy at the front desk.
“Look what the dog threw up,” Nancy spat out at him. For some reason she didn’t like Seth, but maybe it was because he replaced her and she got thrown out to do the ‘laundry.’ She had bright red lips, and coal black hair, and for him her facial expression was always the same: twisted into a smirking grimace of hatred that Seth received with a smile.
“Good morning to you, too, Nancy.” He brushed his hair off of his forehead and asked, “Do I have any messages?” His voice was light, but irregularly slurred. Seth gripped the counter, his knuckles turning white as a pang of sickness rolled through him.
He tried to stay upright as Nancy shook him off and retorted, “No.” But her voice sounded far off as he staggered to his door. Seth reached the doorway and saw his face in the small lettering that read, Seth Rickardson, Manager of Communications, and as he turned the doorknob opening to his daily world, he felt light headed, and fell forward with a slight impact that knocked a small trinket off of a shelf. His face smashed into the floor, and his eyes were wide, looking out the window onto the morning sunshine.
Just before Seth blacked out, he saw the beautiful girl kneel next to him and he felt her long hair brush against his face, then the image shimmered out, and he laid there, unmoving. No one noticed that he had fallen until a man came out of his office next to Seth’s and saw blood dripping from his nose. The man called out, and the ambulance arrived in a few minutes.
Bright lights shone in Seth’s face as he saw the silhouettes of strange figures wearing weird blue outfits. He laid still, feeling a slight breeze on his fingertips as he was carted through the hallways. The only figure he recognized was the beautiful woman, her quiet eyes always watching him. He felt the softness of her long hair as it once again struck his face. Seth made a small sound, and the rest of the forms looked down at him more urgently. And yet, the girl just watched him slowly, you could say, and then Seth felt the excruciating pain run through his brain. Seth cried out, and then a voice called, “Stay with us, sir, just breath slowly,” and she put something over his face. Before Seth could react and panic, he was under, and he struggled in his mind to be rid of the pain. Then it was gone.
For the many days the doctors spent toiling and trying their best to understand what was wrong with Seth, the man himself was in an almost vegetable-like state. He seemed to be in a coma, but every once and a while he would wake up and mumble slurred words. The nurses could never make it out, and numerous times Seth’s blood pressure would raise and his heart rate would jump so high that the doctors didn’t think he’d make it out.
The saddest part of his illness was that no one knew that he was sick, for he had no family, no relationships; his life seemed like it was non-existent. Many weeks had passed, Seth had been flown to several different facilities, and yet no one could find any relations to him. Soon enough, his job was given away, his house was taken from him, and all of his possessions that he did not have with him at the time were sold. It was a cruel fate.
When he finally did show some signs of recovery, Seth was able to make words out more clearly, and he was awake for longer periods of time. On one day the doctor finally came to speak with him.
The man with the inlaid eyes had a balding hairdo, and his nose was almost too perfect. His lips were thin and close to being grimy, as Seth noticed. The man’s face was wrinkled, deep lines were etched in his forehead and mouth areas. When he began to speak, Seth noticed that his mouth seemed disjointed from the rest of his face-the man’s eyes seemed to be one expression but his mouth and words denied it. Seth knew he wasn’t a lying man, but his face seemed to deceive that notion.
“Hello, Mr. Rickardson. You’ve been under for a long period of time.” The way he said the word under disturbed Seth greatly. He seemed like he was speaking to a dead person. “The treatment you’ve undergone has consisted of many medications, but there seems to be a problem-“
“May I ask who you are, sir?” Seth’s eyes seemed to jump out at the man as he asked the question. His voice seemed strange and distorted.
The grimy man smirked. “How could I have forgotten?” He stopped for a brief moment to chuckle strangely, like a rooster. He started coughing, and Seth grimaced as bits of phlegm found their way to the floor. The man reached for his chest pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, then smiled toothy. “Excuse me...”
Again, before the man could start again, Seth asked in a disgusted tone, “Sir, I think you should be the patient, you look more sick than I.”
