Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Immediately after being told my subconscious may be a fuzzy phone line to my old self, I started paying more attention to the dreams. I'm not allowed pencil or paper, but I've been allowed access to a word processor, sans internet access, as part of some government sponsored project for rehabilitating the mentally mental. And apart from recording thoughts like these, I've taken to transcribing my dreams in the off chance that they might actually mean something. Not that that is at all likely. In fact it's far more likely that they are another symptom of my grip on reality being loosened like a mountaineer's last hand hold crumbling into earthen grains.

My first transcribed dream, but not exactly the first dream since arriving at Carstairs, took place the night of that psch evaluation. I'd been wheeled into my cell, de-chaired and unfettered, but not before they slipped my meds down my throat. It was the small nurse, Archie that did that. Technique over size, but I wasn't exactly resisting and in any case, I think they make the dreams better, more vivid. When the curtain of the world rolled back and I went into the land of nod the following is as exact as the day after can make it.

Dream 1 – The Recorded Dream of Daniel Young dated 16/01/2009

I am in bed and it is warm. It is safe. The blankets are pink and a single shaft of light from the skylight above catches my eye. I shift out its beam, flexing my toes, curling them against cotton.

But the beam shifts too.

I scrunch up my eyes and flop my hair forward. But the light is brighter now and turns the back of my eyelids scarlet. I'm too awake to get back to sleep. So I yawn and throw the covers aside and the light explodes.

I clench shut my eyes and throw an pyjama'd arm up as a shield. A yelp breaks free from my lips, but the instant it does so, I am not here. And I feel a force propel me forward.

I open my eyes. I am riding a bicycle. It is two wheeled, no stabilizers. My hands grip the blue handlebars as I see the grassy slope wobble underneath. No pyjamas now, but worn, holey jeans and chunky black trainers. There are tents and caravans dotted around me and a voice from behind is shouting: “Go Sam. Pedal. Pedal.”

I do it. I turn the pedals, catching jean in chain. But, they turn and I pick up speed.

Underneath, the grass stops wobbling. A scream bursts from my throat. The sun hears me and eats the world. And I pedal into the sun.

Analysis of Dream 1

I don't know what I'm supposed to make of this, but I thought I'd give it a go. Started off a bit scary, but probably just a typical anxiety dream. Clearly, some kind of wish fulfilment stuff going on. Breaking out of the looney bin into the freedom represented by the light of the sun and the bike. But in the first part I seemed to be a girl – hope that's not wish fulfilment related. The second part definitely was. At least at the level of learning old skills maybe representing getting my memories back like learning to ride a bike again.

I've had that particular dream a few times now and each time, the change from bedroom to field gives me that same rush of fear. I'm not totally sure my analysis is right.

The second dream, I recorded just about the same time. But I was interrupted by my computer time running out and the next time, I just couldn't quite remember it fully.

Memories and Dreams Chapter Two

Chapter 2

Of course by admitting guilt I slotted myself neatly into the legal system's overflowing filing cabinet and was forgotten about by the Hoppers of this world. Their job came to an end with my signature on the confession. I thought I caught sight of the other cop at the back of the courtroom during my first appearance, but then again, I couldn't swear to it. The only thing that stopped me from a life sentence in Saughton was my lawyer's plea of insanity. And that's what got me transferred here to Carstairs, waiting for my latest psychological evaluation in this interview room, strapped down like Hannibal Lector to this chair.

She’s older than I imagined she’d be. She opens the door slowly that way they must practise and gracefully smooths her white skirt out before sitting down opposite. Years of dealing with people like me have worn lines into her face. She smiles a little. It’s a re-assuring, but tight-lipped smile.

There’s a formality that passes between us as she opens her mouth to speak. We’re getting into the confidential zone; the client-doctor privilege, even if that legally doesn’t extend to murderers like me, we’re certainly there.

“Daniel,” she starts, holding me eyes. “How are you today?”

I can’t believe she’s just asked that. She must guess I’m pretty riled up by today. don’t really want to start stating the obvious. But I do anyway, “Good and bad. Much the same since I woke up a killer.”

“Still using that sense of humour to defend yourself then.” I didn’t know psychiatrists were supposed to be that direct or confrontational. I liked it. “Well, I guess it is clear that a meeting was inevitable given the outcome of your parents’ visit. That was not exactly unforeseen.”

My parents had visited me yesterday. It had not gone well. And I stop myself from thinking about it now.

“Not unforeseen.” I say. “Then why’d you let it go ahead if you thought it was going to be as pointless?”

“We couldn’t be certain, Daniel. It may well turn out to be successful. Your own memories may revive or something may stimulate it as a result of your interaction. We have no way to measure the success that you may be now experiencing.”

“But you’ve also no idea of the damage that you could’ve caused either...”

“Yes, I admit we’re in uncharted territory. Let us see every possible change as a good opportunity at the moment. Tell me your side of the interaction.”

I tried to shrug, but my shoulders only met with the unbudging metal of my restraints. “Fair enough. Change must be good. You want to know about my parents' visit. Fine. They came in and told me a million stories about a boy called Danny and how happy that boy was and how squeaky clean. I tried to make that boy me. But the more they talked about him, the more I wanted them to stop. I felt sick the whole time they talked. If I analyse it, I guess I wanted to spit any residual 'Danny' out of my system.”

“Leave me to do the interpreting Daniel, if you can.” She smiles at me to continue.

