Suffocating Threads

A spindle. The patient’s head was in a spindle. The countless threads hooked behind his ears, around his head, and squeezed his forehead to a bulging pulp. The farther they stretched, the thinner the thread. The farther he pushed, the more pull he received. He liked the pull. He wanted to fight it, bobbing his head up and down like a newborn baby with an underdeveloped trapezius. Childish, he thought.

“So that’s how it feels, huh?” It was Abel’s first time with a shrink. Chaise lounge, folding accent table, ceiling fixtures, piano lamp, velvet carpet, peacock wallpaper, and a striped blazer. All static, beckoning Abel to kickstart the room’s motion.

“Yeah. I mean I don’t know how else to put it.” Abel was lying. He didn’t want to be trapped. His forehead crinkled. His palms burned on the faux leather of the chaise lounge. His knee twitched as if a doctor just tested his patellar reflex. The psychiatrist knew he could say more, but Abel locked it in Pandora’s Box, dropped the key in his chthonic belly, and dug himself underground where he hoped the layers of sentiment would muffle the incoming noise.

“Abel. Hey, Abel. I need full attention here.” The psychiatrist saw him dozing off. “What would you say is your biggest weakness?”

“My what?”

“Your biggest weakness.” The psychiatrist paused, gave Abel a few seconds, and then found the question again in case Abel lost it. “What quality or aspect of yourself do you feel is the most lacking? Be it honesty, confidence, conscientiousness, or empathy, what about yourself is most lacking in your eyes.”

“In my eyes?”

“In your eyes, Yes.” He offered more seconds.

The white rectangle on the ceiling buzzed at a rate of 120 Hz. The lamp 100 Hz, and the digital clock on the peg-legged pedestal besides Abel 60 Hz. Abel heard every Hz and if he focused enough, saw the brief off-and-on blip of every AC and LED light in the room. He just had to focus.

“Abel, just ignore the ‘eyes’ part. Just name a part of yourself you or someone else finds fault in. Any part and I won’t infer a lick about it.” The psychiatrist had been waiting 30 minutes past 9:30 already for Abel to make a move. His next appointment would be in an hour. Abel already explained how he felt, and the pressure to open any more of his carapacial self felt like cutting his stomach open, removing his innards, and showcasing them to the whole world.

“I don’t know how to say this, but I want to watch myself die without dying.” Abel was in agony.

Call to the Void? thought the psychiatrist. No, maybe social paranoia? Suicidal ideation? The psychiatrist shuffled papers out of a folder.

“Do you know what could be behind this… desire, Abel?” Abel curled his toes, feigned a stretch, and looked past the psychiatrist. A few inches to the left or right of his eyes, he thought, and he could avoid the floodlights of the shrink’s vision—an x-ray that scoured Abel’s body for more and more information.

Like a scarecrow, thought the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist cleared his throat, and Abel blinked once or twice.

“ Abel, do you have any family?”

“I’m a single child.”

Parents, cousins, and extended family didn’t come to mind. Is it Parental Alienation Syndrome? Need more. “What about your parents, Abel?”

“Divorced.”

“What age?”

“Were they?”

“No, what age were you?” Abel hated thinking about numbers.

“Oh, I guess around 10.”

“So you were raised by a single father. How was that like?” Abel clenched his adam’s apple, his eyes traced the feathery lines that traversed the peacock walls, and he let out a heavy sigh.

“He worked odd jobs: Masonry in a construction crew, a security guard night shift, and at one point both.”

“So, he didn’t take care of you?”

“No, he did. But during a heavy schedule. Auntie stopped by to check on me throughout the day. She only lived a few blocks away. A local in Albany.”

“How often did you and your father interact?” Albert placed a knuckle on his forehead, his mind sifting through archives of scenes spent with his dad untouched for years.

“We didn’t interact much after Mom was divorced. But… vividly I remember he showed me how to play Cat’s Cradle when I was 8—That old game where you reconfigure strings into shapes. We played everyday after kindergarten until dinner time while Mom worked as an accountant. We continued to play after the divorce but only late at night when Dad got off. Even as a teenager, I always lost when he changed the figure to a Cat’s Eye.” He’d have to change the shape with one move into any of the numerous shapes. Three main ones, and eight or so lesser known shapes, and then his Dad would retaliate, thought the psychiatrist. “It would then go Manger, and then I always defaulted to Two Crowns, but that lost every time.” Two Crowns can’t be configured into any other shape. Not with one move at least, thought the psychiatrist.

“Where is your father now, Abel?” Abel’s eyes widened to the point of veins showing. Still he stared three inches to the right of the shrink’s eyes, never meeting them.