“Oh, do you?” Then everything changed. The doctor’s appearance became disfigured, and Seth’s vision became lopsided and everything was topsy-turvy. When Seth gained another glance at the man, he saw him gripping a hold on some tubing that seemed to be connected to Seth. The lighting began to dim and Seth felt like he was falling, then again, the woman appeared in the corner.
Seth gripped her image, and soon he seemed like he was in a state of de je vu. The man’s voice seemed to come out at him again, in that same strange tone. While Seth regained his focus, he noticed the woman had disappeared.
“Hello, Mr. Rickardson. You’ve been under for a long period of time.” Suddenly the emphasis had changed in his speech. Why had that happened? Seth didn’t stop him this time.
“The treatment you’ve undergone has consisted of many medications, but there seems to be a problem. We haven’t been able to tell if the medicines have been helping your system, and we are very grateful that you have finally woken up.” The man’s voice was nasally, but his mouth still deceived his eyes. He let that sink in before he started again.
This is where Seth interrupted him. “How long have I been here?” His voice was monotone, and a dribbled of spit fell from his mouth, as if he hadn’t been speaking for years.
The doctor smirked and said, “Well, you’ve only been here for a few weeks- five to be exact. You were in three other institutions for the average intervals of four weeks. You’re condition didn’t change until you arrived here, back in New York.” He took a breath and then continued, “Do you remember your name?”
Seth laughed. What kind of a question is that? “Of course,” he shot at the doctor. “My name is-“ Then his face became black, and as he searched in his mind, thoroughly, and then his state collapsed. First he went through a state of shock, his mind was so appalled that he couldn’t remember his own name and he felt sick, also. Just as he thought he was going to puke, his emotion changed to anger, and then frustration at being so black to his own self. His heart rate sped up, and he screamed aloud, “What is my name?” His light eyes seemed to turn dark and he screamed again, “What is my name? What is my NAME?!”
Immediately sounds flew off in all directions, the machines rattling and beeping, the doctor standing there like an imbecile doing nothing but staring at the man who was slowly killing himself. When nurses rushed in the doctor stopped them, mumbling a few words, and Seth was soon screaming out for help, his voice high and harsh, but it all stopped, when everything went blank and Seth closed his eyes and let Hell take him.
The doctor leaned in close to the man for a few seconds, his grimy lips letting demon words slip off of his tongue. “Don’t touch the girl...” He whispered, his eyes suddenly becoming dark, and from them Seth could see the reflection of the beautiful girl, and he died there, on the bed, dreaming of a kiss he didn’t receive, and thinking of the soft hair that comforted him.
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“Everyone thought I went a little crazy after I became blind. But you know, the thing is I didn’t go blind. Actually, now I can see better than before. I can see a world full of love, and happiness, and peace. I can see worlds full of hatred, and war, and death. The only thing about my blindness is that I cannot see you. I cannot see the world. Sounds difficult to understand? Well, then you are the one that is truly blind. You are the thing that is difficult to understand. You are the being that has no light, no hope, no feeling.
“Everyday people ask me what is it like to be blind. I laugh at them. I tell them that they are blind, too, just like you, my friend. Now, you are truly confused. You cannot see... Does it make any sense now, friend? To see is to understand, to understand you must learn the concepts. Would you like to learn? Would you like to truly see? Or would you like to go on living your life, seeing nothing but the problems of the world, the problems in your life? Do you want to be truly happy? I know it is a lot to ask in such short a time. Not ten minutes has passed, my talking to you, and yet I have asked so much. You do not even know my name.
“Ah, names. What importance are names? All you know is that I am a blind man sitting on the street that has just started talking to you. That is all you know, and nothing more. You do not know what I am talking about, or why I suddenly started speaking. You think I am just an old crazy blind man that started rambling. It is just a coincidence that you just happened to be walking by, your feet not even a-tapping on the sidewalk, and I just happened to address you. I know you are there, staring, open-mouthed, with your blonde, or brown, or red, or black hair nicely combed for the world to accept you.
“Acceptance...it is now a thing I understand. The world sees someone either as fitting, or as an incomplete. You, good sir, I do know that you are accepted by many in your work, love, and leisure. I know both sides of acceptance, the appraised and the shunned. You, although, have not yet opened your eyes to be seeing the greatness of true acceptance. I cannot explain, but I know that the little girl whose eyes are as blue as the sea can explain it to you. To be accepted, but to also be shunned is my position. You’re eyes are blank, you see nothing of my words, you cannot read my face. Do you accept me? I don’t care for your answer, but the blue-eyed girl would.
