Elizabeth Flock - But Inside I'm Screaming

Why’d they take down the pictures? What’s so bad about pictures?

“Isabel?” Dr. Seidler is standing in the open door, motioning her to pass through it.

I am Alice in Wonderland…I will pass through this door in the looking glass and I’ll become smaller…smaller…smaller…

Isabel has slumped so far down in her chair that her shirt rides up her back. She stands up and pulls it back down. Wordlessly she crosses the empty room, her breaths still short and shallow.

“Hello, Isabel.”

This guy looks like that Ghostbusters actor. What’s that guy’s name?

“I’m Dr. Edwards and I’ll be treating you today. Why don’t you come on into the treatment room so that I can show you exactly what’s going to happen.”

Not Bill Murray. Not Dan Ackroyd…the other guy.

Isabel follows the two doctors into the treatment room. The smell of ammonia is overpowering.

Harold Ramis! That’s who he looks like. Harold Ramis.

Dr. Edwards gets right to the point. “The machine you’re looking at is what we use to gauge the intensity of electricity used to treat our patients. I know it looks like a dinosaur but it’s state of the art.” The doctor is proudly standing alongside his silent, mechanical partner in crime.

State of the art when? In 1960?

“It’s quite simple, really. We’ll ask you to lie down on this table and we’ll attach two electrodes to your temples. Then we will set this needle and flip this switch and the current will be administered. It’s very brief. The whole thing lasts a matter of seconds. You might feel a bit of a jolt but it’s not painful. In the old days, patients had rubber mallets in their mouths to protect them from biting off their tongues. Now we need nothing of the sort.”

“Isabel?” Dr. Seidler is facing her. Isabel feels like she is snorkeling, the muffled words come at her in slow motion.

She turns to face her therapist and watches Seidler’s mouth as it moves, imagining tiny air bubbles floating from it with each word.

“See? I told you it’d be quick,” Seidler is mouthing, not so surreptitiously checking her watch while reaching out to touch Isabel’s forearm in reassurance.

“And maybe feel a bit tired…” Isabel turns to watch Dr. Edwards’s mouth move. She nods at everything they are saying. She watches as they talk at her and then to each other.

Smile. Let them see you’re a picture of grace under pressure…smile! Hello, I’m Isabel Murphy, ANN News. Reporting live…

Isabel’s attempts at twisting her mouth into the shape of something upbeat fail and her smile is more of a miserable smirk. Dr. Seidler looks sad.

Isabel telepathically messages her doctor.

Take me with you.

Failure. Dr. Seidler is gone.

“Okay, Isabel, we’ll have you lie down right here,” an overweight nurse pats the hospital bed as though it is made of feathers and sitting by a fireplace at a bed-and-breakfast.

“Are you cold? Do you want a blanket?”

Maybe some hot chocolate while I warm myself here by the fire.

Isabel cannot speak. She watches the kind nurse open a cabinet and pull out a light hospital blanket to drape over Isabel’s bare legs.

“Now. This jelly might be cold. I’m just going to dab a spot of it on each side of your forehead. There. This will help the electrodes stay in place. They’re suction cups so they need a bit of moisture. Now they’re in place and we’re all set to go.” Her touch is soft.

Wait! This is happening too fast! Hello? Can anyone hear me? Wait.

It is as if the entire scene is part of a dream sequence in a movie and someone has hit the fast-forward button on the VCR after watching in slow motion for a while.

I’m not ready for this. Wait…please wait.

“Okay, Isabel,” Dr. Edwards is hovering over her head, checking the nurse’s work. “Looks like we’re good to go.”

“Good to go.” Harold Ramis with a military background. Good to go. Goodtogogoodtogogoodtogogoodtogogoodtogo.

“ Okay, so we’ll run first then we’ll get bagels on Chestnut Street,” Alex offered. “Just come running with me. Please?”

The sand is so soft it feels like running in molasses. The waves are too big to run along the water’s edge without getting soaked. In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge seems to remain untouchable no matter how hard they run toward it. The wind is at their backs gently nudging them along.

“Isabel, come on! Try to catch me!” Alex is smiling, calling out over his shoulder, his jog turning into a sprint. “We’ll finish sooner! Think bagels! Come on, Isabel!” His words are carried to her by the wind.

I can’t keep up, Alex. Wait up.

“Isabel?”

Alex!

“Isabel?”

Where am I?

Isabel squints up at the ceiling.

San Francisco? Did we already get the bagels?

“Isabel? Isabel, are you awake?”

Oh.

Above her Dr. Seidler is smiling, her head distorted. Her lips seem huge to Isabel.

“That must’ve been some dream!”

It was just a dream.

“Um, yeah. Where am I?” Isabel feels completely disoriented.

“Three Breezes, Isabel. You’re in Three Breezes Hospital. Do you know who I am?”

It feels like Alex is in this room. Where did he go?

“What?”

“It’s Dr. Seidler,” Isabel’s therapist answers. “It’s time to meet, Isabel. Do you feel up to it? You still seem pretty groggy. Would you rather rest some more?”

“I’m okay, I guess. Can I just throw on some sweatpants, though?” Isabel tries to move her arm and feels sore, as if she has just finished a kick-boxing class.

“Of course. My office, five minutes.” Dr. Seidler leaves Isabel to get dressed.

God, I miss him. I miss him so much it hurts.

Isabel pushes her aching body up and leans back against the edge of the bed and cries so hard the bed shakes, knocking the headboard against the wall.

Alex. I don’t know why…but I miss you.

“Are you feeling okay?” Dr. Seidler is scrutinizing Isabel and scribbles something on her notepad while Isabel slowly eases into the chair facing her therapist.

“It feels like I’ve been asleep for days,” Isabel tentatively answers.

“You’ve been sleeping for the past sixteen hours or so. That’s completely normal,” Dr. Seidler explains. “You may feel tired for the next few mornings. After electroshock therapy a lot of patients feel groggy. It helps if you just succumb to it and sleep as much as you can. Think of it as your brain repairing itself.”

“I actually feel pretty well rested.”

“Isabel, let me ask you a question. Just now when I woke you up—do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

“Alex. I was dreaming about Alex.” The dream was so lifelike that Isabel felt as if she’d just come from running on Chrissy Field along San Francisco’s marina. “It was really bright, very sunny. And we were doing the run we did every weekend. We used to drive to the marina and park and run on the beach out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Usually the wind was coming toward us so the run out to the bridge was hard. But in this dream, I remember, it was coming from behind. It was kind of pushing me. Anyway, that was my dream. Pretty boring, when you think about it.”

“Not at all. Not to me. Can you think of what the dream may mean?”

Isabel studies her hands in her lap. They look shriveled and foreign to her. Then she remembers the question.

“I don’t know. I think I was just dreaming about the past. A good memory of Alex. Of the Alex who was kind, not abusive. When he was happy I always felt elated…like nothing could touch us. That’s why it felt like a good dream. What do you think it means?”