"There – in the other world – I am a physics professor at Susera University. I live alone in an apartment and commute by bus Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when I have early morning classes to teach. Tuesdays and Thursdays I walk, as my presence isn't required before noon. But the weather is getting cooler. I think when winter arrives I'll start taking the bus every day, to avoid walking through the snow." He reiterated for the umpteenth time information she knew already, and waited for her to react as usual, with a refutation of that other world's reality.
"Interesting… so the time in your dream world seems to approximate that of the real world," said his therapist, pen scratching away on her clipboard.
"Not quite," said Mikage. "The dream setting is usually from seven in the morning to whenever I go to sleep; but in this world it's night."
"Is it ever nighttime in your dream world?"
Her voice dripped condescension. If he had cared about anything at all, it might have bothered him, but his range of emotions seldom varied beyond the narrow spectrum of boredom to mild interest. Besides, he had long ago dismissed her as an ignorant and unremarkable human being – a specimen whose opinions were meaningless to him. "It gets to about midnight, then I go to bed. A few times I've stayed up all night. On those occasions, when I woke up again in this world, I couldn't remember the events of the past day. All I could remember was my… dream."
She looked up from her clipboard and frowned at him. "Why do you hesitate to call it a dream?"
Still on the same track they followed every session; she was going to accuse him of confusing dreams with reality. At one point these sessions had seemed the most interesting part of his very mundane days, but lately the routine had become so predictable it bored him. This was also the one part of it that was mildly annoying, because no matter how much she accused him of being in denial and retreating to his dream world to escape the real world, it didn't change the fact that the other world felt just as real as this one. As far as his conscious mind could discern, it was real. He could pretend otherwise – and generally did, in the hopes of avoiding repetitive lectures (and new drugs) from his therapist – but no amount of pretending altered the inescapable fact of that other world's existence. In that place, he wasn't a mental patient. He was a respectable professor named Nemuro.
Here, however, he was a prisoner in an asylum. It had its drawbacks, but it was a better existence than he might have had, considering the reason he had been put here. He had allegedly burned down a building, thereby murdering the hundred youths within. If he had not been deemed insane he'd have gone to prison for life. As it was, his lack of recollection of the event, combined with temporary amnesia about his own identity, had been sufficient to send him to a mental institution instead.
He fixed his cold stare on the woman, whose name he knew though he never bothered to address her by it, and said, "The seamless continuity from one dream to the next, night after night, without break and without variation – does it not strike you as odd? If dreams are the result of rapid random firing of neurons, or stimulus gathered from events in our memory, or reactions to subtle outside stimulus – which in this place would be limited to lights flashing on and people coming to give the meds – how do you explain my case?"
"Very likely, it is an accumulation of your past experiences, from when you taught your seminar. According to my notes—"
"I was never a college professor," said Mikage. "I have also never been to that campus. Did you check to see if it matched my description? The clocktower? The slope, the arts quad, the statue of the founder and the columns directly outside Goldwin Smith Hall—"
"Mikage, please don't interrupt me."
"It was you who interrupted me that time. You're my therapist, it's your job to do the research. Have you looked into it or haven't you?"
"My job is to evaluate your condition and to help you to see past these delusions, not to encourage you in your belief of them. Whether or not the details of your dream world are accurate is irrelevant—"
"You are wrong," he said flatly. "It is the only relevant thing you can learn for me—"
"Mikage, what did I say about interrupting?" she warned, fixing a reproachful glare on him and speaking in the tone a teacher might use with a wayward five-year-old.
He frowned, but fell obediently silent. No matter how incompetent she was, she had control over his life; he could not afford to be impatient with her.
"What do we say?" she prodded gently.
"Pardon me for interrupting you," he said in a monotone.
She smiled. "Better. Now… the reason I say that it is irrelevant whether your description of the campus is accurate is because it is very possible you have been there sometime before in your life, and are simply remembering it."
Mikage bit back the retort that automatically surfaced in his mind. I haven't been there. I know I haven't. He could not prove that to her, however – especially given his amnesia. He thought quickly for a way around the dilemma. I have to locate something that's been changed recently, within the past few months. I've got to convince my other self, Nemuro, to do that…
Nemuro, look for something new.
