Death's Dreams
I. Death’s Game
Owen found himself wandering the empty streets of Macrilan. His tattered uniform jacket hung open and flapped as he hurry-limped down a west bound road of the familiar city streets. Something was off about his uniform jacket. The medals, decorations, and embroidery--the brass--celebrating this man’s stellar military achievements had been cut away. It looked like any other ruined hole-ridden black jacket. The silence in the abandoned city streets feel upon him with an uncanniness that made the hair on the back of his neck raise. Other than his unease and physical, Owen didn’t feel anything but tired...dead tired. Like a man who’d fall immediately asleep if allowed to lay down for just a moment. He nonetheless hurried forward, without knowing his destination walking on bare feet that were blistering from the rough pavement.
What had he done with his shoes? Nevermind, His knee was aching and grinding miserably with every step. Where had his weapon gone? He couldn’t decide whether he missed his shoes, gun, or sounds more.
If there were ever a time that he could justify holding his own misery and concern for himself above everyone else’s in the world, it was that time. Besides there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the world to worry about.
Where was everybody? Anybody?
He sighed and stopped to massage at his knee and blink at the sun, a copper orb appearing to rest atop a building on a small hill. Feet propelled forward only by the momentum of his curiosity carried him towards the the building.
Or was he fleeing? Fleeing that sense of doom at the back of his mind. Something dark like a smudge in his thoughts. Fleeing something like Death that pursued him and threatened to claim all that he was. It wasn’t unappropriate. Soldiering - killing and death - had always been his strongest game. It was as if Death’s march ever drummed its rhythm in his skull and it echoed in his bones setting the tempo for everything he did and everything he was in life.
Such was the flight of his thoughts as he mounted the hill. He muttered at himself to pull it together. Don’t indulge paranoid superstitious. He was egotistical, sure. Prone to excessive indulgences, naturally. But imagining himself as subject to an anthropomorphized idea of death was ridiculous thinking. Owen had always been motivated solely by the belief that his life more important than others. Wasn’t it logical to view one’s own life as the utmost importance and extinguish those who threatened that? Of course, very logical. Yes. He was logical.
He paused, how far was he going? How far was the sun? It seemed no closer. But the building looked inviting. A restaurant. Perfect stop for the weary traveler. But there was so much more hill yet to climb. He groaned aloud. It was a perfect metaphor for his ascent through the military ranks. With each promotion the reminder of how great the distance to the tippy top. But his chase for power was more like mountain climbing. Clawing desperately up a mountain of bodies that he kept adding to. A mountain of bodies that threatened to bury him on the way.
His groans died down when he finally pushed the door open to a crowded and noisy restaurant. He buttoned his jacket. But there were no tables. Owen slumped against the wall feeling dejected. All that climbing--
“Come sit with us, sir.” Called a man. It was the first sound he’d heard. It sounded to him like mildly distorted audio coming over a radio.
Owen nodded his head appreciatively and sat at a table with several men in women who appeared to be locals. There was a woman in a satin red dress that clung to her curves like a second skin. She wiggled her fingers at him and winked in a way that didn’t bother with subtlety. The stately man who had invited Owen to the table had silver grey hair, rimless glasses, and a tweed jacket. There was a plump older woman in a dress more akin to a potato sack than a dress. The man sitting at the head of the table was nondescript dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes. You’d forget his face even while you were looking at him.
The woman in the satin dress stood and grabbed Owen’s arm, making a show of squeezing his bicep. “Oh he’s ripe!” She proclaimed to a chorus of chuckles. “Look how he’s conjured himself up.” She tsked, passing her eye’s over Owen’s tattered clothing. “Miserable thing. Even in Death’s dreams, that bitch Guilt, makes her mark.”
This time the old woman cackled loudly, slapping her hands on the table.
“Wha- what?” Grey eyes eyes darted around the table nervously. The woman’s uncanny commentary sat uncomfortably in his mind. What did she mean Death’s dreams?
The woman led Owen to the chair opposite to the quiet man in dark clothing seating Owen at the other head of the table. “Take a load off, darling.” She said and squeezed his shoulders for a few heart beats before moving back to her seat.