10:14 turned 10:15 on the screen of the Timex digital clock. Abel saw exactly 60 flashes of 10:15 penetrate his vision. The light retained itself, fixated on his retina for a brief moment as amorphous reds and blues punctured his thoughts.

“He just…”

“Yes…”

“I just…”

Abel remained still. The psychiatrist had fumbled. He had an ‘in’, the angle was perfect, and the pace was slow enough. No, maybe it was too fast, he thought. The game was my entrance. It’s too much stress on him now. Maybe something… on the periphery. He scrambled for the documents in hand.

“Dr. Murphy diagnosed you with an absurd number of disorders, Abel. Cyclomania, megalomania, depression, extreme anxiety, paranoia, schizophrenia, and even hypothyroidism. Yet you seem well-mannered enough to be in a high school therapist’s room instead of this velvety, placard-posted suite. How many of those disorders do you think you have Abel?”

“I… I don’t know.” Abel shrugged his shoulders and averted the gaze once more.

“Listen. I think… These are all fine and I’m sure Dr. Murphy is a good doctor, but these categories are perverse. What I need are events. Happenings, thoughts, and ideas Abel. What has placed you in this ‘spindle,’ as you call it.” His gaze intensified.

“I want to feel myself go to the waves, have somebody find my body, and cry on the sand. I’ve been… a kind-of vigilante for this sort-a thing for a while now.”

“A vigilante? How so?”

Abel pulls out a yellow-stained, college-ruled notebook. Its fringe is torn and its sides curled up like a boat from constant folding. He hands it to the psychiatrist.

Broadway and North Pearl Street, Tivoli Lake, 42.6715333N 73.7600738W; Cesar E. Chavez Pkwy and Logan Ave, 32.701447N 117.144030W; Ladera St, 32.718506N 117.254914W; Pomerado Rd Poway, 32.996915N 117.058977W…

“What are these numbers?”

“Uh… coordinates from Google maps.”

The psychiatrist scanned them. Some of them were in pencil, some red and blue ink, and some in black. He had to squint to translate Abel’s handwriting, but nearly two-thirds of them were crossed out.

“Hey, these are the streets for the wild animal park,” the psychiatrist pointed, “and these are for somewhere in La Jolla, and this is downtown San Diego. But this first one… the coordinates are way off from the others.”

“Tivoli Lake is in Albany, New York. I lived there before moving here to San Diego.” His Adam’s apple dropped for a second.

“Tell me, Abel, why do you have these? What ‘vigilante’ work are you doing and who’re you saving?”

The question may have pushed Abel too far and the psychiatrist winced, turning wide-eyed realizing his patient may have locked up again. Abel stared at the clock. Now 10:30 blazed his pupils before he responded.

“I don’t know. I think I may be a bit of a masochist. The one from New York was when I tried to jump in front of a train?”

“To… kill yourself?”

“No, no. To jump across it as the train is booming towards me. I wanted to dodge it.”

The psychiatrist leaned forward, placing his elbows on both of his thighs, eyeing Abel’s angular, thin body, and crossed his legs below knee level. He cuffed his hands, and his knuckles pointed at Abel like a laser rearranging the cataract of a compromised eye.

“Were you… successful?”

“Yes.” Abel felt he couldn’t dodge the laser anymore.

“And, what did you want to feel while doing it?” The psychiatrist furrowed his brow.

“I wanted to feel the wind wash over the fly-aways of my neck hair, to feel the deafening boom of the oncoming train behind me. I wanted it to ring in my ears days later as I watched news coverage of my death, but that would be a daydream. I didn’t leave enough evidence and, of course, the public didn’t notice.”

“The conductor didn’t see you?”

“I’m not sure, I expected him too but maybe it was too tall too see. It was a freighter after all.” He wanted him to see it, thought the psychiatrist.
“And, what about these other places. What about La Jolla?”

“Sunset Cliffs Natural Park. I stood on one of the tall ones and thought about flinging myself off. I wanted to barely miss the shallow needles poking out of the shoreline. But I never did it.”

“And Downtown?”

“One of the local freeways. Same case as the train in Albany, but I never pulled it off.”

“Would you call yourself an adrenaline junky?”

“No. The one in Palomar was when I waited in the emergency room for hours pretending to be the relative of one of the red-marked patients. I followed the triage guidelines to find out who was on their possible deathbed.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I guess… I wanted the passersby to watch me weep, score a few pats on the back, and some condolences from the nurse.”

“How many of these… ‘acts’ have you pulled?”

