The Pull of Gravity

Isaac sat waiting for the appointment, watching the door to the doctor’s office when it opened, waiting to hear his name.  The woman who emerged looked discombobulated as she lost grip and juggled, then dropped her phone. Then her key fob fell out of her purse as she reached for the phone. Isaac picked up the phone and fob and held them out to her.  Her eyes were puffy and wet but the most beautiful blue–the sky on a perfect summer day with rays of sunlight sparking out from the tiny pupils.  She smiled and her eyes smiled too. “Sorry, I am so clumsy.”

He smiled. “You are fine,” he said dismissively.  She was fine though. Absolutely beautiful.  

“Thank you,” she said, taking her things.  Their hands touched and it was somehow electrifying and uncomfortable.  She looked at him for a moment.  “Okay, well.  Thank you again.”

And she was gone.  

“Isaac? I am Dr. Hooke.” Isaac followed the doctor to the office and sat down.  “What seems to be the problem Isaac?”  

“I have trouble with relationships.” He was here because he began to realize at thirty he would not be able to teach his future kid baseball if he couldn’t even achieve a fourth date. “I don’t feel anything” 

“Nothing at all?  No emotion at all?” The doctor looked confused by the notion, as if he was accustomed to too much emotion in his clients. 

“I feel happiness and attraction and can laugh easily enough.  It’s just when I am expected to be sad or angry that I feel nothing.”

“Have you always felt–or rather, not felt–like this?”

“No.  Not when I was a kid.”  

“Did you have a trigger event that changed things or was it over time?”

Isaac took a moment as he tried to recall the last time he actually cried.  

His stepfather and mom were driving several hundred miles from home with him for the last tournament of the season in a travel baseball league in ninth grade. They were acting weird and whispering.  Finally, he asked them what was up. 

His mom finally spoke.  “Honey, we wanted to wait until the tourney was over to let you know, but we just found out that your dad has committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.  There was nothing they could do.  Do you want to turn around and go home?”  

Isaac weighed the options. He decided to play. He even hit a couple home runs and tagged out several runners at the home plate.  At the bottom of the ninth in a tie game a monster-sized kid came to the plate.  He settled into his stance and the pitcher let fly a beautiful curve ball. The powerful swing cut the ball and it flew straight up.  Isaac had trouble seeing it in the noontime sun and it fell back to earth with the magnified force of gravity smack dab in the middle of his catcher’s face cage. The angle of the hit rattled his brain and knocked him to the ground.  In a flash of light Isaac seemed to float out of his body and see his parents running toward him–his mom was crying.  Isaac was crying when he came back to his body.  Sobbing.

“I got hit in the head with a baseball in ninth grade,” Isaac responded to Dr. Hooke.

“You have felt no feelings of anger or sadness since the ninth grade?” 

“Correct.”

“Do you know when you should feel negative emotions?”

“Yes.  But I don’t have a normal reaction.  Instead of a normal positive and negative attraction and repulsion, I seem to always experience a one-directional positive pull.  I am neutral otherwise.”

Dr. Hooke chewed the end of his pen for a moment.  “Sounds like you are experiencing some kind of Alexithymia.  Let’s begin by establishing a “red-alert” gauge that when you identify that you should experience negative emotions we can establish behaviors that will assist you to react normally.  If you should be feeling something, perhaps you can react with words that convey “I am sad” or “I am angry” in social situations.  A kind of rational approach to your dilemma. Can you accommodate that plan of action?” 

“Sure.”

***  

Isaac looked dry-eyed around the theater listening to the sounds of sniffling and nose-blowing. This one must have been good, he thought, and smiled as his date dabbed the mascara from under her eyes.  

“Real tear-jerker, huh?”  He thought that might be a positive normal reaction. “Where should we go for dinner?”   

He could tell by the way she looked at him that he was not reacting normally.  

“You really are a piece of work,” She shook her head. “There was so much death, destruction and pain, and the ending was so depressing.  How can you have zero reaction to it? Are you made of ice?  Take me home.”   

He did not respond.  He had no emotional reaction to the statement.  

