The Medium

“So, is this your first consultation with a psychiatrist?”

“Ah, yeah” replied Brandon from deep within the comfortable couch, but looking at him, it would clear he did not want to be here. This was in glaring contrast to desperation with which Brandon insisted on the earliest possible appointment.

“I must ask you two direct questions before we proceed. I will ask them both together and please take a moment before you answer: Are you here of your own free will?; and do you have suicidal thoughts?”

Brandon knew the answer immediately, but weighed out an appropriate pause for the doctor's sake.

“Yes and,... ah, Yes”.

The doctor scribbled something in the margins of his legal pad.

“So Brandon, tell me a little about yourself.”

“Well, I am a pretty ordinary guy I think, at least I thought. I am 26 and single. I am a gamer. During the day I work as a computer programmer for xxxxxxx. I live alone and have only a small circle of friends, most of them guys who I either game with or work with. What else can I say. I probably should get outside more often and exercise, but now I am afraid to meet anyone new because of…”

“Ok, what about romantic relationships?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Sorry, but may I probe a little deeper and ask if you are a virgin?”

“Ah, no. I'm not.” Brandon tried to make it clear he didn't want to delve deeper on this topic.

“Ok Brandon, can you tell me why you are here?”

Brandon paused for a moment, now stuck on where to start.

“OK. I was given a super power that I don't want. No. It’s one that I MUST get rid of.”

The doctor looked keenly into Brandon's eyes searching for something that he could not find. Brandon’s pause stretched out.

“Please continue,” prodded the doctor.

“Well it all started about three weeks ago I think. We just reached a milestone in a big project at work and our team organised a social event as a kind of reward. It was a visit to a circus that was performing nearby. The circus was an odd affair. It had none of the typical things like tigers and flaming hoops, it was more a display of human oddity. A strong man with a missing arm and leg, a juggling cyclops, a ballerina with three legs.”

“At intermission, some of us visited the sideshow. A woman dressed as a witch manned a potluck stand which was not much more than an old wine barrel filled with colourfully wrapped packages. We decided to try it out. When I unwrapped my prize, it turned out to be a plain old, hand carved wooden box. When I opened it, the box was empty, but I instantly smelt a strange odour from it. It was one of those smells that is undefined, unpleasant, but curious all at the same time. The smell vanished immediately. Quite disappointing as far as prizes go.”

“As we wandered back to the main tent, my head began to ache like the onset of a migraine. I toughed it out till the end of the evening. When I got home I took some paracetamol and went straight to bed.”

The doctor was paying close attention on Brandon, and he couldn’t block it out. The almost physical sensation of pulling from the doctor's mind, craving more information. A pause stretched between them which the doctor finally broke.

“So then what happened?” 

“This is when I think it started. The next morning I started going insane.” Brandon finally said.

“As soon as I walked out of my apartment, I knew something was wrong. Strange. Different.”

“Go on” prompted the doctor as Brandon again seemed to retreat into himself.

“Everyone around me was different. I could see more of them. I don't know how to put this. It sounds odd, but I could see their colour.”

The quizzical look on the doctor's face pushed Brandon on.

“Happiness, sadness, anger, nervousness, apprehension. Their fears. I could see it all.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

“There’s more. I could hear a murmuring in the air around everyone, but the sound was not outside, it was in here” he tapped the side of his head. “A muffled sound of a thousand invisible voices.”

“When I got into my regular train carriage, the intensity increased.” Brandon paused in painful recollection. The doctor patiently waited.

“An old lady sat opposite me. She stared at her fingers deep in thought. A mauve shimmer surrounded her. As I paid attention to her, her voice cut through the background murmur.”

“When I say voice, it's not really what you think. It's not a voice with words and sentences. No, that would be way too clumsy and regressive. Imagine everything that makes up who you are. All your memories, feelings, fears, desires, regrets. Absolutely everything. All expressed in exquisite detail.”

“I was staring at her. Studying her halo. When our eyes met, a torrential deluge of data engulfed me. Imagine all those memories, feelings, fears, desires, regrets were a pool of swirling luminescent fluid, then the vessel holding it all was upended over me. A painful instantaneous overload. Her, in minute detail. Everything. Her very spirit. Every regret, every desire, every tribulation, every joy, everything was contained. I could not stop it, I was drowning in it. It…”

Brandon began to cry recalling the pain of the episode. The doctor looked sharply at his patient. He’d had enough clients claiming clairvoyance or telepathic powers. The challenge was always how to bring them back to reality without doing more harm.

