Weirdbook 31 by Doug Draa & Adrian Cole & Gary A. Braunbeck & Darrell Schweitzer & Jessica Amanda Salmonson

Author:Doug Draa & Adrian Cole & Gary A. Braunbeck & Darrell Schweitzer & Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, horror, weird tales, dark fantasy, short stories
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

GUT PUNCH, by Jason A. Wyckoff

“Antiphon! Antiphon! It sloughs history!”

Her laugh is fay. She wobbles the royal wave; one imagines wine sloshing from a goblet. In any other setting, I would think she was drunk or high; I’ve certainly seen her that way often enough. But I’m told she has been under observation for five days now. My mother is in a robin’s egg gown, sitting on a cot in a locked room, talking to no one.

I can’t watch her anymore. I never loved her, but this hurts—it hurts me (sans pathos) because however pitiful the circumstance, however strange the performance, the comportment is too familiar, re-opening every wound of my youth.

Dr. Duenger leads me back to his office and bids me sit. He dawdles as though composing his thoughts; it’s a performance to add weight.

I don’t have the patience. “What did she take?” I ask. “What could do that—cause permanent damage?”

“Well, that’s just the thing, Mr. Wince.” He milks the pause to recoup the drama I deprived him of. “The toxicology report came back…negative.”

I chuckle. “That’s impossible.”

Spock cocks an eyebrow. “Ah, yes. Her history.”

“Ah, yes, her history,” I echo.

“You didn’t know, then?”

He has me on something; it annoys me and clearly delights him. “Know what?”

“Your mother has been going to meetings since last February. She’s been clean for more than a year.”

That’s unexpected, but I’m not invested enough to be impressed. “A backslide, then. No, wait.” I hold up a hand. “I know—the toxicology report came back negative.”

He shrugs. “We were hoping you could shed some light…but you say you’ve had no contact with her?”

Out of the blue, she’d called twice in the last month. I hadn’t answered. “No contact,” I say. “Not for a while now.”

“A shame.” He sighs almost wistfully.

“A necessity. How did she end up here?”

“Her sponsor hadn’t heard from her in a week. He went to check on her. He called us right away.”

“She was…like that?” I nod towards the hallway.

“She appears to be in a state of arrested euphoria, as it were.”

No bad deed goes unrewarded, it seems. “That’s your diagnosis?”

“No, no. That’s an observation. The problem with her diagnosis is…well, you could throw a dart and hit one that fit, as long as you include the caveat that should disqualify it.”

Ah, so that’s how it’s done.

He goes on, “The euphoria is somewhat symptomatic of the manic period of bi-polar disorder, though she shows no signs of agitation, and is, in fact, quite compliant.”

He smiles as though he’s just congratulated a parent on their child no longer eating paste.

“Also, actual psychosis is rare with bi-polar disorder; her level of extreme dissociation is more indicative of schizophrenia, but that condition is often linked with an inability to feel joy. And while she is not withdrawn per se, she is non-communicative in such a way that we cannot establish any sort of self-valuation, which would be instructive. In the past, we might have identified ‘schizoaffective disorder’, a sort of broad-based diagnosis which has recently fallen out of favor, but might actually be germane in this instance.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.