***  

That night he knew that his dreams would be the same as they always were after a “breakup”--if you could even call this a relationship.  These dreams were mostly on a baseball field on a bright summer day. In many ways he looked forward to them. He had a little trouble falling asleep wondering how the dream would come.  Would he perceive the dream bouncing or floating?  Both of these were reactions he had when situations got serious in the day.  

Mild adversity would usually result in bouncing on the field the way the astronauts do on the moon–touching down to the ground and propelling forward but with much less gravity than on earth, while the other players would be subject to normal gravity. When emotions around him registered in the “red alert” gauge his Dr. Hooke had helped him devise, in his dreams he would get to float like a bubble in the breeze–similar to when he was hit on the head–but slower, soft and breezy without the emotion of that day.  Tonight he wondered if he would bounce because he really was not particularly attached to the girl, but perhaps he would float because the movie was pretty horrific.  

When he finally dozed he did float but instead of the baseball field, the imagery of the movie passed under him.  He saw dark, war-torn cities crumbling from repeated bombings and bloody victims attempting to escape from the next one.  And he was floating much closer to the ground than he did on a ball field.  He could see their eyes.

***  

Isaac shaved carefully and wore cologne when getting ready for his appointment with Dr. Hooke, hoping that beautiful woman was visiting weekly too.  In the waiting room he stared at the door and hoped not to hear his name but to see her again.  It opened. 

“Hi there!” he said before he could stop himself.  

“Oh, hello.” she replied with a smile, again with the beautiful puffy wet eyes. 

“I am Isaac.  Forgive me for being forward, but would you like to get coffee sometime? Or tea.  Or beer. Or something.” He realized he was groveling.

“I would enjoy that.  Do you want to meet at the Starbucks across the street? After your appointment?” 

“That would be great!  I will see you there in about half an hour.”

“Are you ready Isaac?” Dr. Hooke asked, and Isaac followed him into the office and took his seat.  “How has your progress been this week?”  

“Another girl broke up with me.  But I am getting with the girl who just left.  What is her name? Why does she always come out of here crying?”   

“You will have to ask her, protected information. But that is good news. She is a lovely girl.  Maybe you can learn from her. What about you, have you experienced any negative emotions?” 

“Not really. But after the breakup I did have a different dream.”  Isaac revealed the typical dream and how this one was different to Dr. Hooke, who seemed perplexed.

“So let me get this straight.  You were hit in the head on the ball field after finding out about your father’s suicide and the dreams of floating and bouncing on the ball field are typical when you have situations that should be upsetting? And this week you floated over massive destruction instead of the ball field?”

Isaac nodded.  

“Well that seems promising that there was change. Although I never thought I would feel encouraged by a client’s bad dreams.  Did you feel anything or were you just observing?”

“I was disappointed that I was not on the ball field.” 

***  

After the appointment, Isaac headed to the Starbucks.  He was a little later than a half hour and he hoped she had not changed her mind.  She was at an outside table facing the street and still looked on the verge of tears.  She already had her coffee so Isaac ordered and waited for his cup.  She looked over as he approached her table.  

“Oh there you are, Isaac,” she said.

“Sorry I am a little late.  And I never asked your name or anything.”

“My name is Meyer.” 

They continued to gather those bits of information about each other that are typical when first meeting. When those topics left a lull in the conversation, and Isaac was losing himself in her eyes, he asked, “So why are you so sad?”  He knew this was a risk, since he was never sure how to react when a girl spoke of her emotions.  And he did not want to screw this up. 

She was silent for a moment.  And tears welled up in her eyes. Then she said, “A few weeks ago my father jumped out a window on the 29th floor condo to his death.  I just can’t  understand.”

Isaac suddenly felt different.  It was as if he was hearing for the first time about his own father’s fall to death.  His eyes went dark as he disappeared from his body, the structure of his skeleton going limp.  He zoomed up, faster than his dreams, like he did on the ball field.  He saw the customers and staff and Meyer leaning over his lifeless body, in panic like that day on the field.  

“Isaac, are you ok?  Isaac!” She touched him on the cheek, and that electrifying sensation brought him back to himself.  

“I’m alright, I’m ok.  Everything is fine.  I am sorry to scare you all.” and the crowd dispersed.  

Meyer was standing beside him, tears streaming.  He embraced her, touching her hair, gasping for air.  He was sobbing.