“I see, so you are a telepath?” The direct approach. This is the way he liked to handle it.

“Is a telepath someone who reads minds?”

“Close enough.”

“I don’t read them. They are blasted out at me”

“Can you see what I am thinking?” asked the doctor.

“Yes, clearly. You are concentrating on me, so your voice is like a bull horn. It almost hurts.” The doctor was taken back and dropped the volume of his voice reflexively.

“Ok Brandon.” he shifted his weight in his chair, “I want to do a small test with you. Is that OK?”

“Yes, but I know what you are about to do.”

“Really!”

“Yes, you are going to pick up a book from that shelf, it should be random, but you like that one at the end of the bookshelf with the blue spine. You will open the book up at a random page, read a sentence to yourself, then ask me to recite it.”

“You have heard of the Lazslow test then?” The doctor reacted, pushing aside the uncomfortable comment about the blue book.

“No, your voice told me just now.”

“Ok,” A little unsettled, The doctor continued. He chose a different book and opened it. Before he could finish reading the random sentence to himself, Brandon began reading it out aloud perfectly word for word. Brandon continued reading the next sentence as the doctor's eyes went over the words. He was stunned. Brandon was reading it out as if he’d hijacked his own eyes.

“You were certain I would fail the test.” Brandon said in a matter of fact manner. A stunned silence stretched out…

“I also know that you ate spaghetti with meatballs for dinner last night at your favourite Italian restaurant with your wife. You sat at your favourite table. The same one you sat at when you proposed to her. You drank one too many glasses of wine to drive safely, but drove anyway, then you made love to your wife, but in the middle of the act you slipped and…”

“That’s enough. Stop!” the doctor said with pained shock on his face. He began furiously scribbling in his notebook, but Brandon could see with infinite clarity the lines of thought diffracting and bouncing about as they reached logic deadends in the doctor's mind.

“Ok Brandon, I will make a suggestion for a path forward.” outwardly the doctor gave his well practised performance of familiarity and comfort, as if this problem is as common as the cold. But inwardly he was on the edge of panic. He kept chanting to himself: ‘never show the patient that their case is special’.

“You have no idea do you? I know what you are thinking right now. You just said these words to comfort me. You are in a panic. What is it you are saying to yourself over and over: ‘don’t show the patient that they’re special’.” Brandon quietly said.

The doctor sat transfixed by the statement. He began to sweat a little at the probing stare. He desperately tried to clear his mind, but he was swamped by his doubts and, that stare.

“Sorry doc, I’ll stop staring.”

“Uhm Brandon, I need to, um,... adjust the way I do my work,... considering” he said uneasily.

“I guess so.” Brandon answered in an all knowing voice.

“You came to see me with an urgent problem, and now I am getting an idea of the extent of this problem. Reading minds is something many claim to be able to do, but none really can. It's usually a trick of sly deduction and lucky guesswork and it never lives up to critical scrutiny. You seem to really be able to do it.”

“And it's a terrible curse”, Brandon added with an edge of desperation.

The doctor nodded slowly and Brandon could see scenarios flash through his head at the dawning realisation of his condition.

“Bandon, let me ask you some practical questions, if I may?”

“Go ahead”

“So you do not try to read minds, instead they flood out and over you?”

“Sort of. I can hear everyone's mind but it's like a background roar. Like standing close to a waterfall. The more crowded the location, the worse it is. I could not bear the idea of being in a crowded train carriage again.”

“But you cannot make things out like this can you?” The words did not really make sense but Brandon heard exactly what he meant.

“Not really, it's like many people speaking in a crowded restaurant or bar. I can hear the voices but it's hard to make things out. If someone pays attention to me, then it comes flooding out. Some people are a torrent, some a trickle, but always things come out. Uncomfortable things.”

“When it's a trickle, it's usually things that they are thinking about right now. If it's a flood, it can be everything, like the old lady.”

“The old lady was the first and most intense experience. She was Polish born. WW2 happened during her youth. The imagery coming from her was so hard to experience. I could smell the cordite of the artillery shells that landed in their garden as she and her younger brother hid in their cellar. The executions of her Jewish neighbours. Right in their front yard. The suffering and anguish - brutal. The intense pain she had endured in her life.” Brandon paused and hung his head fighting back tears.

