Insanely Sane

Liza’s lips are warm on mine and her russet hair is tickling my cheeks, portions of it glued to my forehead with sweat. Her hips rock gently and she’s biting her lip, which means she’s close. She feels so good. Always has and always will. She is perfection! I try to keep my face neutral, scared that even after 10 years together, she’ll realise how much better she could do than me, Jonny Howson, a redundant brick-layer, with an acne-scarred face and wonky nose. She’s clever, teaches at disabled school, kind, funny and gorgeous. I don’t know how I got so lucky. Afterwards, she snuggles into the nook of my arm and we sleep.

I’m Jean-Paul now too, trapped in his basement. It’s cold. There’s frost on the back of the steel door and I’m shivering despite being wrapped in a blanket. I know its steel because its brighter than iron and it makes a different noise when you tap it. There are 95 different metals. All of them different. I like reading books about metal, but now I’m too old for school I can’t read them anymore. I have been alive for 6942 days or 19 years, but the doctors say my mind is only 10, so I don’t understand why I can’t go. I liked it there. There were lots of books and the teachers made me laugh.

Mama doesn’t like metal and doesn’t like me talking about it. That’s why she says I have to live down here now. The floor is concrete and uncomfortable; I miss my bedroom and I want my periodic table back from my bookshelf. When mama comes back to collect my dinner plate, I am going to stab her so I can get it back.

I pace the room and chant the periodic table while I wait, until I can hear her footsteps on the stairs and the lock clunk. I dash to the door and stab her in the arm. The blood looks funny against her black skin, but I can’t stay to look because I need my periodic table. She screams and chases me, but I make it out of the door.

***.

Ask any shrink and they’ll tell you that we only use a tiny percentage of our brain. I think it’s like 10% or something, but don’t quote me. It’s astounding then, that when faced with experiences beyond their comprehension, their first reaction is medication. Dr Luvwisk is trying that right now.

‘I know you think it’s real, Jonny. Nobody is contesting that.’ He looks frustrated. His glasses are rimmed with condensation, and his yellowing cheeks look unusually flushed, so I know he must have just walked in from the cold. I wonder if he keeps a dram of whiskey in his top drawer, just to complete the stereotype.

 Were sat in the NHS’s top of the range shit show of an office. My chair is wobbling as I’m talking and I’m sure I can feel a spring digging into my ass. There’s that sickly smell customary to most hospitals and I know that it will burrow into my clothes and stay with me the entire day.

‘But you’re still not going to listen to me.’ It was when my mum died 2 years ago that I started having these experiences. My 30^th birthday. In a car fire cause by crashing into a tree. Naturally, my dreams/episodes were blamed on this. I could pretend everything was ok, that I was sleepwalking or something, but mum was a social worker and cared deeply for anyone vulnerable, so I have to see it through. If Jean-Paul exists, I have to help him.

‘Look, I know it’s difficult to accept mental illness, but you have to at least admit the possibility that you’re experiencing schizophrenic delusions. When Liza found you, you nearly stabbed her. Your own wife, Jonny! I’m in a difficult position here. If you refuse to take medication, I’m going to have to admit you again.’ After my last episode, Liza found me pacing the garden and chanting to myself. I’d scared the shit out of her and when she’d tried to approach me, I’d gone for her with a knife.

‘Fine! I’ll take the damn meds! But at least accept the possibility that what I’m experiencing is real. You’ve said yourself before that we know so little of the human mind, so why couldn’t the things I’m dreaming about be real? How many people in history have been called crazy, only to be proved right years down the line?

‘There’s radio waves, UV waves, microwaves and god knows what else that could be connecting my thoughts to his. Look at how the moon affects water and what about all the other planets affecting our moods and ―’

‘Enough Jonny! I should admit you right now!’

I stand abruptly and the chair falls over. Dr Luvwisk sighs and pinches his nose. I wonder how long it’s going to be until he refers me on to some other quack who’s as useless as a chocolate fireguard. Dr Luvwisk is the 3^rd this year and so far, I’ve had a personality disorder, bipolar, psychosis and now schizophrenia.

They’re all wrong. They just refuse to see the obvious, which is the fact there is more to the mind, to this world, than they’ve been taught at their prestigious universities. They’re all brainwashed idiots in my opinion.

‘Did you know there are 95 types of metal?’ I ask.

‘No, I didn’t. What of it?’

‘I failed science!’

‘and?’

‘How could I possibly know that?’

Dr Luvwisk sighs, ‘Just go, Jonny!’

Liza and I argue when she asks me about the doctors. We’ve just finished a T. V dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, my specialty and my only contribution to our relationship.

‘He’s just given me more meds, but I’m not going to take them.’

She looks surprised, ‘But why? Don’t you want to get better?’

‘Better? I’m not ill. You know what they're like, just ticking boxes and meeting targets. Jean-Paul is real, Li and I intend to help him. How can I do that if I can’t find out where he is?’