“You know, Owen.” The man with glasses said as if Owen should have already figured it out. “Like the image you’ve made of yourself, we’re only projections in your own mind. Desire, Guilt, Reason, Death.” The man made the introductions going round the table starting with the woman in the dress, the older woman, himself, and finally the man dressed in dark.
“This isn’t real.” Owen seemed in shock. Certainly in denial.
“Does it feel real?” Reason pressed.
“Oh leave him alone. He makes a rather exquisite corpse I say.” Desire pipped up, running her eyes over him again. Sizing him up like a hog for slaughter.
“I don’t understand…” With a squeak of the chair’s legs against the floor, Owen pushed his chair back. “I think I’ll wait for another table.” Whatever they meant about conjurations,projections of self, and corpses, Owen wasn’t interested in pursuing the conversation.
The old woman grabbed his arm and held fast. She was remarkably strong. He couldn’t move. “Come now.” She rapped her knuckles against his temple. “That mind is too worthy a vessel for such self-deceit to rule.”
“He nurtured self-deception while introspection starved.” Tsked Reason.
“See he will not hear it. How could we expect any more from him?” Observed Death who had yet to speak before then.
Owen sighed and scooted his chair back into the table. It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice. His arm was released and Owen poured himself a glass of beer from the pitcher on the table. He gulped at the liquid and wiped the back of his hand over his lips.
He was hearing an incessant rhythmic noise in his head. A tinnitus like ringing sound? Was that the“it” that death was referring to.
“You’re just mad. Here we have a man to challenge death at it’s own game.” Guilt addressed Death. “Won’t you let him play again? Isn’t he a worthy opponent?” Her long, crooked fingers stroked up Owen’s arm and shoulder until they were in his hair. “Wouldn’t you like play some more games?” She was asking him. The fingers stroking at Owen’s scalp made him feel sleepy. They caressed neatly in time with that internal rhythmic sound he kept hearing. “All you have to do is fall for the magic trick. That should be easy for a man whose knack for strategy and violence is bested only by his art of self-deception. Drunk on his own arrogance. Blindly convinced of his own infallibility.” She giggled. “Is it a wonder then, why Death wanted you so early? But we can still have some fun with you yet. Oh can’t we hurry it along--?”
Owen knew they were talking to him. Or talking about him at him. Or mocking him. He felt so tired. That rhythm. His mind was full of fog. Owen tried to reach for his beer. He felt weak.
“Good riddance of that wretched thing.” Someone said.
“Such a shame to see a disposition fit for a God wasted on that mortal.” Owen couldn’t tell who was speaking anymore.
“A divine temper he has, surely.” The pun prompted a chorus of cruel laughter.
Such were the last things Owen heard before slumping on the table and succumbing to something like sleep.
II. The Patient
There was sound. A whirring of air blowing. And electronic rhythmic bleeping. And a piercing warning tone.
Blackness like the complete rejection of light faded into dim light which revealed disorienting shades and hues and textures previously forgotten. “I don’t understand.” The patient uttered a hoarse whisper, eyes blinking in protest against a radiance that burned retinas.
How far was the sun?
Some bit of understanding crept in as the patient’s previously cold occipital neural connections flickered on. These bright rectangles in his field of vision were emanating a cold nearly bluish kind of light. It wasn’t the sun but fluorescent lights.
“I don’t understand,” was repeated slightly louder, but the voice was no less hoarse. Muscles were reacting, tensing and trying to contract, but something was restraining the wrists. Upon further experimentation, the ankles were similarly restrained.
A panic unfamiliar yet somehow already known –like déjà vu—and swept over the patient. Head swung to the sides, eyes flicking wildly over the scene. On the right side: a door, some cabinetry, some machines, a TV mounted on the wall. On the left: a window, an arm chair, some more cabinetry, a computer station on a wheeled cart, and a clock on the wall its pointer meaninglessly moving over numbers. The environment reminded him of a place he didn’t want to remember and he knew he didn’t want to be there.