Abel began chronicling his numerous attempts. He talked about taking skydiving lessons, hoping to get further and further down so he might feel his skin tear before the instructor forces his hand at the reserve. He recalled going to a shooting range in Borrego Springs and asking a friend to shoot an apple off of his head, his friend declining, and him realizing he’s right: He needed a pineapple, a bigger target. He talked about numerous other train attempts, but the only successful one was in Albany.

“Which one was the worst?” The psychiatrist asked.

“Pardon?” Abel almost didn’t hear it.

“Which one of these attempts at this ‘feeling’ was the worst?”

“I don’t know what would… be the worst.”
“Which one are you most ashamed of?” The psychiatrist’s knuckles didn’t move an inch. That cloudy, insipid lens would almost be removed—and Abel knew it. He looked around the room, at its unreasonable darkness. The lampshade emanated more shade than light, the peacock wallpaper blurred its colors to reds and blues. He felt the couch under him breathing, each pincushion rising up perpendicular to his back and piercing right through him like an acupuncture scene in a horror film. He couldn’t look at the psychiatrist—the laser tore right through him. He only tilted his head towards the clock. 10:45 striated his vision. The number blurred into lines of its permutations: 1045, 1054, 0145, 4105, 5401; each tore his cataract on fire, and each left 60 Hz of embers in its wake.

“Abel.” His name brought him back.

“My father died two years ago.” So the game wasn’t played anymore, thought the psychiatrist.

“Is that something you’re ashamed of?”

“Yes… I… I’m not proud of it. The day he died, I was exhilarated. I had something to lean on, something to give me a backstory. It made me feel like I couldn’t be judged anymore. That I was at the bottom of the world, looking up, and no one could look down at me without offering me dignity. I could snarl at everything and I finally had every reason to.”

“Abel. I… understand that feeling. And this feeling was brought out by your father’s passing?” It was some kind of self-victimization complex, thought the psychiatrist, but there is no grounded way to diagnose this. Give me more Abel, something else.

“It’s just…He died from eye cancer when I was 18” Ocular melanoma, thought the psychiatrist. It kills within five years. “And ever since, I’ve lived alone, bouncing from apartment to apartment. I just feel naked sometimes. Fucking bare and without anything, not myself or what I even imagine myself to be. I just want skin in the game, something to make me feel alive and noticed. I don’t care what in my life I use for that, just something for them to notice and for me to notice.”

“Abel, I know what you’re feeling. You want…warmth, don’t you? You would want anything, no matter how painful, to feel that your presence is there, registered in the radar of other people’s lives. Some kind of mirror to see into, to escape into. I think I understand.” The psychiatrist wrangled his tie and cuffed his hands again, still slicing into Abel. “Now, I need you to look hard into this pleasure you want, this mirror, and tell me… what gives you this mentality?” Abel must have inspo, everyone does.

The clock read 10:50, but Abel didn’t look at it. He needed to focus. He told the psychiatrist about this pleasure. He called it his Dostoyevskian right. He wanted to live under the floorboards of his house, to sequester his consciousness to a hole in the ground where he could only look up. He wanted to be the rat in the floorboards, beaten-down and derided, only left to immerse itself in its own cold, venomous, and everlasting spite. He thought of a cyclical machine he could build that would intake the venom he secreted and force-feed it back into him forever. It would be his food, his fuel, and scald his eyes until they were blinded green. He’d showcase this hell-born device in a theater, where he’d hope the audience would feel guilty just watching. Hands burning on the velvety theater seats, eyes incapable of veering off, and their knees twitching, ready to run. Abel couldn’t run anymore.

The psychiatrist told him he had 5 minutes left. 10:55 blinded Abel, and he couldn’t open his eyes.

“Abel, Fyodor’s ideas are ever so inspiring I agree.” Maybe a little too inspiring for Abel. “But, these thoughts you have, they say a lot about you, and…” I’m missing something, I need a move Abel can’t retaliate. “I want you to know you’re never alone in these emotions. The feeling that you’re underground, underneath everyone, and only wanting to be above them—above with someone.” Abel isn’t just under floorboards as a rat or a technical lab rat for a torture theater. “But, and I need you to really consider this Abel…” Abel is under a cemetery. “When you and your father played Cat’s Cradle… what was your favorite shape?”

Favorite shape…? thought Abel. Fav-

Abel’s skeletal body ached, his bones felt sharp against his internal flesh, as he tried to rein their escape. His eyes opened and wandered the room, darting every few seconds back toward the psychiatrist’s, meeting his gaze again and again. His pupils traced the feathery design of the peacock walls, traversing the bird’s anatomy, its mating display, its train feathers, and finally landing on the feather’s eyespots. The dark circles of blue and green loomed over Abel, an eternal void engulfing all of time as it is traced in memory.