She sighs, storms through to the kitchen, snatching my empty plate and I follow.

‘You don’t believe me!’ I say.

She throws the bowls in the sink, splashing water over the tiles and the floor. ‘No, Jonny! I don’t believe you. Its insane! You actually think you can shape-shift or some shit ―’

‘It’s not shape-shifting, its ― well, I don’t know what it is.’

‘It doesn’t matter. The point is that while you’re talking your crazy shit, I’m left alone, lonely and wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life. We used to be so close!’

‘This isn’t about you though! It’s about Jean-Paul. Last time I took medication, I stopped dreaming about him.’

‘Exactly! Meaning they work!’ She turns and storms out, pausing by the door, ‘I swear to God, if I hear that name again, we’re through.’

I sleep on the sofa, but her words cycle around my mind.

I’m back in the basement. Mama tore up my periodic table and stabbed my tummy with the same knife. It’s still bleeding. I don’t like it when she gets angry. She kicked me down the stairs to the basement and I hurt my leg too and I can’t stand up, so I just recite my elements sitting down tonight ‘hydrogen, helium, lithium, berilium…’

Its morning when I wake. Liza’s left for work and there’s a stabbing pain in my stomach. I struggle to get off the sofa. When I do, my leg goes from underneath me and the memory of my dream comes crashing back. Am I feeling his pain?

No, I had to stop this. Had to focus on mine and Liza’s lives. I’d die without her. Besides, she knew me better than anyone, maybe she was right. Maybe I I’m crazy. I check my pocket for my prescription and head to the pharmacy. I guess it was time to start taking the meds.

I call at mum’s grave on the way back and replace the flowers, which are wilted and dry. ‘Sorry, mum. I know I’ve not been in a while, just had a lot on, you know.’ I sit cross-legged, not caring about my jeans getting soaked by the dewy grass and let rip about everything that’s happened. ‘what do you think, mum? Am I crazy? What would you do?’

But then I’m thrown backwards, literally, and a pounding in my head so severe, I think I might pass out. I look around, thinking someone’s thrown a brick at me, but there’s no-one there. I yelp as something solid impacts my stomach. I think back to a beating in my teens and I know this pain, like someone’s kicking my stomach.

My first thought is Jean-Paul. Was his mum hurting him as we speak?

A magpie lands on mum’s grave. I look at it and it looks at me and hops down mere inches from my face. Could this be mum’s way of telling me to help the boy? Hell, I really am crazy. I reach in my pocket for my pills and swallows two.

***

‘Jonny! What’s this?’ Liza asks me that evening.

I head through to the lounge and she’s looking at the laptop screen, which still has the periodic table on it. ‘Oh! its nothing, just something I was looking at before our chat last night. Something from my dream.’

‘But why this?’

‘why’s that important?’

‘Have you had anymore dreams?’ She looks worried, her brow furrowed.

‘You said you didn’t want to hear about them anymore.’

She waves the comment away, ‘This is what you were chanting when I found you.’

I just stand there. I don’t know what to say.

‘Goddammit, Jonny! Just tell me.’

I swallow, ‘Jean-Paul. He likes metal. He wanted the periodic table from his bedroom.’

She pales and slumps down on the settee.

‘I can’t believe I’ve never made the connection. What does he look like?’ she says.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen him in a mirror.’

‘W-what about his skin. You must have seen his arms or legs, or something.’

‘Well, yeah!’ I say.

‘so….?’

‘What?’

‘What do they look like?’

‘I don’t know, just arms.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake! What race is he, Jonny? Is he black?’

‘Yeah!’ Now my face pales. How could she know that? I stand there watching her, waiting. Is this where she walks away? Tells me we’re through and she’s sick of all my shit? But then she stands and comes towards me, wraps her arms around me and starts to sob.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.’

I’m confused. I stroke her hair and tell her its ok, but I don’t understand.

‘Jean-Paul used to be a student at my school!’ Liza says.

The next few days are a blur. Now Liza is on board, she gets Jean-Paul’s details from school and we stake the place out like a proper crime fighting duo. Despite the situation, it’s fun and as we approach the front door she turns and kisses me.

‘I’m proud of you, babe!’

I blush. I ring the door-bell and within a few seconds the door opens to a short lady. I can’t speak. It’s the same lady from my dreams, but she looks so friendly, warm and her smile is welcoming.

‘How can I help you this fine day?’ she says.

‘Oh, yes! Hi,’ Liza takes the lead, ‘I’m one of the teachers from St Kilda’s and I’m just carrying out a routine visit to check on the progress of our old students.’ She sounds so convincing even I believe her.

The lady’s smile drop’s, ‘Oh! But I haven’t received a call.’

‘Yes, I know, sorry. We were nearby and thought we’d take a chance. Seems we’re in luck!’ she smiles that beaming smile of hers, but the lady tenses and moves to block the door.