“Hey!” The patient called out voice straining as arms and legs tested their restraints. "Hey!” The second call was desperate with dread.
The door swung open. A woman in gloomy khaki scrubs from neck to feet entered. Another woman with a near-glowing white lab coat entered behind her. The warning tone was stopped by fingers pressing buttons on a monitor. A hand held his head still. Fingers coaxed eyes open while a searing, blinding light shined in. Pupils contracted satisfactorily to the stimulation. “It’s alright. My name is Brandi. This is Doctor Nazario.” An effeminate voice said. “Do you know where you are?”
“I—I…” Eyes blinked against tears provoked by the light assault, “I don’t understand.”
A hand was now on his arm. A constricting contraption was squeezing it. The patient observed a gauge as it bounced. It seemed to go on forever.
“You’re in the hospital. Try to relax. Can you tell me your name?” One of the women said. They were peering down at him like a specimen.
This revelation sent the patient into a dramatic fit. He struggled viciously against his restraints. He yelled about being shot. Shot in the chest. He yelled for his daughter. Where was his girl? Where was his wife? He had been shot. He had been shot. His chest hurt. He couldn’t breathe.
The doctor and nurse exchanged worried glances. They didn’t inform the patient that he had no physical injuries of any kind. He was in a perfect state of physical health. His mind, however, seemed to be the problem.
“Let’s give him some Ativan.” The doctor instructed the nurse who administered the sedating dose.The doctor gave instructions for tapering and titrating medications the patient had never heard of as he faded back into unconsciousness.
The patient’s eyes shut to a familiar, overwhelming, all consuming darkness. He wanted to succumb to it; retreat back into the unconscious; lose sense of everything again. Again? What was occurring? What was re-occurring? He didn’t know. He did know he was Owen Hart and he was beginning to realize he didn’t belong restrained to a hospital bed. He also vaguely sensed he didn’t actually belong in any particular place at all.
His mind was pulled away from the present moment, delving into what felt like ancient history.
“Please you don’t have to-”
A loud crack rings out. Two more. A shot to the right clavicle. A shot to the abdomen. A shot to the left thorax. The Lieutenant General has fallen to the ground. He was breathing. Trying to breathe. His face was contorted in pain. A tremulous hand tentatively felt at wounds on his abdomen and shoulder. His fingers covered in syrupy thick red blood. His torso quickly became drenched in blood mingling with dirt matted to his shirt. His mouth was open sucking at air. Breaths coming rapid and shallow. Panting like he couldn’t catch his breath. He felt like he was drowning. Hot liquid in his chest. A burning fire. His eyes wide staring at the night sky something like enraged shock. Or perhaps wonder. The thing he didn’t think would happen (but also somehow still knew would happen) to him was happening to him. But he was in denial, perhaps it was the pain, or the labored breathing that left him uncomprehending. There were many ways to die, this man was well aware, but perhaps this wasn’t what he had in mind for himself. Perhaps he’d secretly longed for something easier. Quieter. But Death came sloppy and undignified. And he was alone.
The memories cycled again.
“Please you don’t have to-”
“Please you don’t have to-”
“Please you don’t have to-”
III. Mental Status Examination
The consulting psychiatrist’s evaluation for Patient Hart was not promising on hospitalization day 7:
Patient is ambulatory and alert and oriented times 3. The patient made poor eye contact. Psychomotor activity was agitated, although the patient did move all four extremities spontaneously. Attitude and behavior were guarded. Mood and affect were anxious in presentation. The client’s communication patterns were hyperverbal, dramatic, disorganized, confused, tangential, and preoccupied. He appears to be internally distracted or hallucinating. He appears to be generally overwhelmed by his hospitalization and unknown social stressors. The patient exhibits poor coping skills and marked impairment of insight into his condition. The patient presents with a constant tremor of leg, slight rocking in the chair...akathisia like symptoms which have not improved with lowering of Haldol.
