Mosaic Man

Dr. Benoit’s office had the elevated, sacred air of a church, and the nervous, uneasy, vibrating silence of a concert hall that just closed its doors after a concerto. The thick, dark brown wall panels and the heavy drapes over the windows muted the noise of the busy street below. The grandfather clock in the corner was a giant metronome tapping out a steady, soothing rhythm. The monotony of the endless rows of neatly arranged books on the shelves was syncopated by wooden masks, curious rocks, photographs, and statuettes of various deities.

 

Every time Ezra entered the office, the doctor was scribbling in his ledger. It was a sort of ritual that Ezra found theatrical and annoying at first, but later got used to and came to enjoy. He didn’t mind the few minutes of silence as his wandering eyes never seemed to get enough of the details of the leather-bound books, the grotesque masks, and the photographs. When Dr. Benoit finished, he’d lean back in his chair, look up, point Ezra to the couch, lock his hands on top of his bulging belly, and say, “How are you feeling today, Mr. Irwin?”

 

 “The older I get, the less I know who I am. I am lost, lost.”

 

“Don’t be impatient. You’ve run into a dark forest and lost your way. Now, we just have to trace your steps back. But, the mind is an infinite wilderness indeed. Sometimes, it’s easier to stop searching for the way out, or the way back. The past, as you remember it, does not exist anymore, and therefore it is impossible to find. Sometimes it is necessary to make a clearing in the woods and to build a new world right where you happen to find yourself.”

 

Dr. Benoit loved these analogies and metaphors. They reminded Ezra of his childhood when his mother used to read bedtime stories to him.

 

“Are you eating well, Ezra? Do you get enough sleep?”

 

Dr. Benoit wouldn’t wait for an answer but press a button on his desk. His secretary would appear shortly carrying a silver tray. “Have a biscuit and some tea, Mr. Irwin,” she’d say with a smile and leave. This was usually the point where Ezra’s daydreaming ended. He never carried the scene any further. He couldn’t. It was usually around this time that the train taking him to town every morning screeched to a halt with a jolt. Ezra would open his eyes, stiffen his face, reach for his briefcase and pretend that he knew what he was doing and why.

 

The part about not eating or sleeping was true. And there was something else he didn’t dare mention to Dr. Benoit. “He’d get upset; he’d call for his secretary, and then she’d get upset, and then they’d probably call an ambulance. That’s what they’d do, I know,” Ezra muttered to himself while walking down the platform and to his bus stop. People sometimes gave him looks, but he didn’t mind. They were not real; not like Dr. Benoit and his secretary.

 

“A small bump on the skin is nothing to fuss about,” Ezra would say out loud while waiting for his bus. People would slowly slide away from him, to stand a few feet apart. The back of Ezra’s left hand was red already, and he couldn’t help scratching it. The only thing that made this skin condition different was the fact that the bump on the back of Ezra’s hand was shaped like a perfect square.

 

Before his condition started, Ezra had a life. He was one of the numberless, nameless, faceless multitudes that moved toward the city day after day with a purpose. They all seemed so sure, confident and determined to do whatever it was they had to do. Ezra got dressed and got on the train every morning and he felt that he belonged. Then, somewhere along the line, he became as hollow and light as a balloon.

 

He stopped daydreaming about Dr. Benoit, and he spent his days in an imaginary park where children had fun with the same sort of self-assured, unquestioning attitude as the adults who play their games in the city. These imaginings always ended the same way: after a long day at the park a child is being carried home. His eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, his head is sinking lower and lower till his chin touches his rhythmically rising and falling chest. His fingers relax, his grip on the string of the balloon loosens, and the balloon begins to float, and rise toward the sky where it disappears like a sinking boat that’s swallowed up by the sea.

 

More of the same, perfectly angled square-shaped bumps appeared next to the first one. As the discomfort, the itching and the pain grew, the fantasies got wilder. Ezra saw howling, ravenous wolves tearing each other to bloody pieces, and cats scratching and clawing their own eyes out. After about a week of this, the neighbors called the police and an ambulance to deal with the deranged, screaming man in flat 207.

 

After banging on the door for half an hour in vain, the cops broke in. They found a man, or something that looked like a man, on the floor in the living room. It was alive, they concluded, as it had shallow, rapid breathing. The medics tried to take some tests, but touching the body was like touching a marble statue. When they examined it more closely, they gasped in horror. The skin was torn off from most of the left hand and arm, parts of the torso, as well as the right thigh. Under the skin was something that looked like the limbs of a statue made of mosaic. It took four cops to lift and carry the body to the ambulance.

 

A special OR in the nearest hospital was prepped, and a team of experts was assembled. Besides the doctors and nurses, the team included someone from the local museum. News got out, and the papers were calling the patient the “Mosaic Man.” There wasn’t much anyone could do to help. The “Mosaic Man” was breathing, although just barely. The mosaic tiles could not be penetrated by needles, the man himself was unconscious, and so they couldn’t talk to him. Eventually, someone suggested that the whole scene resembled a snake shredding its skin. This was considered, and the medical team decided that they would carefully try to remove the remaining human skin from the body of the “Mosaic Man.”

 

The doctors started out tentatively, and noted that with every inch of the tiles that they uncovered, the “Mosaic Man” became more radiant, and his breathing normalized. They sped up the process, and within a week, they helped “Mosaic Man” shed all of his old skin. There was nothing more for them to do, so they handed the patient over to the man from the museum.

 

The old professor looked at the “Mosaic Man” as he would look at any other artifact, trying to uncover its story, purpose, and meaning. “Objects that exist by nature have their origin in themselves, whereas those that exist by craft have their origin in the craftsperson - specifically, in the form of the thing as it exists in the mind of the maker,” he’d say. After studying each mosaic piece meticulously, he concluded that the “Mosaic Man” was like an artifact that had been created over a very long period of time by several artists. The material of the tiles differed: some were clay, others iron, bronze, silver or gold. Some were decorated with intricate carvings or paintings, while others were flat, uniform, colorless, and dull. Some dated from millennia before, while others were very recent. He even found some pieces that were made of plastic.

 

“The ‘Mosaic Man’ is a living, breathing representation of the history of mankind itself. It is…He is a colorful quilt, a mixture of various, unknown influences and sources telling us a story that we may never completely comprehend. However, …”

 

“Mr. Irwin, Dr. Benoit will see you now,” the elderly secretary said waking Ezra from his reverie.

 

“Ezra, why don’t you tell me why you think you need therapy,” Dr. Benoit began.

 

“The older I get, the less I know who I am. I am lost, lost.”