D09

A tale of Ralph Malone, a male haunted by his past memories, find himself at his psychiatrist's office, as he aims to uncover the mystery behind his insomnia and depression.

D09

 

I couldn’t take it any longer. I felt as if I had escaped from my own existence, and I couldn’t hold my breath passed this point. I still felt human just like all the rest, but I had descended far away from everyone that had loved me. I didn’t want to believe it, but I sensed that I had no choice. I couldn’t premeditate my life past the point of no return. My conscience prevents me from ignoring the past because it’s in my blood. The thoughts cycle through my veins and unleash the images of unacceptable darkness. Though I waited patiently through my insomnia, I strove for help.

…

It has been two weeks now, and I still seek guidance. The sun rose once again reminding me of a new day’s awakening. I’d close my eyes hoping to get some rest, but it was useless, I’d be blind but remained awake. If I attempted to force myself, I eventually began to gag on my own mucus. I would cry without realizing, my nose bled without contact, my arm became numb when I laid on it, and my ability to breathe was depleting.

I felt relieved knowing I had an appointment with Dr. Lawffer. I always sensed he was the only person that could ever help me. He pointed me in a direction that helped me understand myself, but it never erased the agony that I feared. He had a sense of humor like no other psychiatrist. He showed me that he cared. He not only listened to me, but he also advised me to help me change. I would walk into his office every other day attempting to get a whiff of that fresh doctor presence, and today was no different.

“Hello Ralph, how are we feeling today?”

I walk into the room hoping he didn’t ask. I couldn’t respond with a positive remark, so I decide to just sit down on the fluffy brown couch. He gazes at me realizing how worn out I am. The dark black bags under my eyes were a giveaway; it was as if my eyeballs were struggling to carry weights. My skin is pale like an albino. I feel like my flesh has been vanishing into thin air. Even my dark-colored veins became visible, but other than my exhaustion, I still feel human.

“Not feeling any better… Well, have you gotten any sleep lately?”

Instead of responding verbally I slightly move my head left and right several times. Sometimes I feel too weak to actually make physical contact, but now I feel like my exhaustion repels me from even being verbal. I’m too tired to speak… Is that even possible?

“Try lying down on the sofa, and tell me how this week stood out from your last.” He crosses his fingers between one another and focuses on me positioning myself on the sofa. He’s a confident, bespectacled man, and he always seems to be well shaven with a distinctive trace of logic in his facial appearance. Dr. Lawffer is a man above all others to me. He knew his profession since he was a child and he strove to perfect it. Though he made me feel like a pathetic failure, I had to be strong. I’m a thirty-five-year-old nobody. I never had a career or a steady income, just simply survived day by day. Just thinking about it makes me believe there isn’t even a tomorrow for me, but I knew Dr. Lawffer couldn’t just sit there and watch me die. He felt compelled to help me and all of his other clients. I never even had a mother like Dr. Lawffer. Evidently, my mother passed away at birth, and for six years I lived calmly with my unfaithful father until he departed and left me with a foster family. I guess in many ways I never had anyone to truly love or trust. I’m a loner, and I’ve been one all my life.

Why does he care so much? He probably goes home every day to his wife and kids and smokes a cigar, living the American dream. What concern does he really have for me? No, I have to be strong. I can’t let him realize how weak and unfaithful I am… No!

I press my hands onto my head and cry internally to relieve my stress. I have to restrain myself somehow.

“Is everything alright, Ralph?” He notices my peculiar state and attempts to snap me out of it.

I have to wake up from this reverie and continue the conversation. I must fight all the thoughts that are bundled up inside me. I could yell and break nearby objects, but that won’t save me… NO!

But now, I couldn’t move. I was too weak, to even get my thoughts out. My lips feel as if they were glued shut. This damage feels fatal, and it brought back the inclination I had once… to kill myself.

