Jesse Ball: A Cure for Suicide

The examiner was a girl. The claimant didn’t know that word, but it is how he saw her. He had known others, he was sure of it. Her soft yellow hair fell about her shoulders, and her bones were thin and delicate. He felt that he could see where the bones were through the skin. His own bones were larger.

She was helping him. He didn’t know why. It occurred to him that he hadn’t asked.

— Why am I here? he said suddenly.

The examiner looked up from her book. She smiled.

— I was waiting for you to ask that. Actually,

— she looked at a little clock that lay across her leg,

it is just about the right time for you to be asking that. Nearly to the minute.

She laughed — a small, distinct laugh.

— You are here because you have been very sick. You almost died. But, you realized that you were sick, and you went to get help. You asked for help, and you were brought here. It is my job to make you better. You and I shall become good friends as you grow stronger, and as you learn. There is much for you to learn.

— But, he asked, where was I before?

— In a place like this, she said. Or in some place so different as to be unknowable to us when we are here. I can’t say.

— Why do I keep falling asleep?

— You are learning — learning a great deal. It is too much for you, so your body bows out. Then you wake up and you can continue. It will be like this for a time. I have seen it before.

— Are you the only one like me? he asked.

— No, no, no.

She laughed to herself.

— There is a whole world full of people like us. Soon, you will meet others, when you are ready.

— How will we know?

— I will know, she said.

ON THE THIRD DAY, she pointed out to him a gardener. The man was in the distance, trimming a bush.

— There, she said. There is one.

He stood and watched the man for at least an hour. The man had gone away, and the claimant stood looking at the bush that had been clipped, and at the place where the man had been. He asked the examiner if the gardener was likely to be in that spot again. Not that exact spot, she said, but another near to it. This was the gardener window, then, he said. I can watch the gardener from here. They are all gardener windows, she said. There are others, and others. It’s a matter of how far you can look, and if things are in the way. She took him to another window. Out of that one, he could see three people in a field, in the extreme distance. They were scarcely more than dots, but they were moving. At this distance, she said, you can’t tell if they are men or women. They could even be children, he said. It might be hard to see a child that far off, she said. They could be, he insisted. The examiner did not tell him: there are no children in the gentlest village.

On the fifth day, she told him about fire, and explained what cooking was. He found fire to be very exciting. He could hardly bear the excitement of it. She wrote this down.

On the sixth day, he closed a cupboard door on his hand, and cried. She explained crying to him. He said that it felt very good. In his opinion, it was almost the same as laughing. She said that many people believe it is the same. She said there was perhaps something to that view, although of course, it appeared to be a bit reductive.

SHE WROTE THINGS in her notes, things like: Claimant is perhaps twenty-nine years of age, in good health. Straight black hair, grayish brown eyes, average height, scars on left side from accident, scar under left eye, appears to be a quick learner, inquisitive. Memory is returning relatively quickly. Claimant is matching given data with remembered data — a troubling development.

ON THE MORNING of the seventh day, he refused to get up. She told him to get up. He refused.

— What’s wrong?

— The other day, you said that I almost died. That I was sick and that I almost died.

— You were sick. Now you are convalescing. You are regaining your strength. You are young and have a long life ahead of you in a world full of bright amusements and deep satisfactions, but you have been sick, and you must regain your ability to walk far and parse difficult things.

— What did you mean when you said I almost died?

— It isn’t very much. It is a small thing. The world is full of organisms. You are an organism. A tree is an organism. These organisms, they have life, and they are living. They consume things, and grow, or they have no life, and they become the world in which other organisms live and grow. You almost became part of the world in which organisms live, rather than that which lives. It is nothing to be afraid of — just…

— But it would be the end? he said. There wouldn’t be any more?

— It would be an end, she said. Do you remember the conversation we had, the second night? About going to sleep?

He nodded.

— What happened?

— I went to sleep, and then in the morning everything was still here.

— Death is like that. Only, you work in the world with a different purpose. The world works upon you.

— How did I die?

— You didn’t die. You nearly did.

— How?

— We will talk about this later, when you have more to compare it with. Here, get out of bed. Perhaps it is time for us to go for a walk. Perhaps we should leave the house.

He got up and she helped him dress. They had clothes for him, just his size in a wardrobe that stood against the wall. They were simple, sturdy clothes: trousers, shirt, jacket, hat. She wore a light jacket also, and a scarf to cover her head. He had never seen her do this. I often cover my head, she said, when I go outside. One doesn’t need to, but I like to.

They went into the front hallway, an area that he had not understood very well. It appeared to have no real use. But now when the door was opened he could see very well why there should be this thing: front hallway. He went out the door and down the stairs and stood by her in the street. He could feel the length of his arms and legs, the rise of his neck.

Going outside, he thought — it is so nice! The things that he had seen through the window were much closer. He could see houses opposite, and suddenly, there were people inside of them, and lights on. There was no one in the street, though. He walked with the examiner, arm in arm, and they went up the street a ways.

The houses looked very much the same. He said so.

— Do you know, she asked — do you know which one is ours?

He looked back in fright. The houses were all the same. They were exactly the same. He had no idea which one was theirs. She saw his fright and squeezed his arm. I will take you back to it, don’t worry. I know which one is ours.

The street wound past more houses, and they gave way to buildings that she called shops. No one was in these shops, but the windows were full of things that she said might be bought. He did not understand, and did not ask.

On down they went to a little lake. Fine buildings were in a circle around the lake. There was a bridge in the lake to a little island (as she called it), and on the island there was a small house with no walls. They sat in it, and she poured him a glass of water from a pitcher that sat on a tray on a bench at the very center.

WHEN HE WOKE UP, he was back at the house again, in bed. It was the afternoon, he guessed — as light was all in the sky.

— Did I fall asleep again?

But she was not in the room. He went out to the landing. There was a carpet, but the old wooden boards of the house creaked beneath his feet. He winced, trying to step as quietly as possible. The railing ran along the top of the landing. The balusters were worked with lions and other beasts. He knelt by the edge and listened.