“Maybe you should open them, wide, yes, sir, wide as God’s morning sun. Through them you would see a masterpiece of colors, words, and emotion; ah, yes! Emotion! Your’s at this moment is a jumble of confusedness. For you are listening but you do not hear-you are watching but you do not see... Life is a circle, boy, you start at one place and end at where you started. Maybe my wisdom is a little too, let’s say farfetched, for you, or maybe it isn’t. Maybe you feel content with my words, or maybe you are begging for more, that is why you are sitting next to me in this lonely alley, maybe you should start looking for more information on life... no, no, not from me, but from the experts.
“The wonderful leaders that get paid money they shouldn’t take, or they don’t get the thanks that they deserve. If you talk to him, maybe he could tell you what the secret of life is, or where the Holy Grail is hiding for you to find it. Maybe it is your DESTINY! Ah, destiny. Fate is linked to destiny, my friend, and fate is the little bugger that you should not wish to tempt. Tempting fate is what every true hero does at the end of the story, and he either survives it, only to be carelessly jolted back into the reality, or he dies with a sorrow the whole world will remember for their entire lives.
“DO NOT interrupt me, sir, I am just getting to the greatest part. The Lord has a plan for you, my friend, but only He Himself can predict where you will end up. And oh! The colors of your joyous end! Do not be afraid, but listen, open your eyes to your calling. This world cannot be for you, you tell yourself. Good sir, PLEASE open your eyes and let the radiance of the world be seen, for then you will see them all, in their true state, their true being! Your darkness lies in the light, but the light will overcome the darkness, blinded.”
Seth watched as the old man shifted in his position, then stood, and held out his walking stick. The long white stick and red lines made the young man feel strange, although he didn’t wonder why. The old man’s white eyes seemed to smile as he turned both ways and crossed the street. Seth almost jumped up and helped him, but he knew it would avail to nothing. Helping the blind didn’t help him face whatever he was afraid of in his own world. The young man laughed, shaking his head. Whatever happened to good ethics?
The New York sunshine reminded him that he had to get somewhere. He stood, stretching out his legs and checked his watch. He was almost late. The old man had taken almost twenty minutes out of his busy schedule, but for some reason Seth had the urge to ask him questions, listen to his rambles. His light eyes had a glimmer of regret in them, but he knew that he had to be on his way.
As Seth came to his building, he greeted the usuals, again wondering why the old man had suddenly spoken to him. He knew that the blind usually gained better perspective in their other senses, but why had he said the word blinded at the very end. Seth’s co-workers couldn’t help but see the tension in his eyes.
“Good Morning, Seth!” Isabella, the front desk clerk, chimed. Her eyes were exceptionally blue today, and her strawberry blonde hair seemed childish, not the uptight-due that she usually wore.
Seth looked up, his own reddish hair swishing into his eyes. “Hey, Isabella!” He scratched at his beard as he listened to her next thought, and his fingers tinkered with the papers in his hands.
“You look unusually confused today, anything I can help with?” Isabella’s pudgy smile flashed and then disappeared, and it was replaced with some kind of delight. She reached a hand up and flipped her bangs out of her face.
Seth chuckled and shook his head. Without saying anything else, he started for the elevator. In the first floor of his building, there was the security desk, the main help desk, and then there was the lobby and the elevator. On your way to the elevator, there were many interesting faces that you’d see in the cushy chairs, and Seth couldn’t help but notice a pretty little thing sitting in the corner. He quickly looked away, knowing that he was in a workplace and that he really needed to get to work.
