Jesse Ball: A Cure for Suicide

THE EXAMINER closed the gate behind her with a swift, careful motion. She listened to it shut, and then proceeded. Ahead on the right, outbuildings loomed in the murk of early morning. The sun’s rise was slow; she felt it behind her, coloring the barn with the least possible gesture.

On she continued up the path. A rut in the ground showed a gurney had been dragged past in the night. These were the signs she knew well — it was her profession, her task to know them. A hollow anticipation stiffened in her and grew to a faint point of tension in her cheeks. The gentlest village. Here she was in the gentlest village. The path led her past the barn and on to a tall Victorian house, the door of which stood open. In she went.

The rooms were furnished simply and with taste. Everything about it was identical to all the other houses she had ever been in, in all the villages she had ever been in. But this, this was the gentlest village. There would be things that were different.

In the sitting room, there was no one. In the parlor, no one. Up the stairs, she went. In the first bedroom, no one. In the upstairs sitting room, a piano — and no one. In the second bedroom, which she entered softly, as softly as could be, there was someone. Indeed there was.

There was a man lying flat on his back, breathing shallowly, and staring with his eyes open at the ceiling. His chest moved up — and down — and up. His hands trembled slightly.

She stood there watching, noting every detail of his countenance.

He did not notice her.

SO, THIS WAS THE CLAIMANT. This, then, was her task. She looked at him awhile and when she was satisfied with this first look, she went to the study and took out a piece of blank paper. She placed it on the writing desk.

From her pocket she drew out the letter she had received the day before. She unfolded it.

++

Report to Gentlest Village D4. The stamp on this letter will gain you admittance.

Claimant is on schedule three, as per size and responsiveness to medication, which will have been administered 12 hours prior to your arrival. This gives you 20 and one half days before Mark 1.

You were selected based upon your recent success. It is expected that you will serve with even greater distinction going forward.

In First House protocol for Gentlest Village, you will write daily reports, which will be collected from the locked desk in which you leave them. The unlocking and locking of the desk will signal the desire for a pickup to be made.

There need be no verbal contract with the claimant, as in your previous work. Prior to Mark 1, the claimant will be utterly biddable, indeed nigh helpless.

The manner of treatment is your choice. First House examiners need not follow treatment routines such as you have been accountable to in the past. Reprocessing decisions need not be confirmed. Move of station to Gentler Village will be made based upon your written recommendation, and can be effected within an hour of your writing.

All success in your endeavor,

General Secretary

Emmanuel W. S. Groebden

Process of Villages

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On the blank paper, she wrote:

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Have arrived, seen claimant.

++

She put both letters in the desk and closed it.

1

— THIS IS A CHAIR, said the examiner. A person is made in such a way that he can sit where he likes. He can sit on the ground,

she knelt and patted the floor

or even on the table itself,

she patted the table.

— However, if you are in company, it is best to sit in a chair unless there is a good reason to sit elsewhere. In a chair, one can sit with good posture, that is, with the skeleton set into good order.

He looked at her with puzzlement.

— The skeleton, she said, is a hard substance, hard like wood, like the wood of this chair. It is all through the inside of your body, and mine. It keeps us stiff, and allows our muscles something to pull and push on. That is how we move. Muscles are the way the body obeys the mind.

— Here, she said. Come sit in the chair.

She gestured.

The claimant came across the room slowly. He moved to sit in the chair, and then sat in it. He felt very good sitting in the chair. Immediately he understood why the house was full of chairs.

— They put chairs wherever someone might sit.

— They do, she said. And if your needs change, you can move chairs from place to place. Come, let us eat. We shall walk to the kitchen, and there we will get the things we shall eat; also, we will get the things on which we shall eat, and the things with which we shall eat. We will not eat our food there; we’ll go to the dining room, or to the enclosed porch. This will be a nice thing for us. Having gotten the food and the implements, we will decide whether we want to eat on the porch or in the dining room. Do you know how we will decide that?

The claimant shook his head.

— You do. Think carefully. Say what comes to mind.

— If it is a nice day, outside…

— That is one reason, one of many reasons, why a person would choose to sit outside. It is a good reason. It is always best to have a good reason for doing things, a reason that can be explained to others if you must. One should not live in fear of explaining oneself — but a rational person is capable of explaining, and even sometimes likes to do so.

— Rational?

— A person whose life is lived on the basis of understanding rather than ignorance.

— Am I ignorant?

— Ignorance is not about the amount of knowledge. It is about the mechanism of choosing actions. If one chooses actions based upon that which is known to be true — and tries hard to make that domain grow, the domain of knowledge, then he will be rational. Meanwhile, someone else who has much more knowledge might make decisions without paying any attention to truth. That person is ignorant.

— A mechanism, she continued, is the way a thing is gone about.

They went into the kitchen. On the wall was a painting of a woman feeding chickens with millet. The millet poured from her hand in a gentle arc. Around about her feet the chickens waited in a ring, looking up at her. When the arc made its way to the ground, they would eat.

Beside it was a photograph of a hill. There was a hole somewhere in it.

The claimant paused at these wall hangings, and stood looking. The examiner came and stood by him.

— What is different about these? she asked him.

He thought for a while.

— About them?

— What’s the difference between them? I should say. When I say, what is different about these, I am making two groups — them and the rest of the world. When I say between them, I am setting them against each other. Do you see?

— This one happens less often. He pointed to the woman with the chickens.

— Less often?

— If you go looking for them, outside the house, he said, you could probably find the other one, no matter when you looked. But, you can’t find this one.

— Why not? Because it is a painting?

— A painting?

— Because it is made by hand — with strokes of a brush? Or for another reason?

— I didn’t mean that, he said. I am tired. Can I sit down?

— Yes, let’s go to our lunch. We can return to this later.

THE CLAIMANT sat watching her. He was in something she called a window seat. She had her hands folded and was sitting in a chair. They were in a room with what she called a piano. It made loud noise and also soft noise.