The following Monday at 2:00 p.m., Dora brought her husband with her and the two were sitting in the reception area.
I couldn’t resist sneaking a peek through the mini blinds while they waited.
I must confess I was disappointed. The husband was overweight, bald and in his late forties—he was more reminiscent of Walter Mitty than the controller or abuser I anticipated.
I buzzed Michele, my receptionist, to show them in.
The same pattern as the week before began emerging. Dora’s emotion chart was placid and perfect—so benign, it screamed abnormal.
I felt like screaming myself. It was maddening looking at Frank’s bland face.
I reread the chart again looking for an imperfection, some incongruity or oversight that would give me an opening. I saw only one—a ridiculous miniscule flaw, but I was desperate.
“Dora, I noticed when you filled out your chart, everything was written in cursive script, but your name was printed and in small letters. Why is that?”
I felt incredibly foolish. Frank looked at me pityingly as if I had completely lost my mind, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed Dora trembling. I waited. It was very subtle at first, but the longer I waited the more pronounced it became.
Then, Frank noticed.
Suddenly the room went dark. Dora’s face gleamed white in the darkness. She looked like a gull—a frightened bird. I blanked out.
An incessant buzzing of flies awakened me. My head swam and I felt nauseous. I grabbed the intercom, “Michele, please come in.”
Michele breezed in with the next file and stopped in mid-stride as she saw my face.
“My God, Martin—what’s wrong?”
“The Salomon’s” I gasped, “Where are they?”
“They left five minutes ago. I thought you were working and didn’t want to disturb you. Are you all right?”
“Cancel my afternoon appointments and get Anton Richler on the phone.”
She hesitated, but reluctantly complied, giving a brief nervous glance back at me as she closed the door. I looked at the clock in disbelief—it was seven minutes past two. How could that be?
You may not know this, but shrinks have shrinks and Anton was mine. I knew nothing more about Anton than I knew ten years ago when I first began seeing him—sixty years old, unmarried and an ex-Jesuit priest.
But he saw me within the hour.
“You were fortunate, Martin. I’ve dealt with these cases before and believe me, you were very fortunate.”
“What the hell happened, Anton?”
“You’re not a believer, are you?”
I shook my head.
“Well, suffice it to say, you stared into the abyss and it stared back.”
I stared at him, incredulous“Are you saying the man is possessed?”
“We tend not to use that term, but demonized? Yes.”
“How do you know I didn’t just black out—suffer some transient ischemic event?”
“The time gap, Martin—don’t you remember? You saw them at two and awakened five minutes later, yet you sat and interviewed them for at least half an hour. There was only a one or two-minute interval before they left and Michele came in. How do you account for that?”
“I can’t. I feel like a UFO abductee.”
“I’m not surprised. The experience of time loss is very disconcerting.”
“Look, I’m a psychiatrist—I should be able deal with this.”
“You deal with the mind and you do an excellent job. Unfortunately, Martin, spiritual realities are outside your realm of expertise.
In future, send suspected cases to me—don’t try to be a lone ranger—in this realm you are totally ill-equipped and defenseless.”
I thought a lot about what Anton said. I tried to contact the Salomon’s but was unable to reach them—I suspected as much.
I’m still not convinced about what happened in my office and I can’t get as far as to accept Anton’s version of things.
One thing I will say—I no longer counsel cases of a spiritual nature—I send these to Anton.
As for me, I’m slowly recovering and trying to keep things in perspective, but when I go to sleep at night, the light stays on.
