Joshua Ferris - The Unnamed

A: Intelligence has its limits. Knowledge cannot determine in its entirety the measure of a man’s ________.

Q: His what?

A: You know, his ________.

Q: “Soul”?

A: That’s it, soul, yes.

Q: You believe in the soul now?

A: I do.

Q: I wasn’t aware you gave any thought to such things.

A: I haven’t, typically.

Q: Then what accounts for your sudden mystical impulse?

A: Without God, you win.

He didn’t think the taunting was fair, but then the other had proven it didn’t play fair. But how was it feasible? The other had co-opted his powers of recall and discourse. In his former life as a lawyer, the stress of an upcoming trial would cause him to dream of cross-examining expert witnesses on technical matters about which he knew nothing — handwriting analysis, abstruse accounting methods. The author of such dreams, he played both parts, interrogator and expert, but he knew only the interrogator’s questions. When it came time for answers, he listened as the expert whom he had conjured conveniently mumbled, or spoke too softly, or omitted entire words.

It was like that now, only the other was the interrogator and he the muttering subject of its dream.

He was hooked to machines and monitors. He heard their pulse and suspiration, the steady mechanical beep of his heart. He realized that the other was content simply to lie there, to let the drips and antibiotics work their magic. He wasn’t going to walk, the son of a bitch. The wily cunt wasn’t going to walk. The wily cunt had been made to suffer and brought close to death and then he changed the rules. It wasn’t fair. Tim tried to tear himself free. In so doing he learned how many fingers and parts of fingers he had lost. He was too weak to pull out a single IV and fell unconscious again.

Q: Are you aware that you can be made to forget words, if certain neurons are suppressed from firing?

A: Certain what?

Q: And that by suppressing the firing of others, you can be made to forget what words mean entirely? Like the word Jane, for instance.

A: Which?

Q: And do you know that if I do this—

[inaudible]

A: Oof!

Q — you will flatline? And if I do this—

[inaudible]

A: Aaa, aaa…

Q — you will cease flatlining? Do you really want to confuse that for God’s work?

He woke again, unable to move. He saw a man peering in at him from the doorway. Was the man smiling? Just before losing consciousness, he watched in horror as the man came forward — unmistakably the same man he had encountered on the bridge. The man was approaching and there was nothing he could do, no defense possible, he was utterly paralyzed and his eyes were closing. He was trapped inside. The paralysis was worse than movement. He wanted to call out, but his throat was plugged. The man stepped to the bed. Wake up! he cried to himself. Tears leaked out from his closed eyes.

The next time he woke he found the strength to tear the lines out of his veins and the tube from his throat. Alarms began to sound. He slowly climbed out of bed, which kept pulling him back in, as if he were in a gravel pit struggling to get a purchase on the collapsing rock. A nurse caught him at the doorway as he was leaving the room. He tried to scream but his vocal cords were out of commission and all he could produce was a long hoarse cry. “He’s tormenting me! He’s tormenting—”

He collapsed in the doorway, where he had another seizure. He shook on the floor with an animal gaze. His contorted mouth spat foam. The nurse came around quickly to cup the back of his head with her hands.

He was docile when the orderlies returned him to bed.

Q: If I can make you forget words, make you flatline, make you see things and seize up—

A: Oof! Oof! Oof! Oof!

Q — is that not all the evidence you need that I control your fate, and that my fate is your only future? Why turn for comfort toward the fanciful conceit of corrupt men and frightened old ladies?

A: Aaa, aaa…

Q: It’s just you and me, pal. Forget God. Act like a man. It’s what we are.

He broke free every time he woke, so finally they strapped him down by the wrists and ankles, which made him thrash and weep and cry out without sound because hell was a bed, hell was a bed, while life, down the corridor and through the door, was out there — life and death both, it didn’t matter which.

He raged when the tube was removed and his voice healed. He refused to tell them his name or the whereabouts of his family. He spoke of hallucinations and visions. He said he had the voice of the devil in his head. He disrupted the peace of other patients and hurled curses at the frightened staff. They transferred him to the psych ward, diagnosed him with paranoia and schizophrenia, and started him on a cocktail of antipsychotic medications.

They continued to ask him his name.

“Who are you?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘you,’ ” he said.

“Do you have family? Wouldn’t they like to know where you are?”

“I never told her how sorry I was for the life I led her into. I had hoped to start over with the new apartment. Now I’m trying something different.”

“Which is what?”

“I don’t call home anymore.”

“Where is home for you?”

“Home is where the heart is, right here.” He pointed to his chest. “I go where he goes, and he doesn’t give me much say in the matter.”

The medication began taking effect and they no longer needed to restrain him. Still he snuck out of bed and wandered the hospital corridors asking patients if they had the poison. Some engaged him and others thought he was crazy. Some seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.

“I been getting help from the twelve-strand Orion healing technique. You tried that?”

“And they wanna call it a fascinoma.”

“They keep threatening to cut me off.”

“The whole family been eccentric with mental problems all along.”

“Let me show you my scans.”

“We need to discuss the voices you’ve been hearing.”

“Voice,” he said. “Not voices. Voice.”

“Sorry, voice.”

“And it isn’t a voice. It’s a point of view.”

“A point of view?”

“A bleak and uninspired one, but convincing. Very evolved. He gains control of my powers — rhetorical, argumentative. Don’t ask me how. There should be docket numbers to our conversations.”

“Is the voice still there, louder, fainter?”

“Fainter. He makes it known when he’s angry or wants something, but it’s quieted down since you patched me up.”

“That’s good.”

“Don’t be fooled. He’s just lying in wait.”

“But if you keep taking the medication, there should be no problem.”

“Pharmacology is only one tactical maneuver in a protracted war.”

“What war is that?”

“The one we’ve been fighting for centuries. The one we’ve always lost, so far as anyone can tell.”

“Sorry, I’m not sure I understand.”

“Death. The will to live versus inevitable decay. What’s not to understand?”

“Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘yourself,’ ” he said.

He resumed eating voluntarily. He got up and voided himself of his own accord. He was quiet in the evenings. They gave him donated winter clothes and released him.

He walked out in a gray hunter’s cap with fur brim and earflaps, a winter jacket. He stood just beyond the automatic doors where he had fallen to his knees almost two months earlier. He was trying to decide whether to go right or left, his breath visible in the cold. He had no impulse to undress and wander off into the winter. Ascension through annihilation wasn’t his immediate concern. The other was happy. The other liked the warmth, felt a little hungry. He knew his first task was to get his personal details in order — to call a private banker he knew in New York, who’d help him restore his identification and credit cards. He had these clerical impulses. The good hospital staff had restored him to the land of the pragmatic. In his pocket sat several prescriptions, some of which he even thought worth filling. Pharmacology was a legitimate tactical advantage. Eventually, he decided to turn right.