The elevator was completely empty, the horrifying morning time races to see who could get in first because in any minute they’d be late were long gone, and Seth stared at the blank silver doors closing rapidly, and the image of the pretty girl in the corner disappeared. He realized he hadn’t yet pressed his floor, but he just stood there, staring at his image in the sideways frame of metal. His reddish-blonde hair was neatly combed, the oils making it shine like a woman’s hair, and he looked silly with his hair that way and himself holding a briefcase. His tanned face held light amber eyes, and his thin lips were in a pursed position. His handsome nose, as his mother told him, jutted, as he thought, from his face, not being an obstruction, but more like a fascinating mountain on a monumental continent, including his low cheekbones and rounded face. After fixing his suit, light green and gray pinstripes, he reached for the number five button, but not before he was startled out of his mind by the image of the woman in the metal. In the brief moment that he saw her, standing with a razor back and lovely skin, the elevator seemed to rumble, and fall, and yet nothing happened. Seth retraced the image of only himself in the elevator and then reorganized and pushed the five button. He braced himself for the ‘swoosh’ feeling of the upward motion of the elevator, and then counted the floors. Second Floor, Third Floor, Fourth Floor, Fifth Floor...Sixth Floor, what a minute. Seth watched as he kept going higher, higher, higher, and then he stepped out of the elevator at floor number five. Feeling dizzy, he recognized the familiar hallways of his workplace.
The fifth floor was organized like a dorm hallway. You go into the main door, find yourself in a long hallway with different doors with signs on them. Only instead of names, you find commercial names, like Fox and NBC, but smaller, way smaller, companies. There was Rendezvous, the international company that focused on advertising big foreign events that were happening in the city, Hot Casino, Fine Dining Inc., and other strange names. Seth wandered to the farthest door on the left, and opened in wide to the sunshine. This room was a huge lobby, with marbled floors and a help desk at your right. You could see offices, with glass walls, and there were waiting chairs just like the first floor. Seth usually never saw people waiting in this area, but today there were three. They all looked up at him with blank eyes, staring at him as he walked toward Nancy at the front desk.
“Look what the dog threw up,” Nancy spat out at him. For some reason she didn’t like Seth, but maybe it was because he replaced her and she got thrown out to do the ‘laundry.’ She had bright red lips, and coal black hair, and for him her facial expression was always the same: twisted into a smirking grimace of hatred that Seth received with a smile.
“Good morning to you, too, Nancy.” He brushed his hair off of his forehead and asked, “Do I have any messages?” His voice was light, but irregularly slurred. Seth gripped the counter, his knuckles turning white as a pang of sickness rolled through him.
He tried to stay upright as Nancy shook him off and retorted, “No.” But her voice sounded far off as he staggered to his door. Seth reached the doorway and saw his face in the small lettering that read, Seth Rickardson, Manager of Communications, and as he turned the doorknob opening to his daily world, he felt light headed, and fell forward with a slight impact that knocked a small trinket off of a shelf. His face smashed into the floor, and his eyes were wide, looking out the window onto the morning sunshine.
Just before Seth blacked out, he saw the beautiful girl kneel next to him and he felt her long hair brush against his face, then the image shimmered out, and he laid there, unmoving. No one noticed that he had fallen until a man came out of his office next to Seth’s and saw blood dripping from his nose. The man called out, and the ambulance arrived in a few minutes.
Bright lights shone in Seth’s face as he saw the silhouettes of strange figures wearing weird blue outfits. He laid still, feeling a slight breeze on his fingertips as he was carted through the hallways. The only figure he recognized was the beautiful woman, her quiet eyes always watching him. He felt the softness of her long hair as it once again struck his face. Seth made a small sound, and the rest of the forms looked down at him more urgently. And yet, the girl just watched him slowly, you could say, and then Seth felt the excruciating pain run through his brain. Seth cried out, and then a voice called, “Stay with us, sir, just breath slowly,” and she put something over his face. Before Seth could react and panic, he was under, and he struggled in his mind to be rid of the pain. Then it was gone.
For the many days the doctors spent toiling and trying their best to understand what was wrong with Seth, the man himself was in an almost vegetable-like state. He seemed to be in a coma, but every once and a while he would wake up and mumble slurred words. The nurses could never make it out, and numerous times Seth’s blood pressure would raise and his heart rate would jump so high that the doctors didn’t think he’d make it out.