Upon review of the records, I note, a neuropsych consult was ordered to rule out an organic cause of the confusion and psychosis on admission. The MRI of the brain that was obtained upon admission found an abnormal pattern of white matter changes suggestive of a severe demyelinating process. Yet, a repeat MRI was obtained on hospital day 3 and the study was at that time was unremarkable. I recommend a CT of the brain and repeat neuro consult for this very complex patient.
IV. A Rose
"Isn't it a lovely day Mr. Hart?" Brandi the nurse was asking him as she pushed him in a wheelchair into a park on the hospital's grounds on hospital day 11.
He felt blinded by the sun. His first time outside since -- since -- he'd died.
"Sure." He replied flatly. He felt dizzy. He barely ate. Refused to get up. The medications hollowed him out left him feeling vaguely acquiescent to whatever was suggested to him but not much else. At least he wasn't having violent fits anymore, the staff thought. At least he didn't seem to be actively hallucinating, they thought. At least his paranoia was more in check, they thought. Surely going outside and seeing the park would help with his mood, they thought.
Brandi pulled a rose from a bush and removed the thorns. "Isn't this lovely?" She said it with a gratingly pleasant tone of voice. Almost if she were expecting him to be as pleased by a stupid flower as he would if it were his cock in her hands.
The memories were cycling again.
“Please you don’t have to-”
When Brandi handed him the rose he doubled over the side of the chair and vomited bile, the flower slipping from his fingertips to land in his mess.
A couple of children nearby said "ew" loudly and pointed at him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
When she wheeled him back into the hospital he wished he hadn't dropped the rose. "That was nice." He said vaguely, perhaps about the rose, perhaps about the day, perhaps about the garden. But he was saying it in response to the memory. He was saying it to a woman in his head. Referring to the sweetness of a kiss he was sharing in his mind with a woman who would become his widow.
III. Discharge
The report indicated that the patient remained disorganized and confused throughout the hospitalization with minimal improvement by discharge. however the patient was contracting for safety and was not felt to be a danger to self or others. At the time of discharge, the patient denied hearing voices or feeling paranoid, depressed, suicidal or homicidal.Condition at Discharge: the patient was still somewhat withdrawn, preoccupied, confused, and disorganized. Discharged to home with supply of Vistaril, Haldol, and Cogentin for hallucinations and paranoia. Lexapro for depression. Dalmane for insomnia.
Brandi the nurse was on shift when Owen was to be discharged. She had become somewhat attached to the very strange patient in 302, by way of empathy for a troubled man. There was something terribly tragic about this man. As if death or despair hung about him, weighing him down, darkening his shadow.
"You sure you're ready to go, Mr. Hart?" She asked peaking into his room. A social worker had come and given him pamphlets about treatment, therapy, and programs. He had thrown all these in the trash bin. He had visibly improved and was contracting for safety and there was no legal basis for the hospital to continue his involuntary stay.
"Yes, Brandi. I'm sure." Owen responded with a sad smile. He was staring at himself in the mirror. His messy blonde hair was shaggy around the ears and he'd grown a beard in this 25 days at the hospital.
The odd black rimmed glasses he'd been wearing upon admission were on the counter. They were odd because he seemed not to need them, and couldn't explain why he had prescription glasses when his vision was perfect. "I guess I thought I needed them at some point." Was his response when she'd asked about the glasses.
"Would you like me to cut your hair a little for you? Maybe get a shave before you go?" Brandi asked moving into the room.
"Yes."
Fine gold locks piled around his feet. It was tidy around the neck in the back and ears, but long enough to fall in wisps and tufts over his forehead. After his face was shaven clean, Owen was left alone again while Brandi got together the discharge papers.
He leaned into the looking glass staring into his own reflection mirrored twice in grey eyes. He looked new on the outside. But he felt rotted out, decomposed, deteriorated on the inside. What happened to me?
"You got recycled." He told himself. This was the only way he could admit to himself what had happened. Tortured. Executed. And resurrected. He hadn't noticed that the door opened again admitting Brandi.
"Who're you talking to?" She asked suspiciously.
"Myself. I was only talking to myself." He reassured her.
Bitch, I'm limited edition.
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