The Seer by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 16

Racing through Sanford, Gordon forced himself to be mindful of the speed limit. He felt as though his mind was fragmenting into a deep psychosis, that his perceptions could no longer be relied upon. The only thing he wanted was retreat to the safety of his home, the one place that offered him sanctuary from what he believed could be a developing instability. Turning onto route 95, he called his psychiatrist and pleaded for an appointment.

“Gordon,” Walter began. “Listen to me. I want you to pull off to the side of the road, okay?” Gordon heard the words, but in his panicked mind, their meaning escaped him.

“Walter,” he replied. “They were everywhere! They didn't even look dead! They looked like anyone else! What the fuck is wrong with me?!”

His psychiatrist, again, advised him to get off the road. However, in his rant, Gordon had been led to a place where he was beyond the ability to be reasoned with, and decided that instead of returning home, he would go to Walter’s office.

The desperation in his voice was more than obvious, and his doctor was greatly concerned that if he, indeed, was slipping into a psychosis, he could hurt someone, or himself.

“Listen, Gordon,” he began. “Just c'mon in. I'll cancel my next appointment, okay? So, just slow down. Breathe a little.”

His doctor realized how long it would take for Gordon to arrive, and although he wanted to stay on the phone with him, the last thing he wanted was to distract him with a lengthy conversation.

“Gordon,” he continued. “I'm going to get off the phone now, alright? But, I want you to slow down. I want you here in one piece, got it?”

Without responding, Gordon hung up and dropped his phone on the passenger's seat. He continued up I-95 with a white knuckled grip on the wheel, desperate to find an answer for why he seemed to be hallucinating the spirits of the dead.

Arriving late, Gordon walked quickly into Walter’s office.

“Gordon,” Walter began.

He was on the phone calling 911, having believed that Gordon had lost control of his car while on the highway.

“Jesus Christ, what happened?”

Gordon's face was pale, and saturated with sweat. As he sat in front of Walter’s desk, his hands began trembling.

“They were there,” he began. “All of them!” His voice became panicked, while his mind spun with the fear of losing control of his faculties.

“Okay,” Walter said.

He spoke in a calm voice, trying to keep Gordon from tipping off into a complete panic.

“Just try to relax. Now, let's start from the beginning, alright?”

Gordon forced himself to slow his breathing as he remembered back to his arrival at the cemetery.

“I did what you what you told me,” he said. “I went to my mother's grave, and everything was fine, and then she just appeared next to me.”

Walter was as intrigued as he was concerned, and pressed him for more information.

“Did she say anything?” he asked.

“Walter,” Gordon replied. “Jesus, you sound like she was real!”

Walter forced a pause in the conversation.

“Gordon,” he began. “You know how this works. “If we're going to talk about this, we need a frame of reference. So for now, let's just say it was real. Just for the sake of argument.”

Gordon sat with his elbows on his knees, and his hands on his forehead. His doctor knew how intelligent and educated he was, and found it difficult to see him caught up in what could be a lengthy psychotic crisis.

“So, what did she say?”

Gordon found it difficult to recall the exact words of the conversation, but told him what he could.

“She said something about having a gift,” he replied. “And just as I was leaving, this little girl shows up out of nowhere, talking about the same thing and how I can see all of them.”

There was a pause while Walter tried to make sense of what Gordon believed he saw.

“All of them?” Walter replied.

“They were all around me, then they were gone,” Gordon replied.

Out of curiosity, Walter asked about their appearance.

“They looked like anyone else,” Gordon said. “I mean we're not talking some fuckin' zombies. They just looked as alive as anyone else.”

Walter paused to consider other factors in psychotic behavior.

“Okay,” Walter began. “If we were to call this a psychotic break, why would you be experiencing only one specific symptom? Your speech is well organized. You don't seem to be expressing any dissociated thoughts, or magical thinking. Doesn't that seem a bit odd?” Gordon was well aware of the constellation of symptoms presented by that particular disorder.

“Alright,” Gordon replied. “What about an assessment?”

“That's a good idea, but can you answer the questions honestly?” his doctor asked.

Gordon was unable to answer, realizing that being a psychiatrist meant that having more than a familiarity with psychological testing, he would know how to answer the questions.

“Let's do this,” his doctor continued. “What if I just asked you a few questions from the CAPE42? Nothing too formal, just enough to get a handle on whatever this is, okay?”

Gordon agreed, and as Walter began reading the questions aloud, he noticed an intended focus on psychotic symptomology. There were only one or two items his doctor found concerning, but everything else accurately reflected a healthy, well-adjusted psyche.

“Well, Gordon,” he said. “Good news is, you're not psychotic. The bad news is, I still don't know what this is. I think you might want to see a neurologist.” Gordon became concerned that Walter’s advice might suggest a physical problem, but he supposed it was better than being psychotic.

“Now, before you get too concerned,” Walter continued. “I'm not saying that this could be something really serious. This might be some kind of small seizure, but honestly, it could be anything, and neither of us is a neurologist.”

Walter suggested one particular specialist in Scarborough, and within the next two weeks, Gordon found himself sitting in the lobby of Maine Neurology.

His appoint was with Doctor Peterson, and after going through Gordon's history, he decided on the standard battery of tests, knowing that some types of brain activity can result in visual hallucinations. First on the list was an EEG. This would display Gordon's brain waves, both awake and asleep. Doctor Peterson would be looking specifically for pre-seizure spikes, the telltale sign of an impending problem. But, the EEG turned up negative, forcing the doctor to look in another direction. So, in addition to the EEG, Gordon was sent to Maine Medical Center for an MRI. This would display the layers of his brain in detail, allowing Doctor Peterson to see if anything violated his brain's symmetry, including excess fluid, benign growths, calcium deposits, as well as anything that could be malignant. Again, everything was negative, and after the results of Gordon's test, Doctor Peterson ordered a PET scan. This would look for area of the brain that were either underactive or overactive, specifically in the visual cortex. But this too, proved fruitless, and Doctor Peterson came to the unexpected conclusion that Gordon's brain function was, more or less, normal.