‘Oh! No! Now’s not a good time. We’re just going out, but give me a call from the school and we can arrange a visit.’ She all but slams the door in our faces.

We return to the car to wait and it isn’t long until she’s on the move, bundling a blanket into the boot of her car. It’s stained with dark blotches and I wonder if its Jean-Paul’s blood. She drives away and Liza looks at me. She knows now beyond any doubt that what I’ve told her is true.

‘Should we call the police?’ she says, but I have to know for sure, so instead we get out of the car and circle the house, climbing through an open window. We search for evidence and when I open the door that leads down to the basement, I freeze. At the bottom is a steel door.

‘What are you waiting for,’ Liza urges and I shake myself back and hurry down the stairs, sliding open the hatch and I see nothing. There is no one in the basement, but a poorly cleaned up blood stain on the concrete. Either we’d spooked her into letting him out, or else… well it didn’t bare thinking about. I try the door which is open and go inside.

‘This is the same room,’ I say, and turn to Liza. Jean-Paul has her in a neck-lock. He is bigger than I realised, about 6ft and black as night. He has a swollen lip and dried blood running down his forehead. He has a beard too, which surprises me. Liza looks afraid and I take a step forward, but he squeezes her neck tighter.

‘Burglars are bad!’ he says.

‘Its Okay, JP. Its me, Miss Mathers from St Kilda’s. Don’t you remember.’

‘You’re in my house. Burglars are bad!’

‘We’re not burglars, sweetie. I’ve just come to see you. See how you’re getting on. This is Jonny Howson, my fiancé. He’s safe too.’

He lets her go and hugs her. Liza laughs until she sees the full extent of his injuries. He’s dragging his leg, which is at an odd angle and his white t-shirt is smeared in blood from the knife wound. Liza takes out her phone and sneaks up the stairs to call the police.

‘Hi, buddy.’ I try, ‘It looks like you could use a trip to the hospital.’

‘No Hospitals. Mama says no hospitals. I know Jean Howson. Do you?’

I freeze. Mum! ‘Yes! That was my mother.’

‘I liked her. Where is she? I haven’t seen her for 910 days. 28^th of March 2017.’

The day she died. ‘She died, buddy,’ I choke on the words, ‘how did you know her?’

‘She wanted to take me to another family. To nice people. She lied. Are you a liar, Jonny Howson?’

So, Jean-Paul was under my mum’s care. ‘I’m not a liar and I can tell you that she would have if she could, but she died that day. 28^th March 2017. We’d like to try to help you do that though. Would that be ok?’

‘Yes please!’

I hear the sirens overhead and breathe a sigh of relief.

Its 2 months later and I’m sitting in the police station after work, talking to the Chief inspector who has news on my mother’s death.  Jean-Paul has been placed in the care of another family and his mother is in custody. Liza and I are married now and I haven’t had one of my dreams since JP’s mother was arrested. Life is pretty damn good.

The Chief Inspector starts, ‘It is with deep regret that I have to tell you that evidence has come to light that your mother’s death wasn’t an accident as we first thought, but was in fact a result of foul play.’

What the fuck? Can I say that here?

‘I am very sorry to be the one to have to tell you, Mr Howson!’

‘N―No! its fine. Well its not fine, but ― what evidence? How? I mean ― I don’t know what I mean.’ My mind tries to catch up.

‘Its understandable to be shocked and confused. Let me explain everything fully and then you can spend time processing.’

‘Yes! Fine! Please do.’

‘Following the arrest of Mrs Mandle, Jean-Paul’s mother, a full search was carried out on the property and we found a copy of Jean-Paul’s social services notes locked away in a box with wire cutters. We had assumed the notes had been destroyed in the car fire, but when questioned about the items, Mrs Mandle broke down and confessed to cutting the brakes in your mother’s car.

‘It seems your mother was in the process of having Jean-Paul removed from her care, she’d panicked and acted on instinct. Again, I can only apologise and please be assured we will do everything possible here to help you overcome this traumatic news. We have an on-site counsellor, Dr Luvwisk. Would you like me to get him to give you a call?’

‘No!’ I said a little too quickly, ‘I mean, its fine. I have my wife at home, but thank you for telling me.’ My head is spinning. Murdered? And my whole experience with Jean-Paul and the magpie at the graveyard that day. Could it all be connected? I leave feeling utterly confused, but That night, I dream.

I’m Jean Howson, walking on soft grass beneath a starlit sky. I feel happy looking up at Jonny’s window and proud of the man he has become. I walk to the door, open it and climb the stairs to where he sleeps besides his wife. They are a beautiful couple and I would have been proud to call her my daughter-in-law. I bend down and kiss his forehead and whisper ‘Thank you,’ before turning towards a bright light. I step towards it and feel at peace.