“Ralph?” He begins dragging his chair towards me. Surprisingly, one of the few things I still had the strength to do is see. My vision still exists, though my entire body has departed from the attachments in my brain.

“Wake up… Wake up!” I shout in desperation. Dr. Lawffer gazes at me with fear in his eyes but yet he seems relieved to hear my voice. All of a sudden I feel wide awake. All of my senses come back to me, and I stand up from the sofa. “I had the dream twice this week.”

“About the man?”

“Yes, he stood there staring at me from the window. I was warped into my six-year-old form, and I was with Leo and Don. We were all in a lifeless street chatting about whatever came to mind. Leo and Don stood by one another sporting those ridiculous headbands wrapped around their eyes. I remember the time was four in the afternoon. I shouted out pointing at the man in the window, ‘Hey look guys it’s that man again.’ Leo then asked, ‘What do you think he does up there?’ The man reacted to me pointing at him, and he gazed at me. He had no expression towards me, so I continued to look at him almost dramatized. The man then began to smile. His lips slowly extended upward forming the letter U. No teeth were present, and his irises even started to become crimson in color. Once that happened we all yelled from the top of our lungs and sprinted out of there.”

“Have you ever encountered this man before?”

“Yes, several times. My friends and I went by his apartment every day.”

“Why?”

“Because we were curious. That man was a freak, but yet so interesting.” Dr. Lawffer reaches out his right palm and places it on my forehead. I hastily slap the arm down. “No, it’s ok Doc, I’m fine.” He looks at me with fear in his eyes once again. He even begins dragging his wooden chair back to its original spot.

“Can you tell me about any other memories of this man?”

“Yes, one time Leo and I decided to walk to the man’s front door. We snuck in the building and memorized his apartment. We then focused on the front door. Leo asked in fear of even approaching the door, ‘Do you think anyone is home?’ I had no idea, so I just suggested we go find out, and then he grabbed my shoulder and whispered stuttering, ‘Let’s go to…gether…at the same…time.’ I have to say, for a hero wearing a mask, he was quite shaken. Though, I approved his decision and continued approaching the door. ‘D09,’ I mumbled to myself. That was the apartment number, I never forgot it. So yea, once we reached the door we were both terrified. We kept asking ourselves stupid questions like, ‘What was behind it? Who was behind it? What will happen?’ My heart was racing for the marathon of a lifetime. My hand became numb once I knocked on the door. Leo said desperately, ‘Maybe no one’s home?’ He even insisted we leave right there after we had gotten so far. So instead of just knocking, I decided to see if the door was unlocked. And guess what, it was unlocked. I slowly began to open it and noticed a bright light illuminating the hallway from inside the apartment. I felt blinded by the glow. It had tried to take my eyes away from me by forcing them shut, but I fought it as hard as I could. The illumination eventually began developing a burning sensation in my eyes. They became deluded, and tears started to swarm down my cheeks. Once I fully opened the door, I saw nothing inside the apartment but shiny polished white tiles surrounding the entire apartment. The tiles were on the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. I decided to holler into the vacant apartment, ‘Hello is anybody home!’ I then decided to look at Leo and notice his reaction, but he wasn’t there. So, I searched for him, looking up and down the flight of stairs, but he was nowhere to be found. There was a lady on the opposite side of the hallway, facing away from me. She was a brunette with a gashing wound in the back of her head. All the blood was dry, possibly stitched, but I couldn’t tell. I quickly looked away and turned to focus inside the apartment once again. Inside, I saw the man towering approximately three feet above me. He stared at me as if he was there all along waiting for me to tell him why I came to visit. My body began to tremble I couldn’t look at him any longer. His skin was colorless, and he had absolutely no facial hair. He wore a white trench coat and actually blended in with the bright light that glowed behind him. His hair was long brown and wavy. The man’s eyes were as blue as the sky, but they seemed to change in color as he raised his pale left arm and attempted to touch my face. I maneuvered around it and avoided the ambitious hand. His face then began changing form, creating that outrageous smile. I screamed as loud as I could and sprinted down the steps and escaped the building through the back exit.” Dr. Lawffer looks at me stapled into the story.

