The Law of Nines

A woman in white came close. She held the tray out as if she expected Alex to do something. He could do little more than focus his vision on it.

“I think he’s going to need some help until he’s more used to the medication,” the doctor said.

The woman nodded and set the tray on the bed. She held a small paper cup up to his lips. Alex didn’t know what to do. It seemed so unimportant. With her other hand on his forehead she tipped his head back and poured syrupy liquid into his mouth. She pushed his chin up with a finger, closing his mouth.

“Swallow. That’s it. There you go.”

When she removed her hand Alex’s jaw hung from the effort of drinking.

“I’ve got rounds, Alex,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “I’ll check up on you in a day or two. For now try to take it easy and let the medication do its work, all right?”

Alex sat unable to form a response as the man patted the side of Alex’s knee again before leaving. The room darkened a little when the door closed.

The woman in white tipped another cup up. This time pills rolled into his mouth. She poured water from a third cup into his mouth. He swallowed to keep from drowning.

“Good,” she said in a soothing voice as she swabbed his chin with a tissue. “Soon you’ll be doing it on your own.”

Alex just wanted to go to sleep.

“Soon,” she said, “we’ll have you talking up a storm.”

31.

ALEX SAT ON THE EDGE of the bed, exhausted from the effort of getting dressed. Every day they told him to get dressed. He wasn’t sure why he had to get dressed, but they had told him to, so he did.

Whatever they told him to do, he did.

He didn’t want to comply with their orders, but he didn’t have the will to fight them and couldn’t think of a reason why he should. He knew that he had no choice, no way out. He was at their mercy.

At the same time, his imprisonment seemed unimportant. What difference did it make? Confinement seemed trivial.

The thing that concerned him the most, in fact the only thing that concerned him, was his inability to think, to form complete, coherent thoughts. That was the most exasperating thing of all to him. He would sit for hours staring blankly at nothing, the whole time trying his best to form a sentence in his head, but nothing would form. It left him feeling hollow, empty, and distantly frustrated.

He knew that it was the drugs that were causing him to be unable to focus. More than anything he wanted out from under the mountainous weight of what those drugs were doing to him. He couldn’t envision a way to bring that about.

One time when he had turned his face away, saying that he didn’t want them anymore, they had warned him that if he refused, if he became difficult, they would strap him down to his bed and give him injections.

Alex knew he didn’t want that. He knew that it was hopeless to fight them. After they threatened to strap him down to his bed, he took his medication without further complaint.

But more than anything, he wanted out from under the dark weight of the drug-induced stupor.

He had the sense that he had been confined for a couple of days. He couldn’t figure out how many, but he didn’t believe it had been long. He vaguely recalled the doctor coming again to talk briefly with him.

The doctor had wanted to know about the things that Alex thought about. Alex wasn’t able to identify any thoughts. The doctor had then asked if Alex was guided by voices. Alex asked what kind of voices. The doctor said that perhaps he heard the voice of the devil, or maybe even people from another world who haunted him, wanted things, told him things. Alex had felt a vague sense of alarm at the question, but he didn’t know what the doctor was talking about.

The doctor had left, then, saying that he would return another day and they would talk more about it then, adding that Alex was not going to be going home anytime soon.

Home. This was his home now.

A fleeting thought flashed somewhere deep in his mind. It was about his mother. He felt that he needed to know if she was all right.

Although the drugs suppressed any emotion, every waking moment Alex felt unsafe in the place, even if it was only a vague concern, and so he felt that his mother was in some kind of trouble as well. He was completely helpless to do anything about his fears.

When the door opened, he saw a big man lumber in.

Alex looked up and saw white bandages over the middle of the face.

“How you doing, Alex?”

“Fine,” Alex answered by rote before he stared off at the floor again.

“They put my nose back together for me. Said it’s going to be fine.”

Alex nodded. He didn’t like the man standing as close as he was, but he couldn’t imagine what he could do about it.

“I wanted to come back to work as soon as possible and see how my patients are getting along. Everyone here knows how much I love my work and how concerned I am for the patients.”

Alex nodded. In the back of his mind he felt a sense of danger in the pleasant voice, the casual conversation.