Charisma: A Novel by Barbara Hall

Author:Barbara Hall [Hall, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

Chapter 17

The day after Kit tries to kill the doctor, Willie’s wife Emily comes to visit him. I stand at a window in the common room, watching them out in the garden. They’re sitting on a bench next to a fountain and she is talking fast and touching his knee and his arm and his hair, grooming him like a simian mate, and he is staring at the ground and flicking his cigarette. Sometimes he nods. Emily is a short perky woman with surfer-girl hair and a button nose and perfect posture. I like her energy. I can almost see her aura. I don’t see auras and I’ve never wanted to learn because I don’t need even one more superpower and because I secretly believe people are lying when they say they see auras the way they think I am lying when I say I hear from guides. We don’t believe in what we can’t experience. And we are always jealous of other people’s powers. That’s one of my many theories. I can’t share them because no one ever asks. Maybe Dr. Sutton will ask one day but I think he’s more interested in his own theories, which leak out from time to time even when I don’t ask.

I have the common room completely to myself except for the attendants. The regular crazies wanted to be in their rooms today and the suicidals all asked to see their doctors. I didn’t. That has made the attendants circle around me with watchful eyes. I never mind seeing Dr. Sutton but I also never feel compelled to see him. The head of Oceanside, a Hillary Clinton type in a structured suit of unfortunate color, called an emergency meeting to explain to us what happened with Kit and to tell us that we should all take special care of ourselves in this difficult time. Some of us might get triggered, she said. Some of us might be retraumatized just by hearing the story, she said. That is how PTSD works, she said. Some of the crazies wanted details. Did the guards really shoot Kit? Real bullets or rubber or a tranquilizer dart? Is the doctor really paralyzed now? Was it the life coach lady or Dr. Peltman? Was there a riot? Was it really some Bill Murray cult thing?

Hillary Clinton (her name is actually Dr. Frankenheimer and everyone calls her Frankenstein or just Frank) pushes the manic energy back down with the palms of her hands and says, “It was Dr. McCrady, who has a number of degrees including a PhD, so let’s not call her ‘the life coach lady.’ She is recovering from minor injuries. Mr. Kelly was not shot with anything. He was subdued by the guards and later given a sedative in the clinic. He has been transferred to another location and you need not worry about him. There was no riot and no cult of any kind.

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