“That was quite descriptive.” He said breaking out of his trance.

“Well, I dream about it every day.”

“So the man almost touched you?”

“Yes, he seemed like a possessed dog, lonely but yet clueless. He appeared senseless and confused, as if he had never seen a child in his life. He reacted as if I were a newborn baby.”

“Maybe he is lonely, and he sought to you as a companion, someone he could care for, perhaps you gave him hope.”

“I find it hard to believe that he wasn't just one of those sadistic b******s waiting for the right opportunity to snatch a missing child.” I stand up from the sofa and walk around Dr. Lawffer's office. I couldn’t stand to sit any longer. I commence browsing around the room until I eventually notice a collection of antiques. Dr. Lawffer turns his chair around realizing I am focusing on them.

He’s watching you, making sure you don’t do anything stupid Ralph, he doesn’t trust you. I look at his brilliant peach skin and buttoned up white dress shirt and realize how much this man cares. He doesn’t trust you, why would he? Unlike me, he is scared of death. And he knows that any human being can kill a man and take everything away. He pays attention to all my physical motions as if I have him at gun point, and he is patiently waiting for the right time to attack and disarm me. His eyes scan me from top to bottom. I feel like an assassin luring him into his last breath.

I approach him slowly and say, “The man seemed normal… just like you and me, Doc.”

“Just calm down Ralph and take a seat,” he insists calmly.

“You don’t trust me, do you Doc? You don’t even believe me, do you…? DO YOU!”

Author's Note

Full story available on my website: www.vialchrome.com. All feedback is appreciated.

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask for feedback, though I’m pretty sure not of the kind I’m about to give. But given that you’re serious about your writing, I thought you'd want to know.

Just bear in mind that what I’m about to say isn’t related to talent, potential, or good/bad writing.

One of the problem all hopeful writers face is that because they know the story before they read a word, they'll fill in any necessary backstory and information left out, as they read, and not notice that they’re doing it. But the reader can’t do that. They have only what your words suggest to them, based on THEIR background, not yours.

A second problem is that because you know the story so well you’ll leave out things that seem obvious to you. That’s one of the reasons professional fiction is written in the protagonist’s viewpoint, not that of the author.

A third is that while you'll always hear your own voice as you read, all filled with emotion, the reader will get only the emotion the punctuation suggests to them. Have your computer read this story aloud and you’ll hear how different what the reader gets is from what you intend.

With that in mind, look at the opening from a reader’s viewpoint:

• I couldn’t take it any longer.

Take “it?” Unless the reader knows who can’t “take it,” why they can’t, and what “it” is, this is literally meaningless to a reader. And if line one is confusing, will they go on to line two? But let’s assume they do, and read:

• I felt as if I had escaped from my own existence, and I couldn’t hold my breath passed this point.

Forgetting that it should be “past" this point, Who’s speaking, and why? What is this unknown “existence” they speak of? And why must they “hold their breath?”

You know. The one holding their breath knows. Anyone else who's there knows. But unless the reader has context as-they-read, they'll stop reading. And if they do, does it matter if the story is good or bad? No one will see it. In short, this opening paragraph is meaningless to a reader and serves no useful purpose but to say that someone unknown is upset for unknown reasons. But from a reader's viewpoint:

Is your protagonist male or female?
Dunno.

Are they young or old?
You don’t hint.

Rich or poor?
No way to tell.

Living in New York, in Moscow, or in space? Now, in the past, or...?
You don’t say.

Are they faced with a moral or a physical problem?
Can’t tell.

What in the pluperfect hells is going on?
You provide not a clue.

