As the driver goes down the intricate streets within Chestertown, and then navigates along the roads that face into Chesapeake Bay, I am struck by the cluster and beauty of colorful sail boats that line the way and fill all the nearby marinas with their elegance and grace with the water reflecting the sails and the sky. And then it is the chaotic sounds of seagulls flying above which ….tugs in that certain place deep within me
oh no…. I feel it
what is it…. and I think, ‘here we are again….’ as I feel something nearly hypnotic throwing its heavy, cloudy spell thickly in my mind ….that heavy and strange fatigue holds its grip, like a straight jacket ….upon somewhere intangible within and causes that sense of feeling lethargically drunk, dulling my focus
“This is it,” the driver tells me
“Ohhh….” as I force myself to move, unbuckle the seatbelt, feel for my handbag ….but I seem to move in slow motion as I pull it to my shoulder and reach for the door latch when the car stops ….
The building has a shop below, like all the attached buildings that line a pretty red-brick paved villege street; flowers grow from outdoor window planters and artful displays of flower beds group cheek by jowl, and so I stand there holding the business card with the doctor’s name and the number clearly printed on it. Still I hesitate, even as I see which door would lead to the walk-up above
I turn mesmerized back to stare towards the bay …. feeling ….that sense ….of being transported somewhere else in my mind ….to another fishing villege ….some Northern European long forgotten place ….recalling the memory from the cry of the seagulls ….when I got lost as a child and wandered away from my mother ….
It is while I sit in the small quaint psychiciatrist’s waiting room that I find my thoughts go down a tangent …..looking around at the patients waiting there, the ad-hoc receptionist’s cubicle, partitioned by a wall divider with its sliding glass window-door—appearing newly devised, with its freshly beveled glass and slick, new painted molding; a partition which would be meant to protect the office staff from air-born breath of Covid, no doubt about that, reflecting our modern new normal lives. And as I look around at this kind of frozen, snapshot in time ….look around at these people sitting here with me, some in masks; this waiting station on the walking plank of life….
when suddenly my phone alerts this odd trigger….
I don’t know why—why should it alert some forgotten person I once knew but now only know on Facebook ….someone I once thought myself in love with ….so very long ago and….. because it is his birthday
Why must it now send me down that old broken path? I wonder as I feel that sick twitch within my gut as I recall the silly girl I was ….like those terrible days when he broke my heart —or so I had believed
Because it occurs to me that now I don’t care at all ….and I suppose if he had really mattered, it would now and I consider now with this occurrence of thought, how I was so mistaken
to think ….the world of him.
He had been so wicked to me; he played me along that deceptive path when I was twenty one. What an idiot I was, I think now, such a waste of emotion; I wasted weeks, months, years on that fool who I now feel nothing for now and….truth be told— I really saw for who he was rather long ago, so why do I have him still hanging there to pollute my walls?
Impulsively I unfriend him…. and ….in doing so, find this strange hysteria rise in me. Why ever did I have him in my friends ….? but…. as I sit there waiting I …..start to reconsider another I see in that category of ‘friends’, another who I had once believed myself in love with
and no—this is not the first time I knew myself to be such an idiot when it has come to light that ….I have given more power to ‘ideas’ of a love ….when it had all really been in my own mind…. made it up but ….and believed it with all my heart; what ever made me do that…. ?
But no, I do know….it was to fill the void
that bereft emptiness ….where Electra came from ….the fatherless Electra, longing for a kind of love I would never get to know. A habit left over from a child’s mind, I made this up to ….fill the void; create what was otherwise lacking; a need from that starved place within. But they weren’t real, only stood for something; I deceived myself. And their ultimate rejection of me assuring me that I would always believe I was not good enough; not pretty enough; not lovable and not desirable ….not feminine enough …. and not worthy of love
and in tandem I start looking through my Facebook friends, finding each of these other similar faces of a past; road signs ….leading back to —my own delusion….they were none of them who I made them out to be; I created all of them
….and I find myself unfriending each! one by one….
almost like a frenzy until ….I put my finger over the place where I may delete my page…. I hover there…. fakebook of frauds that are a portrait gallery of shams; people I don’t even like and —I hardly bother to read what they show off about with their peanut gallery of likes
hover …. finger poised ….and in the end just decide to deactivate my page and delete the app from my phone
How many times does nonsense invade my thoughts with irritating trite phone alerts to interrupt my peace?
I toss my phone into my bag as if it is a hand grenade, a viper….a rotting rabid rat I resent
Then look around the room
I see an elderly woman looking at me. She sits closest to the receptionist in a chair next to her knitting bag. She had been knitting baby booties when I’d first come in. Rainbow booties. The bright pride colors like a brilliant prism spilling from her fingers. How oddly she looks ….at me….how oddly she looks ….wearing a kind of shawl, like a throwback from the old world ….someone you’d see in a photo arriving by boat at Ellis Island ….in her dark clothes, the long skirt and worn old shoes, her heavily golden-ringed, gnarled, arthritic hands ….
how oddly she looks….at me ….now instead of knitting, shuffling cards ….but she watches me
as if she can read my thoughts as she sits beside another woman who talks to her. She shuffles them without looking. They are playing cards. I hear her say,
“Jack of clubs, queen of spades ….” but she does not look at them. She is looking right at me
I get such a chill
I can see from where I am that each time she calls a card….she names them correctly ….without looking at them
I hear her say to the woman,
“tell your husband to stop taking those pills from the specialist but see an eye doctor….”