The saddest part of his illness was that no one knew that he was sick, for he had no family, no relationships; his life seemed like it was non-existent. Many weeks had passed, Seth had been flown to several different facilities, and yet no one could find any relations to him. Soon enough, his job was given away, his house was taken from him, and all of his possessions that he did not have with him at the time were sold. It was a cruel fate.
When he finally did show some signs of recovery, Seth was able to make words out more clearly, and he was awake for longer periods of time. On one day the doctor finally came to speak with him.
The man with the inlaid eyes had a balding hairdo, and his nose was almost too perfect. His lips were thin and close to being grimy, as Seth noticed. The man’s face was wrinkled, deep lines were etched in his forehead and mouth areas. When he began to speak, Seth noticed that his mouth seemed disjointed from the rest of his face-the man’s eyes seemed to be one expression but his mouth and words denied it. Seth knew he wasn’t a lying man, but his face seemed to deceive that notion.
“Hello, Mr. Rickardson. You’ve been under for a long period of time.” The way he said the word under disturbed Seth greatly. He seemed like he was speaking to a dead person. “The treatment you’ve undergone has consisted of many medications, but there seems to be a problem-“
“May I ask who you are, sir?” Seth’s eyes seemed to jump out at the man as he asked the question. His voice seemed strange and distorted.
The grimy man smirked. “How could I have forgotten?” He stopped for a brief moment to chuckle strangely, like a rooster. He started coughing, and Seth grimaced as bits of phlegm found their way to the floor. The man reached for his chest pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, then smiled toothy. “Excuse me...”
Again, before the man could start again, Seth asked in a disgusted tone, “Sir, I think you should be the patient, you look more sick than I.”
“Oh, do you?” Then everything changed. The doctor’s appearance became disfigured, and Seth’s vision became lopsided and everything was topsy-turvy. When Seth gained another glance at the man, he saw him gripping a hold on some tubing that seemed to be connected to Seth. The lighting began to dim and Seth felt like he was falling, then again, the woman appeared in the corner.
Seth gripped her image, and soon he seemed like he was in a state of de je vu. The man’s voice seemed to come out at him again, in that same strange tone. While Seth regained his focus, he noticed the woman had disappeared.
“Hello, Mr. Rickardson. You’ve been under for a long period of time.” Suddenly the emphasis had changed in his speech. Why had that happened? Seth didn’t stop him this time.
“The treatment you’ve undergone has consisted of many medications, but there seems to be a problem. We haven’t been able to tell if the medicines have been helping your system, and we are very grateful that you have finally woken up.” The man’s voice was nasally, but his mouth still deceived his eyes. He let that sink in before he started again.
This is where Seth interrupted him. “How long have I been here?” His voice was monotone, and a dribbled of spit fell from his mouth, as if he hadn’t been speaking for years.
The doctor smirked and said, “Well, you’ve only been here for a few weeks- five to be exact. You were in three other institutions for the average intervals of four weeks. You’re condition didn’t change until you arrived here, back in New York.” He took a breath and then continued, “Do you remember your name?”
Seth laughed. What kind of a question is that? “Of course,” he shot at the doctor. “My name is-“ Then his face became black, and as he searched in his mind, thoroughly, and then his state collapsed. First he went through a state of shock, his mind was so appalled that he couldn’t remember his own name and he felt sick, also. Just as he thought he was going to puke, his emotion changed to anger, and then frustration at being so black to his own self. His heart rate sped up, and he screamed aloud, “What is my name?” His light eyes seemed to turn dark and he screamed again, “What is my name? What is my NAME?!”
Immediately sounds flew off in all directions, the machines rattling and beeping, the doctor standing there like an imbecile doing nothing but staring at the man who was slowly killing himself. When nurses rushed in the doctor stopped them, mumbling a few words, and Seth was soon screaming out for help, his voice high and harsh, but it all stopped, when everything went blank and Seth closed his eyes and let Hell take him.
The doctor leaned in close to the man for a few seconds, his grimy lips letting demon words slip off of his tongue. “Don’t touch the girl...” He whispered, his eyes suddenly becoming dark, and from them Seth could see the reflection of the beautiful girl, and he died there, on the bed, dreaming of a kiss he didn’t receive, and thinking of the soft hair that comforted him.
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