The messenger
The voices whisper inside my head. What are they saying? I open my eyes. My head hurts. Where am I? This is not my cell. How did I get here? I sit up but something stops me. I look to my side and see that my left hand is handcuffed to the bed while the right one is connected to a catheter through which a serum travels slowly to my veins. I´m at the infirmary. Why am I here?
- Arthur…
I look to my other side and see Doctor Kane sitting beside my bed.
- Why did you do it?
- Do what?
- Were you trying to kill yourself?
- What? What are you talking about?
I try to remember what happened and how I got here.
- I gave you what you asked for. I gave you your notebook.
The notebook. The assistant brought it mo me. He didn't bring me a pen. Oh yes…now I remember.
- Arthur, answer me. Were you trying to end your life?
- Hahahahaha….
- Arthur!
- I was just trying to write a letter.
- A letter to whom?
- To her…the woman who came to see me…
- Nobody came.
- She did. She came on Tuesday, the visitation day. I saw her.
- No one came, Arthur. Is this another one of your fantasies?
- It's not. She is real, a person of flesh and bones and a heart that loves me. Her name is Sophie, Sophie Dumond and she lives in my building, apartment 8B. She works in a bank and she has a little daughter named Gigi.
- There's no record of any person with that name.
- Records are nothing but paper.
Is this what they did to Penny? I wonder how many of the interns in Arkham are really crazy and how many are just made to believe that they are.
- You still haven't said why you tried to end your life.
- I told you. I was just trying to write a letter. I don't want to talk anymore. Can I go back to my cell?
- You are staying here until you get well. You lost a lot of blood.
- I want to leave. Please, take off the handcuffs. They're hurting me.
- I can't let you harm yourself again.
The doctor stares at me for a while. Her look is always empty. Her eyes are always cold, like the eyes of people who calculate. She doesn't care what happens to me, she cares about her job.
The assistant comes and makes his usual round. He greets the doctor, checks my vital signs and writes them down on a paper.
- His pulse is stable, doctor. Temperature and blood pressure are normal.
- Alright, thank you.- says Doctor Kane. She checks the numbers on the paper and hands it back to her assistant.
- Attach this to the documents I handed you earlier and leave the folder on the table over there. The man from the registry section will come in a moment to collect it. You can leave.
My eyes fall on the folder he holds in his hands. It has my name on the back.
Patient: Arthur Fleck
Case 4478
It's thick, very thick. How many documents does it contain? It looks damaged and old, as if it had been kept for years. Suddenly something occurs inside my head. It's hard to describe. It feels like a trip to the past. As if there was an error in the timeline, as if the clock ran backwards for a split second. I've lived through this moment before. And all the sudden, as son as it came the feeling fades away. My eyes are still fixed on the folder. The sheets that protrude from the sides look old, with yellowish edges. The ones at the end, however are white. They're recent, like the one that was just added by the assistant. My record is too extensive for the few weeks that I've been here. And then I understand… I've been here before.
The young man leaves the folder on the table and retreats.
The doctor looks at me somewhat impatient.
- Arthur, we want to rehabilitate you. I'm trying to help you. But it's not possible if you don't cooperate, do you understand?
Rehabilitate me…
It's curious how people deform the meaning of words.
- Is this why you keep me in a cold and dark room? You deny me the visit of the only person in the world who cares about me. You put me in chains and stuff me with pills that don't let me live and also don't let me sleep. Will that "rehabilitate" me? I'm unfamiliar with that word, it's the first time I hear it and it has no meaning to me. How do you expect a man to become a man again if you treat him like a beast? You worry that I might kill myself, doctor? Don't. You're already doing a magnificent job killing what little life remains in me.
- You still haven't said anything regarding the events that brought you here. You know why you're locked up, don't you? Have you thought about the things you did?
- Hahahahaha.
- Arthur…
- Leave me alone. Let me be.
I lay on my side as best as the handcuffs allow it and turn my back to her. I hear the retreating footsteps and the closing door. I wait for a few seconds and sit up again. I try to reach for the folder but the handcuffs stop me. I pull at them in vain. I can't loosen myself.
The door opens again. I remain still. But it's not her. Wait…I know him! I know this man! It's the lad from whom I snatched Penny's record. Our eyes meet and the man stops. Does he recognize me?
- Good evening, eeehm I just came to fetch this. - he says picking up the folder.
- Wait! - I say before he can leave.
- I know you, I came here before. Before I was locked up. I came to look for my mother's record. Her name is Penny Fleck. You got it for me.
- I remember you.
- You seem like a good guy. Please help me!
- Sorry, what?
- A woman came to see me on visitation day. You must have registered her visit. She has brown skin and she's very beautiful. Her name is Sophie. She asked to see me and was turned away. Please, you have seen her. You must have seen her.
- I'm sorry. I don't recall. Many people come and go.
- Help me find her. Please, if she comes back, give her this.
Next to the dinner plate the nurse left is a napkin. I pick it up with my one free hand and fold it into a bird.
- Please… - I beg.
He stares at me for a moment, then takes the paper in his hands and studies it.
- Is she family?
- No…
- A friend?
- She's the person who loves me…
The man remains thoughtful.
- I'm sorry - he says - I can't help you. -
But he stuffs the paper in his pocket, nonetheless.
Days have gone by and Sophie hasn't returned. I haven't heard either of her, nor of the messenger. I'm back in my cell but I've been stripped of the privilege of keeping my hands free. They say it's for my own good.
My dear Sophie, the sun never shines through my window. Even the shadows run from this place. I've learned that misery loves loneliness. I don't want you to see me like this, and still I'll be waiting for you because I have no other choice.
I thought there were no chains that could bind me, but there are and I feel them around my ankles and around my wrists, cutting my veins. They're more terrible and more powerful than the metal handcuffs they've put on me and only you hold the key. I'm doomed by the desire to see you again and that desire forces me to go on… to wait for you to come through that door again and ask for me.
I will be here, Sophie, chained by the doubt, with an open wound, waiting for you every day, dreaming of you every night until I see you again or until the hand of fate opens the tomb for me and finally allows me to rest inside of it.