This shocks me and I stare at her. She shuffles more cards and puts two more down,
“Queen of hearts, ace of diamonds …..”
I look away and decide to tune her out
When the next patient is called, I see it is the woman the old woman had been talking to and when she goes through the door, the elderly woman gets up and moves towards me slowly, her eyes on me, she sits down next to me
Immediately I recoil
“Do not be afraid of me,” she says in a surprising clear voice. She places her hand on me and looks into my eyes, “you are from the other side,” she says
I look around the room to see if anyone is aware of what she is saying, but no one seems to take any notice of her. I get a chill.
“They were not right for you,” she says now
“What?” I say in a dry whisper, as it seems I’ve lost my voice
She points to my bag and I realize she must be indicating my phone
“Your old beaus ….”
“I don’t think you know what you are talking about—are you like a fortune teller? Are you charging people?” I almost laugh but it’s a trigger response because I feel myself having gone cold
“You were right to get rid of all those pretenders. Social media is a trap. A wasteland to waste time and steal lives—but I don’t have to tell you that. You know you don’t need it —but you try to fit into this world ….but you are from the other side.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I say this as I feel a dizziness sweep over me
“You already know this….you are older than me….” she tells me as she grips my hand, “you are older than all of us and….so wise….no man will ever be as wise —you will always know more and ….that is why,” she says, staring into my eyes, hers having that strange gray frame around the iris, “yr wyt yn ddoeth….” she says
“What?” I ask
“Yr wyt yn ddoeth,” she says again and says, “I was your daughter once….I knew we’d meet again, but I am here to tell you—never doubt your way ….always remember—they need you more but only know once you’ve gone. I’m glad your Persephone is back.”
Suddenly the receptionist slides open her window, standing up she shouts,
“Mrs. Evans! We’ve told you to stop bothering people in the waiting room!”
But at this moment the door to the doctor’s inner office opens and my name is called by a tall dark-haired man in a white lab coat
When I reach the door he says,
“don’t mind her, she’s harmless—she’s a bit senile, she’s Dr. Evans’ great aunt,” he tells me, and shuts the door behind us. As we walk down the hallway he says, “I hope she didn’t bother you,” as he leads me into an office and shuts the door behind us
“Oh—I ….” but I am still a bit shaken by her words that still echo in my head. My throat having gone dry, I cough
“Do you need some water?” he hands me a bottle of mineral water, “please sit down,” he indicates the dark brown leather sofa that faces the deeply stained wood desk as he walks across the room to the front of the desk. He goes to the computer monitor and turns it around so the screen faces outward, “I must apologize —uh—Dr.Evans is unable to be here physically, so, she’s doing your meeting through Zoom—“
“What? But—“
“Oh don’t worry, it’s preliminary —here, she’s joining now,” he taps the screen
<<“Hello!”>> she says from the wide screen
I try to figure out where she’s sitting but the background is dark and she is, by contrast, bright in her lab coat and sitting with her legs crossed from what appears as a wing chair
<<“so wonderful to see you, I’m sorry it’s not in person! And this meeting I have so long anticipated that I didn’t want to cancel when I was suddenly called away!”>>
The lab coated man now disappears behind another door
“Ohhh….” I say not knowing what else to say
<<“You see, I should tell you…. your background brings to mind for me an old case study I remember going back a decade —no, it’s been longer; more perhaps like two. It was when I was first doing my internship at the Stonybrook University hospital in New York ….under Dr. Risa Rothschild. She —had a case she was working on ….under the title “the complex Electra case”….”>>
She has my attention and I stare back at her
She says,
<<“you spent a number of years in New York too….”>>and keeps her eyes on me
“So why am I really here?” I ask her suspecting there is more going on here than what appears at face value
<<“I am sure you have gathered it is not as my patient but for —research,”>> she says
“Research? Whose?” I ask
<<“I would say it is mutual research…. wouldn’t you….? Research, like having to do with DNA …. and possibilities that, perhaps we retain more than is currently understood among modern medicine…. And ….I know you have been regressed ….”>>
As it does not come out as a question I suspect she does know more about the research Dr. Rothschild had begun ….but all I say in response to this is,
“you knew my doctor. Dr. Rothschild.”
<<“Yes. I worked closely on many of her…. research cases….and…. since she passed away, I have continued to contribute to her work…. you know…. I have actually been searching for you for years….you don’t seem surprised—so may I ask ….would you mind if we did some experiments ….and begin today? I am anxious to get going on this research and continue the studies Dr. Rothschild began….I think you are the Electra I’ve been looking for….I’ve read your….writings…. So— my today assistant has agreed to begin conducting, that is….if you don’t mind—“>>
“Your assistant?” and I point, assuming, to the now existed door where the lab-coated man vacated
But she continues,
<<“it’s ….unconventional…. As was Dr. Rothschild’s studies were, so….I don’t know if —you’d still feel like being a part of such….a study….”>>
“Regression….” I say under my breath and whisper, “shit….” knowing myself, that if I think too much, I’d only back out and ….haven’t I always wished we had continued this years ago? So ….why delay further exploring ….that intangible mystery which has, these many years, haunted my thoughts
“I need a moment….” I say and walk to the window to step out of her view and for a moment let my mind wander to consider ….as I stare at the boats on the water ….the seagulls hovering above
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