“That's why I am here, doc.” he said the last from behind his cupped hands.

“I see. So someone has to open up to you for such an immersion experience, if it could be called that” added the doctor as he furiously scribbled notes.

“I guess so.” Brandon added with a hint of uncertainty.

“Can you hear what my receptionist is thinking in the lobby?” the doctor asked.

“I’ve never tried to hear someone, let me see.” Brandon focused, but found it hard to recall her at all, in fact his whole morning, right up until he was sitting here with the doctor seemed lost in fog.

“No, I don't think so.”

“That seems like some good news for you. So there is a way to find relief from this,... power in isolation” the doctor was not sure what to call his condition. He immediately regretted calling it a power.

“Ok. But this is something I already knew. I mean I knew before I came here.” Brandon said sullenly.

The doctor felt naked. Anything thought was broadcast directly to his patient leaving him desperately grasping for a strategy.

“Ok, tell me what is the worst part for you?” the doctor asked with a hint of hesitation. Again the ambiguity of the question was resolved by his voice.

“That's easy to answer. I cannot stand speaking to people anymore. I can see how they bend their words around what is acceptable, instead of what they really think.” He paused. “Some people put an agonising effort into this.”

“Does this mean that as soon as you start speaking to someone, they are completely open to you?” quizzed the doctor.

“They can't help it. They have no idea . They think they are fooling me. It's disgusting.” Brandon stopped to think for a moment. “No, that's not completely true. There are some…., rare,...” Brandon paused in recollection.

“I met a guy a few days ago. He was sitting on a park bench, alone. As I approached, the light around him was odd. Without thinking too much about it, I sat down next to him and began a conversation. He was going through a major emotional crisis and opened up to me. He was completely free of guile or conceit. This immediately seduced me.”

“It must be difficult to imagine how hard it is to speak with someone if their souls are saying something completely different to their words. It’s hard to keep on top of two narratives. So with this man it was easy, it was a,... pleasure. I caught myself zoning out of his speech and onto the richness of the story his soul told. Words are so clumsy and frustrating. Thoughts on the other hand are so rich and multifarious. If both say the same thing, then you cannot help but zone out of the words and listen to the soul.”

“I see.” said the doctor, still furiously taking notes. 

“The first day back at work after the night at the circus was completely horrible. I was on the brink of resigning when I discovered exactly how my boss and others above me thought. What they thought about the company, about their positions, and about me. The banality and selfishness was too painful to behold.”

“Then there was last week. The CEO gave a big speech to the whole company. This was perhaps the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life. I won't go into it, but it made me physically sick to realise how this slimy and capricious liar held my economic existence in his hands!”

“Brandon, our time is almost up. I would suggest a follow up consultation but this is up to you.” Brandon could see the burning curiosity and even a glimmer of celebrity in the doctor's mind.

They both stood and the doctor led Brandon to the door which he opened for him. Brandon stepped out with the doctor behind. Brandon gave no valediction and calmly walked out.

The receptionist appeared from behind the desk and summoned the doctor's next patient.

“Good morning Dr Browning. Mrs Jones is your first patient for today.”

_

An hour later, Dr Michael Browning, still shaken from Brandon’s visit, looked up the number for xxxxxxx. His call was answered by a friendly female receptionist.

“You have reached xxxxxxx. How may I help you this morning sir” she said with a smiling voice.

“I am calling for Mr Brandon Mallow. May I speak with him?” the doctor asked

“Did you say Mr Brandon Mallow?” the girl's voice dramatically changed.

“Yes madam”

“Um. I cannot do that, I mean Brandon Mallow is no longer with us, I cannot tell you anymore, sorry.” There was a distinct discomfort bordering on anguish in her voice. Feeling like her answer was too abrupt, she added…

“This is very sensitive sir. For confidentiality reasons I cannot say more but I think it will interest you to visit our corporate online newsletter. Look for issue #332” The girl had trouble finishing her sentence. Michael was sure he heard a sob at the end. She hung up.

_

It was on the front page. A tragedy. Three young and promising software engineers were involved in a motor vehicle accident. All three were immediately killed when their car left the road and hit a tree while they were returning home from a company social event.