Forensic Hypnosis

Four, three, two, one, drop down, down deeper and deeper. ‘Is there an A?’ I turn left. I see Aunty Jan’s wedding and the shoes her husband wears which say ‘help’ on the soles and I spell them out loud in the church. ‘Is there a B?’ No. I’m on another curve of my dad’s first car. I am 4. It’s a mess in here. I can’t see any way ahead. I can’t find what you want. You steer me but all I see is silence. It has a shape, a texture, a sound. I see nothing.

‘Is there a C?’ I smell the red polish used on the stone floor at the boarding school I know is no longer a boarding school. The present and the past confuse each other. I turn again to the left. I have to remember but I don’t. How do I remember my confirmation at 13, so many years ago and not the face of the driver? I’m tired of searching but I’m stuck in your forensic sentences. ‘Is there a D?’ I try to shake my head but I end up slipping on unseen mud on the path. Dead. Nearly all my grandparents are dead. My first dog is dead but that’s not the D you are looking for. ‘Is there an E?’

Your monotone offers me no direction. It’s just me here, walking through, searching. Now I see down an alleyway that leads to the dunes and I’m running and playing with Richard and Pete and the golden retriever Sally. We don't go into the joke shop on the opposite site of the road. My mother wears a hat matching her dress.

‘Is there an F?’ I abreact and flinch. Perhaps there is an F, part of the labyrinthian prize. But I don’t feel it yet. They are the jerks of my unconscious, sedated by your speech and my willingness. I’m afraid of failing. Perhaps I should invent F? ‘Is there a G?’ Nana Scott lived to ninety-five, I think. I remember her telling us of the death of Queen Victoria. Her little home smells of age. I can smell this now. It’s not unpleasant. What you seek has no smell to me. I’m walking, I’m pacing, I’m looking, I’m waiting before moving on. I can’t find anything.

More turns and angles, now with directions you keep driving me through this grand muddle. You change your techniques. Where are my feet? I’m floating. I was floating when they cut me out of the car but that was pethadine. I remember some but what you want is still a blur. I’m trying to find it for you but don’t leave me in the car. Please don't leave me in the car. ’Is there a one?’ I look at the path and there is a mosaic beneath my floaty feet. I can’t feel the tiles. I can see the story of the Minotaur. A child’s imagination. My grandmother knits even though she is blind. She doesn't know the colours she knits. She feels her way and counts the stitches of the wool which surrounds her and leaves a trail of her time. Is there an F? I hold onto it in case it fits the prize.

‘Is there a two?’ It’s a rectangle. I think it has colours but I take a right turn and my school books are A4. I’m writing over dotted letters to learn cursive writing. F looks different as cursive script. There are no loops in the prize. ‘Is there a three?’ Pete is born and I sit on a chair above him in the pram long before strollers. I am three and someone is drumming and bidding the bad spirits who occupy me, away. I don’t think there is a three unless it’s mine.

You’re asking me to raise a finger for yes. My fingers don’t work. I’m sinking in a patch of quicksand which needs to be crossed in this dark puzzle. I have no reason to say yes, yet. I’m not there. I’m still here. I can’t move my body. Will your forensic ways lead me to the end or am I just hypnotised to delve into my imagination? ‘Is there a four?’ No, there is no four. ‘Is there a five?’ I see a policeman my mother knows from school. I don’t want there to be a five. I’m warm. My cheeks flush. I place 5 with F and continue to walk through this maze of thoughts.

‘Is there a G?’ I am swimming in the North Sea, a rope tied around my waist from his finishing boat. He picks up my guitar and plays a piece from the Concierto de Aranjuez before he tells me he has prostate cancer. There is no G of that, I am sure. I am buying oranges in a market in Seville.

You’re asking me questions. I no longer hear them. I have gone down a hitherto hidden corridor and I am lost without fear. I’m not sleeping, I’m not hearing but there is the monotone of the non-suggestive questions you ask me over again. I am aware of two mental states. I see the mountain, Thaba Buseu. I’m climbing it in Lesotho with Pete and I can see a man on a pony down in the valley. Ragged, poor but he has direction. No map for this landscape, no clues to reveal what’s secret. I no longer know to whom this all belongs. ‘Is there a H?’ I want you to say ‘an’ but you don't and it brings me back to my toes and fingers. I am beginning to feel them again.

You count up; one, two, three, four. Offering only 5 and F, I have failed to find the prize, the secret code which will free the police to do their own searches and find those who have crippled me. They said it would work, Forensic Hypnosis, but his vehicle registration still lies secret in the depths of the labyrinth of my mind.