"Garth, you don't have any hope?!"
"No. Only need."
"But for what?!"
"Garth has told you that he doesn't know yet. It's like a hunger for some food with a name he can't recall. Eventually, he'll know what he needs."
"What about love? Love is also a pretty good antidote for despair."
Garth slowly shook his head. "Mongo, Garth remembers the word, 'love,' but he can't remember what it feels like."
"Oh, Jesus, Garth," I said, my voice breaking. "That's so sad."
"Garth doesn't want you to feel bad because of him," my brother said soothingly. "Garth doesn't feel bad about himself."
"You don't, huh? Funny, I'd have sworn you sounded depressed."
"No. Depression is something which a person who has hope feels when that hope temporarily wanes. You're depressed."
"All right," I said, fighting back tears. "I'll try real hard not to feel bad about you."
"Good. That would only add depth to the ocean."
"Garth, there's a kid over in the children's hospital who's totally convinced that he's Jesus. I told him he'd be a whole hell of a lot better off if only he'd stop going around telling people he was Jesus. He explained to me that he couldn't do that; it seems God insists that he witness to the fact that he's Jesus. You remind me of him."
Garth raised his eyebrows slightly. "Why? Garth doesn't even believe in God or gods."
"You used to."
"God is part of the 'I,' and it's just another illusion-a very dangerous one. That illusion is a large part of the reason we're all going to die."
"You still remind me of the kid."
"Have you ever heard Garth claim to be Jesus?"
"Both you and that kid are irrational; you refuse to think in a way that's in your best interests. You understand that you've been poisoned, and you understand that the poison has altered the way you think, the way you feel about yourself, and the way you perceive the world; yet, you seem quite willing to accept the changes as permanent."
"Garth accepts things the way they are, and you call that irrational. What you really mean is that you cannot accept Garth the way he is-without his 'I.' "
I started to say something, then turned in my seat when I heard a knock at the door. A male nurse I hadn't seen before leaned in the open doorway.
"Dr. Frederickson?"
"Yeah."
"You told Tommy you wanted to speak with Dr. Slycke?"
"Yeah."
"Dr. Slycke can see you now, for a few minutes."
"Tell him I'll be right with him," I said, then turned back to Garth. My brother had put his earphones back on, turned on the player, and was staring out the window with a distant expression on his face. "If you haven't already," I continued quietly, "and if you feel up to it, you might call Mom and Dad. They've been just a little bit worried about you."
Garth didn't respond. I rose from the chair and, feeling as if I were trudging along the bottom of my own ocean of sorrow, walked from the room.
9
"What's the matter with my brother, Doctor?"
Dr. Charles Slycke sat half in and half out of a harsh pool of light cast by a gooseneck lamp set off to one side of his desk. The psychiatrist looked tired; there was thick, black stubble on his puffy cheeks, dark shadows around the dark, puffy bags beneath his eyes, and his gray hair stuck out from his head at odd angles. Perhaps because he was obviously near the point of exhaustion, I didn't sense the usual hostility from him.
"At this point, that's difficult to say with any certainty, Frederickson."
"I'd appreciate your best guess," I said quietly. "Also, I want to thank you for agreeing to see me now. I know you're very tired, and I appreciate the fact that you're tired because of the many hours you've spent with Garth."
"So have a lot of other people," Slycke responded with a slight nod. "Physically, you can see that he's made a remarkable recovery."
"To all outward appearances, yes. Do your tests confirm that?"
"Yes. Physically, he appears no worse off than anyone who has spent a couple of weeks in bed. However, there are still traces of nitrophenylpentadienal in his tissues and in his urine, which means that the drug is still in his system. That tells us that NPPD metabolizes very slowly-but it does metabolize. We may also surmise from his behavior that the chemical transits the blood-brain barrier and forms chemical bonds with the molecules of the brain. There's no indication that it's addictive, but like heroin, alcohol, or any one of a number of other drugs that transit the blood-brain barrier and form chemical bonds, it apparently has a profound effect on mood, perceptions, and behavior."
"Doctor Slycke," I said, leaning forward in my chair, "I love the man in the room back there, but that man isn't anything like the brother I used to know. That man is a stranger to me."
Slycke passed a thick hand over his eyes. "Your brother is showing marked tendencies of having developed a schizoid personality as a result of the chemical bonding I mentioned. The tests don't indicate any organic damage, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. He's developed a number of bizarre fantasies."
"Like what?"
"For one thing, he insists that he murdered the late secretary of state; he claims that he shot the man down in cold blood."
Terrific. I could feel muscle tighten across my chest like a band of steel. "That is a bizarre fantasy," I said carefully. "When did he tell you all this?"
"Early on. Once he decided to talk, he spoke quite freely."
"Why would he tell you such a thing? I mean, what was the context of the conversation?"
Slycke shrugged his broad shoulders. "He believes very strongly that the human race is doomed to extinction, perhaps in the very near future, but certainly within four hundred years. This extinction fantasy involves Dr. Siegmund Loge, the triple Nobel laureate who disappeared some years ago and is presumed dead."
"Yeah. The name is familiar to me."
"Dr. Loge was awarded one of his Nobels for inventing the Triage Parabola, a mathematical model that is very effective in predicting which endangered species are inevitably doomed to extinction, and which could most benefit from human intervention. The Triage Parabola has been most useful to zoologists and conservationists in helping them to make decisions as to how best to allocate their limited resources in trying to preserve endangered species. Part of Garth's fantasy is that Dr. Loge determined from his model that the human species itself is in imminent peril of extinction, and that he then embarked on some fantastic scheme to alter human DNA-not only in future generations, but in people now living. Of course, the human species is far too complex ever to be accurately measured by a mathematical model."
"Of course."
"Garth further fantasizes that the two of you became involved in a protracted struggle with Dr. Loge because you'd been injected with some deadly serum Loge had developed. From what I can tell, these beliefs compel Garth to witness to the danger to our species, and to unburden himself of guilt for crimes he imagines he has committed. It's a remarkably rich fantasy-the one involving Dr. Loge-and it combines elements of classic Western mythology, as reflected in works like Wagner's Ring, or Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Obviously, your brother is very familiar with the Ring cycle, and its various motifs. Do you know if he's read Tolkien?"
"I'm sure he has. Garth's quite a reader."
"It wouldn't surprise me. Garth's fantasy comes complete with a great quest, giants, fearsome creatures, sentient animals, death and destruction; there's even a kind of magical sword-a knife, really-which he believes you found, and which you dubbed Whisper."
"Garth has a remarkable imagination," I said dryly. "Now he seems to have turned it against himself."