Palmer Entity by David Longhorn

Author:David Longhorn [Longhorn, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ScareStreet.com
Published: 2019-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

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Within the Palmer entity, one man’s life was lived over and over again, an obsessive reliving of personal history. It was a pocket universe controlled by an amoral narcissist.

Paul experienced what it was like to be a spoiled little English boy, son of an arrogant, domineering father who seemed to be perpetually disappointed by little Miles. Palmer’s mother was a shadowy presence, almost permanently confined to her sickbed, dead before the boy’s sixth birthday. A winter funeral and the sting of tears flashed by, a brief, poignant memory. Palmer recalled an elder brother, kind in a brisk, upper-class way, who went to a war that overshadowed his schooldays. It had been the ‘war to end war,’ the Great War. The brother had not come back. Life became a little colder and darker.

Palmer, Paul discovered, had been small and timid as a child, inclined to live in a world of his own. His father, bereft of his favorite son, was now openly contemptuous of little Miles, the weakling, the ‘runt.’ Sent away to an expensive school for ‘young gentlemen,’ he had been bullied. Paul experienced humiliation, the fierce shame of a child mocked and belittled. Palmer had retaliated not by making friends, but by snitching on more popular boys.

Paul also felt Palmer’s keen intelligence growing, evolving, becoming obsessive. His interest in science had been his one real pleasure, but his cold, amoral nature had led him to cruel experimentation. Dissecting the headmaster’s cat had proved the final straw, and Palmer was expelled. His father had given him a severe beating over that, but also hired private tutors to get him into medical school. Palmer had resolved to become a doctor.

The adult Palmer had been a plump, short, unimpressive figure. A winning personality might have canceled out these disadvantages, but Palmer was also arrogant, and girls found him laughable, sometimes downright repellent. Emotionally stunted and sexually frustrated, Palmer was driven by a burning resentment against the world, which he blamed for his own insignificance. In the new science of psychiatry, he sensed an opportunity to become wealthy and successful. After obtaining his degree, Palmer planned to set up as a psychotherapist for the rich and influential. Through them, he might achieve a great deal, without taking too much time and effort. His father refused to stump up the money. But Palmer senior was old and ill, his health undermined in part by grief at his older son’s death.

I know what comes next, Paul thought. I can feel his grubby mind working.

Paul suddenly found himself in a room lit only by a coal fire crackling in a huge, old fashioned fireplace. A wizened, gray-haired man was slumped in an armchair. Paul felt a sense of triumph, and realized Palmer was watching his father die. The old man reached out, tried to speak. He was having a seizure. A bottle of pills on a small table was just out of reach. Knowing the servants were already in bed, Palmer left the room, planning to return the following morning after the body had been discovered.

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