And when we get to the next section nothing changes. You’re talking about the situation as if the reader knows what’s going on. And because you see some of the problems, you’re overdoing the drama to try to compensate. The character doesn't have bags under their eyes from lack of sleep, he has “dark black bags.” Forgetting that we call “light black” gray, have you ever seen anyone, other than with make-up, with literal black bags? Of course not.

Then, you have his skin “pale like an albino.” You’ve just described a traditional zombie. But the doctor reacts to that inhuman condition not at all. How can that seem real to a reader?

The goal of fiction isn’t to tell the reader a story, it’s to make that reader feel as if they’re living that story in real-time, moment-by-moment—not reading a report on it, from someone not on the scene, whose voice is emotion free.

No way in hell can our schooldays writing skills do what you need them to do because they’re nonfiction writing skills, meant to inform, not entertain.

Did your teachers even mention the massive differences between a scene on the page and one on stage? Did they explain how to open a story, as against a report? Did even one talk about the black moment, the short-term scene-goal, how to begin the ending or end the beginning? Of course not, because by assigning you all those reports and essays you wrotye they were teaching you the nonfiction writing skills that make us useful to an employer. The skills of writing fiction, like those of any profession, are learned in addition to our schooldays writing skills. After all, if we don't know what a scene is, and how to manage the various elements of one (or even know what they are), how can we write one?

And in the end, that’s my point. You left your schooldays, as does everyone, with no more of the specialized knowledge of the writing pro than did you leave with a knowledge of accounting or engineering.

Sure, such things as spelling, punctuation, and grammar are useful to any form of writing. But the techniques you learned are those of nonfiction, and their goal is to inform. You, the narrator, TELL the reader what they need to know. But fiction’s goal is to entertain—to move the reader emotionally. And in general terms, that means the narrator needs to get the hell off stage and let the characters live the story.

Yes, I know you’re pretending to be the protagonist talking about the events that once happened, and using first person pronouns, but that isn’t first person as readers and publishers view that. Neither the author, nor the author pretending to have once been the character, can appear onstage with the actors and talk ABOUT them without killing all sense of reality for the reader. After all, if your characters politely shut up when the narrator appears, wait for them to finish, and never even ask them who they are and what they’re doing in the room with them, how can they seem real?

Bottom line: Neither the writing techniques we’re given in school nor verbal storytelling tricks can work for fiction, though our teachers never mention that. But to fix the problem is pretty simple. Hit the library’s fiction-writing section and devour a few good books on fiction-writing technique to pick up the tricks the pros take for granted. No, that’s not going to be easy, but then, no profession is easy to learn. But for a reader to get the story you intended them to get, and be made to want to turn the pages, you need to entertain them on every page. And since we didn’t learn how to do that in school, time spent acquiring that knowledge would be time wisely invested.

And while you’re in the fiction writing section, look for the names, Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham, James Scott Bell, or Debra Dixon on the cover of a book on fiction-writing technique. They’re pure gold.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Vialchrome]

Thanks for the concise review Jay.

I'll look into some of your suggestions, but in my defense the writing style for this story is intentionally not traditional. My goal is to create a novel written by normal day to day people writing blogs about the apocalypse. If I dive into minor details that consider traditional fiction techniques the story telling becomes unnatural. My main goal is for readers to find it entertaining and informative towards their day to day life. Each chapter of my novel has a theme based on sociological retrospects. I know what you mean by stating how certain things are vague, but it's because I want to reader to envision their own world, not just the novels. What makes you lose your breathe, what makes you scared, and what makes you less appreciative of the world you live in today. That's an underlying them to the entire novel. I know it's not traditional and it's not going to be for everyone, but it's a concept that I'm trying out and I've had some seriously amazing results from. I especially see great reactions from people who are faced with depression and anxiety. When they read chapters of my novel they don't just consider the underlying story they consider their own experiences. I hope that makes sense. I'll definitely work on seeing how I can fill more blanks in the story also without compromising the overall theme and purpose.

Thanks again.