“I dunno. A guy kills someone like the way I did, does not make mince pies with mummy or go to work with his dad because he wants to help those poor kids get an education and rise out of the gutter. A guy that kills someone like I did, is not Danny. And to be honest, really honest. I’m glad he isn’t. All the Dannys get to grow up and live nice lives in nice houses with those kinds of parents and that’s great. But it’s pretty far from where I’m at right now.”

She looks at me while all this is coming out. I think it’s part of their training, just sit and listen, let the mental case hang himself with his own words. Silence just makes people fill it, no need for questions; questions just get in the way. She’s waiting, but I’m done.

I want her thoughts. Those lines on her face aren’t from laughing. I’m hoping to carve some more up there while she figures me out. I’m hoping, but life doesn’t give answers, just infinite questions for me.

“Daniel,” good, she’s not giving 'Danny' any credibility. “For someone whose memory is what it is, feelings of dislocation and very natural. Not only this, but for any adult who has ever changed in their life be it relationships, religion or even just postcode, will feel some sense of anxiety or separation from reality. And this is especially true when you become an adult, as you have been for some time now. It is not a unique experience to feel like you’re not that weak, insular kid that might have wanted to go the toilet every time his teacher asked him a question in class. Embarrassment and in some cases fear about becoming that child again is utterly natural.”

The stirrings of some kind of rebellion or want to play the devil’s advocate begin to play, but I want answers so I just open out my palms and turn them upwards and give her the silence to fill.

“In your case. You have no connection in your memory to your old self, to your personality as it was and then became. Your personality is now writing itself according your current perceptions and the reality that you are presented with. Since your reality is extreme, your personality that is writing itself is being challenged to match itself against it. There is the added complication that there’s some residual coding from your old self that remains, buried. Thoughts, ideas dreams. These may be trying to write on your personality at the same time, like another person playing piano with you, but using different sheet music, if they’re even playing the same tune. To mix metaphors a bit, your slate is no longer blank.”

She finishes all this with a wide-eyes, neck-cocked look that wants to check if the brain-freeze in front of her has taken any of that in. This brain-freeze unfortunately does and is more than a little bit worried about whose hand is playing his piano.

Memories and Dreams Chapter One

Memories, they say, are what make you who you are. I have none. At least, the ones I have aren’t mine, or they’re broken. But I don’t trust what I remember. My memories can’t be real. They just can’t.

They, the ones who’re across this battered desk and who hold the keys to the locks in these chains, want to pin it on me. They tell me I did it. And they may well be right.

For the past couple of hours, they’ve been asking:

“Why did you do it?”

That’s the police officer sitting opposite. He’s staring. And he’s been asking that same question that I can't answer.

“We know you did it. We know it was you. We’ve known since it happened. We just need you to tell us why. Why did you do it?” His stare never breaks.

It’s easy to see why the innocent admit to things they’ve not done. The police aren't cardboard cutout John MacLeans. There's no brutality or threats. There's just repetition and time. And, the relentless supposition of guilt.

I've been trying the honest truth: “I don’t know what you guys want from me. I don’t know what you think I’m hiding. I've said I don’t remember... can’t remember. The doctors have told you that. Right?”

“So, are you glad he’s dead?” The other cop this time, the one in the chair. He’s steepled his hands. He's trying that other time worn police habit of trying to trip you up by putting words in your mouth that make you trip yourself up. His eyes are friendly, encouraging, and baiting.

“Glad? Man, I don't even know the guy. Everything's out of focus. He could have been my own father and the only reason I know he's not is because you've told me. I couldn't be glad about this even if he-” I stop myself short of saying 'deserved it' and avoid their trap.

“Look at the pictures again.” The tall one, his badge says Hopper, takes himself off the wall and pushes the pictures back at me. They’re not meaning anything much and I’m glad about that; it was pretty ugly.

Each photograph my fingers peeled from the table and brought under the pale lamp light documented the same scene. The male corpse with its open eyes, smiled at some imperceivable irony.

The cause of death was pretty obvious, even to a layman as I reminded myself that I was. The police photographer had even captured the faint trails of gun-smoke that emanated from the 5p sized hole a couple of inches above and to the left of the nose. And the unmistakable exist wound at the base of the skull. The bullet must have gone in and straight back out again, taking a chunk of flesh and brain matter with it. The man had been a reasonable age – mid fifties, but solid looking.

I’d done my bit. I’d looked, again. I hoped they’d not interpret it as the apathy of a killer, but I really couldn’t feel very much of anything and so I pushed the pictures away, shaking my head in a way that I hoped looked apologetic.

“Larry Porteus,” O Leary was giving a voiceover all the time I'd been looking at the photographs. “Found in the foetal position, head blown back by the force of trajectory from a small caliber handgun. The fatal shot severed the Cerebellum. Buckshot fragments were also recovered from the stomach wound, indicating the headshot was performed in the style of an execution, while the victim was incapacitated. Forensics matched the killing bullet to the 0.22 caliber pistol that police had to prise out of your hands as you lay next to the victim's body. The same bullet type that exited out the back of the victim's skull was the same bullet type that doctors by the miracle of modern science withdrew from your own frontal lobe. Now are you still telling us you didn’t do it?”

I can’t fault their logic. In fact I’m pretty sure he’s right. In fact, I tell them that very thing right there. And O’Leary gets his pen out – a really nice expensive one too – and he writes it all down. Of course at this point, I still can't tell them why.

I get the feeling we’re done for now.