He lifted his eyes to meet the Doctor’s gaze. He was a relatively handsome man, in that way that all successful men under 40 are somehow attractive, even when they’re not conventionally good looking. How he hated the man. The way he would don a concerned and sincere expression when he spoke to his patients, but when he looked at you over his spectacles and you could see into his eyes, they were cold, clinical and analytical. He didn’t understand, and he didn’t care to, either.
“Mr. Evetts – Franklin – We’ve been through this before. These catatonic states you enter can eventually become hazardous. A round of electro therapy is the only thing that ever seems to wake you when you draw near to that critical point.” He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, clearing his throat as he peered down at the clipboard on his lap.
“You’ve proven quite unresponsive to most conventional treatments of this type of dissociative psychosis. I must admit to being rather puzzled by your illness. Tell me, do you-”
The sound of rusty springs creaking violently as Franklin’s fist hammered down on the mattress cut the doctor off.
“I’m. Not. Ill. You never listen. Why do you never listen?” His voice cracked on the last sentence, making his desperation all the more evident. “I go back because I choose to be there.” He took several sharp breaths, his anger seething and palpable, but the doctor only regarded him as coolly as ever until Franklin had composed himself. “To travel is not a sickness, Doctor. I have a gift, why won’t you let me use it?” The last few words were spat rather than spoken, like a cobra spitting venom at an attacker.
With a sigh, the Doctor removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, then returned his attention to his patient. “Franklin, I’m becoming quite exasperated with your insistence on burying yourself in your delusions. You have been with us for some time. By now even the most severely tormented minds begin to show some improvement, yet you evade our help. Purposely, I suspect. Do you not want to get better? Is that it?”
A miserable, defeated whimper escaped past Franklin’s lips. He allowed his head to flop back, collide with the wall behind him, and kept it there as he stared up at the ceiling.
“Why won’t you understand? There’s nothing to get better from. I’m not crazy. Even if I was, why can’t you leave me alone? I’m not hurting anyone. I’m not a risk. I’m just doing something you don’t understand. Some people thought Marco Polo was crazy, when he came back from China and told them about a land with a coal fueled industry and paper money. That’s me. I’m Marco Polo. All I’ve done is discover a new place and you condemn me for it. Maybe at first I couldn’t help it. To me, memories were a hole in a wall. Just a glimpse of something else, out of reach. Then I started picking at it, opening it up until it was big enough to step through.
“You see? What I’ve done is found a way to cheat time. It’s not what you think. It’s not a when, it’s a where, and I can choose where to be in time. I can be young again. I can have Elizabeth back, relive my success and be who I was meant to be!” A tear rolled down Franklin’s cheek, accompanied by a pitiful laugh as he revelled in the concept.
The Doctor leaned forward out of his chair, his usual composure cracking under mounting frustration.
“Franklin, I fail to see how that is not a delusion! Your wife is gone. Staring back into the past is not a solution. It will not bring her back. You can’t change the past.”
Leaping out of his seat, Franklin became more and more animated with each rebuttal. “No! That’s not how it works! At first it was just going back to the past, but I’ve learned to change things! You understand? I can go through the wall into a new timeline, a new life! You’d be content to leave the hole alone. Like a lazy landlord, you’d just cover it up. You know it’s there, but you won’t even take a closer look. I had the balls to look through to the other side! Now I have the power to step into a new world and do what I want with it!
“This last time I went back, it was different. When we got married – the first time – we spent our honeymoon skiing, but she broke her leg on the third day and we had to go back. This time, I saved her from that! We stayed in the cabin for two weeks, being lazy pigs and drinking wine like in our first year! I saved her then, I can save her again!”
There were more tears welling in Franklin’s eyes. He was pacing the side of the bed, grinning inanely. “I can save her.”
“I’ve heard enough,” the Doctor grumbled. “I’m sorry Franklin, you leave me no choice. Starting tomorrow, your grounds privileges are revoked. You will be escorted at all times by a member of staff and you will undergo an intensified regimen of electro-convulsive therapy, twice a week.”
Franklin stopped dead in his tracks. His hope and anticipation suddenly set alight. “No, no you can’t. I need to be alone. A-a-and the shock therapy, it stops me focusing. You’ll cut me off! I won’t be able to get back to her!”
The Doctor replaced his spectacles and rose from his chair with a stern expression hardening his soft features. “I’m doing this for your own good, Franklin. I’m going to see you back to reality. You’ll thank me for this.”
The flames of his burning dreams erupted into an inferno. He would go back to Elizabeth and make a new future, or set the present ablaze in the attempt.
“No,” he whispered. Franklin rushed forward, his arms outstretched. The Doctor didn’t hear his attacker in soft slippers charge him from behind as he headed for the door. He was oblivious, until a pair of cold, sweaty hands grabbed the side of his head and jerked it to the right. A wet thud and a hollow metallic clang, as the Doctor’s head met the corner of the near empty bookshelf on the wall, were the only sounds to be heard, and not enough to alert anyone outside of the room.
Franklin raced back to his bed, planted himself down and shut his eyes tight. “I’m coming baby. I’m coming to stay.”
*
Franklin leaned over to the table by their bed and plucked up the two cleanest glasses he could see and one of the bottles of Pinot Grigio which still retained some of its contents, and set about pouring.
“You good, baby? You look spent.” Her eyes were so full of concern. So beautiful.
“All good, baby. Just thinking about the future, is all.”
Feature image: “Pillows” by just.luc under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
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