“ABEL, snap out of it!” I pushed him too far, I hit it right on the nose but I needed another week or so of conditioning.

Abel imagined playing Cat’s Cradle alone, recounting the different shapes: Cradle, Soldier’s Bed, Candles, Manger, Cat’s Eye, and—finally trapping himself on the usual shape. His losing condition. His favorite shape. After Cat’s Eye. He never played it again after his Dad passed. A two-player game and a configuration ultimately unchangeable without a second move, a second person.

Abel stared blankly at the psychiatrist. Eyes white. Pupils pale black. He nodded. The psychiatrist accepted his attritional victory, turned around and contemplated: What to do about his psychosomatic thoughts. Schizophrenia-induced maybe? No, I know what will do the trick. But his mentality hopefully will change with time starting today; I broke into him, somehow. The psychiatrist’s back was turned.

“Abel… this is very good. This is excellent. I never knew this was exactly how you felt or these were the events and… what you did to challenge those thoughts. You’re making good progress Abel. Opening up your most dangerous interior is the first step—especially when it begins to overwhelm you—”

Abel wasn’t listening. He heard a few words here and there, excellent…exactly how you felt…challenge those thoughts…dangerous interior…overwhelm you, but he couldn’t focus. His eyes were on fire. The insipid lens was off.

“—On Monday we can go over mood raising exercises and continue this session. For now, I’m going to prescribe you Desyrel at 150 mg a day and increase it by 50 every three days for the next two weeks.” The psychiatrist wrote in his notes. “And with that, I bid you farewell. I have my next patient very soon and—”

Monday…Desyrel…Farewell…Soon

Abel couldn’t touch or feel. In a suspended stasis all he could do was look at the psychiatrist’s back. The room was deafening him. The velvet floor and the peacock walls were coming closer; the lamp enshrouded the room; the clock ticked away at 60, 90, 100, 200 Hz—he couldn’t tell anymore. Everything seemed larger, all rushing towards him except the psychiatrist. He was moving away, far away. And now, he couldn’t hear a word he said. Abel’s hands tried gripping onto something. The faux leather maybe, or the accent table, but for a moment he had nothing.

“Stay…”

The psychiatrist said something in response and then turned around.

“STAY! DON’T GO YET!”

The psychiatrist’s face moved. Beads for eyes and a string for a mouth, Abel couldn’t read his words.

“ABEL! Jesus Christ! I’m here okay! I’m here.” Is this a psychosomatic episode? A hallucination? I don’t know.

“FOR MY SAKE. STAY! For my sake. For… a few minutes.”

“YES ABEL, I’M HERE! I’m not going anywhere. Please relax, I won’t leave you. Noone will leave you anymore.” I have to do something, he’s becoming more and more aggressive. I need a sedative. The psychiatrist called for his assistant, “I need a 1.5% concentration of Isoflurane immediately! My patient is dissociating.”

The psychiatrist was just a black figure now. His suit swallowed him whole, his knuckles pointed at the ground, and Abel just needed a minute. One minute.

11:00 turned 11:01.

Abel didn’t see it on the clock. He didn’t dare look with his eyes.

Suddenly, the room moved away. The peacock walls animated themselves into hues of green and violet, the ceiling fixtures floated into the empty abyss above, the lamp opened up and sunk into itself, and the pedestal fell flush against the floor. The walls moved away, like opening the top of a gift box, on all sides around Abel. The psychiatrist floated in one direction and Abel the other. Abel held on tight to the chaise lounge, staring at the fleeting ceiling light. Then he hesitated, stood up, and walked toward the psychiatrist.

The floor creaked.

Static. Unflickering. The white rectangle was no longer there. Abel was looking out of a window at mimosa plants. Natural light spread the room. Abel couldn’t count the number of Hz the light cycled through. The blips were imperceptible. Abel looked around. Dark wood floorboards. Acacia dining table. Tile countertop. An oven. Two stoves. And a fridge. Magnets were pinned against its door: Borrego Springs dandelions, ‘Sun Diego’, a U.S. Air Force plane, and an ‘I love NYC’ Metro magnet. The magnets flashed images in Abel’s mind which he wanted to rewatch on repeat, forever in the sunken theater of the past. Abel sat watching from his tall wooden stool.

His Dad walked in, breaking up the stage. Without seeing his face, Abel stood up, stumbled toward him, and put both arms around him. He felt his blue cardigan. Its cotton threads were lush and didn’t move from the shoulders that carried them. In one smooth motion, Abel nestled his head against the threads.