His therapist was watching him carefully for a reaction to her last statement. Mikage's face was studiously blank; but since she evidently wanted a reply, he said, "I see. That makes sense. I hadn't considered that possibility before, but you're probably right."
She smiled, pleased – as he had meant her to be. It was laughably easy to lie to her just by telling her what she wanted to hear; but doing that became as boring as everything else in this whitewashed, sterile environment, and didn't help him to uncover the truth. He had found that the only way to make any progress was to intersperse truth and lies, treading a fine line that occasionally got him prescriptions of more medication.
Today's session lasted another fifteen minutes, during which he played the compliant patient, even going so far as to offer the occasional light-hearted remark poking fun at himself and some of the other patients. He could be charming when he wished to, and by the end of the session he had been entirely forgiven for his earlier interruptions. He left his therapist with the impression that he was improving tremendously.
His impression of her was not quite so flattering. Whatever amusement he had once had in manipulating her opinion of him had long since been replaced by boredom, and he wondered how she had ever managed to become a psychiatrist.
End of the session meant a return to his cell until three o'clock – communal recreation time – during which the more dangerous and unstable patients, who were otherwise confined, were allowed to mingle outside for an hour under close supervision. Mikage would have preferred interactions with the more sane patients; he regarded his companions warily, having been attacked on one occasion by a man he had tried to converse with. But then, he had murdered one hundred people in a fire, or so he was told; perhaps he was as crazy as the rest of this crowd.
He removed himself, as he always did, to the furthest corner of the yard, where he sat under a tree and read a book until the hour was over. Then he went back to his cell and read some more.
White walls, grey floor, isolation, books. The sum of his existence was this unchanging monotony. The asylum sucked out hope and warmth from its occupants. Despair permeated its whitewashed walls and waxed tile floors. Mikage was certain that the better part of his life had not been spent in a mental institution, but he also found the place familiar, like an old jacket or a well-worn pair of sneakers, fitting perfectly.
No, he had not been in an asylum before, but wherever he had been, it had been a similarly cold and sterile place, right down to the despair that engulfed all the patients, stripping them of any sense that what they experienced could be termed, "life." They didn't live, they just existed. Like a stone, or a bench, or…
Perhaps, thought Mikage, wondering where the idea had come from, like a computer…
(Meanwhile,
Approximately the same time,
on the campus ofSusera University...)
Utena sat at her desk, paying little attention to her teacher's droning lecture on the history of greek vases, and instead looking out the window at the gold and red leaves, which seemed to flicker like fire in the wind. She scribbled on her notebook:
"I've lost something. I don't know what it is, but it's something important. Something about the color red reminded me just now … I think it had to do with flowers."
She paused to muse about what she had written. It was not the first time she had spent her History of Greek Art class pondering the sense of profound loss that was like an empty hole gaping inside her. She knew she had not always felt that way. Something had happened, something she could not remember, and there was something important she had lost and had to find. What it was, she had not the slightest idea; but it occupied her thoughts constantly. Another person might have been driven to distraction by the perpetual sense of searching, but Utena was a never-say-die optimist, and believed with complete conviction that before long she would find whatever-it-was.
Bored of writing, she began drawing a picture instead, of a little rodent-monkey with large ears. When she had finished, she noticed that there was something familiar about it. Perhaps she had seen it somewhere? It could have been a cute animal mascot for something. She gave it a tie. There, definitely a mascot.
The tie seemed eerily appropriate.
She sighed, mired in boredom, and leaned her head back so she could look at the ceiling. Why had she let Wakaba talk her into taking this class? There wasn't anything in it to interest her. Wakaba had only chosen to take it because her crush at the time was in it. Now, she had a different boyfriend.
And here I am, stuck in this place… How many more minutes before class is over? What is it that I'm searching for, I wonder? Will I find it today?
She tilted her head back further to look at the clock on the wall behind her.
"Tenjou!"
"Yes!" she cried, sitting straight upright.
"Perhaps you could tell us what the style of this vase is?" said the professor, indicating a slide.
"Uh… ah…" She looked blankly at him, and thought ruefully, This is gonna be a long semester…
(Authors Note: This is just the introduction to a much longer story. The idea came to me after a long session of looking over Mikage-centered fanfics. In particular Chiaroscuro: Of Light and Shadows influenced me. I've also read some lovely analysis of the Black Rose arc.
Comments are much appreciated! )