Prologue
A man in a room. He can see his bed, his chair, the door, a window. Outside is smooth verdant parkland, a few trees, a small lake. He can hear the birds singing.
Food appears in front of him from time to time. He eats it, although it is often hard to find his mouth.
Sometimes when he looks at his hand, he can see it. Right there, at the end of his arm. Other times he cannot see it at all, even if he is waving right it in front of where he thinks his face is. Those times its hard to know exactly where his hand is. It could be by his side or somewhere through the floor, or even out by the lake, touching the water. His sense of touch is undiminished. Hypersensitive, even.
There is another window in his room, hanging on the wall. Through this window is another room, just like his, only laid out backwards. It’s empty. There is nobody in there.
Sometimes scraps of paper appear in his room. They have scribbles on them. Lines. Circles. Shapes. they appear to be arranged in rows or columns, but he doesn’t understand what they signify. He keeps them all on the dressing table.
One morning the voices come. This is very frightening. They are calm, quiet voices coming out of thin air. He is scared and tries to hide, but he is clumsy and can’t fit under the bed. He can’t work out how to bend his arms and legs to make that happen. His heart beats so hard that it fills the room.
The voices go. Later, another day, they return. He gets over his fear, listens.
He has a syndrome. A disorder. The fusiform gyrus. He can’t see people, even if they’re right in front of him.
Go on, reach out and touch me. I’m right in front of you.
He does so, stretching his arm. He touches something but it feels like he is brushing against some clothes hidden under a sheet. As his fingers sense the rough cloth, he realises he can’t see his hand. Or rather, he doesn’t know where his hand is any more.
Eventually he accepts that there are other people and that he just can’t see them. After all, he’s a person. he can see himself. Well, he can feel his own face. When he holds his hand to his face every pore feels like a massive pit. The feeling is intense, overwhelming.
One day he glances into the other room, the opposite room, and glimpses another man looking back. Briefly, as if lit by a malfunctioning fluorescent light blinking on for a brief moment and then out again.
It’s a mirror. The window is a mirror.
A photograph appears in his room. One of the voices tells him it is a picture of all the nurses that work here. He has never considered where ‘here’ is. He looks at the picture, sees a building from the outside. A gravel drive. A car. Some shoes on the ground. Nothing more.
One day there is a pill to take. A voice says that it might help him see. He takes it, but nothing changes. He sits for a while, staring at the carpet. Then he gets up and looks in the mirror. He screams! A monster, an evil, disfigured, dribbling caricature of a man, grossly deformed. He turns away and is face to face with another monster, harsh red skin pulled tight over a lizard face, yellow eyes, oversized lobster claw hands
and a tongue like a slug. He runs from the room, panicked. There are more of them wandering in the corridor; evil beasts of all shapes and sizes. The house is overrun. He flees, leaving the house, into the parkland. Further and further until he is alone. He is by the lake, catching his breath. Tentatively he looks in. the reflection is hard to make out, it drifts and breaks up, weaves around. It’s no monster, but it’s no man either.
Someone approaches. He turns away, hands covering his face. She waits patiently, noiselessly. Presently he risks a peek through his fingers. She is normal. Beautful. Breathtakingly perfect. He drinks in the sight like a man locked in a cave for fifty years clapping eyes on a spring sunrise. She holds out her hand.
Come back. You’re safe here. We can make you better.
He gets up, goes to take her hand, but as he takes hold, her hand begins to melt, covering his arm with oozing grey flesh. He tears away, looking up. She is becoming horrifically ugly, her face a grey walrus sheen sprouting hard white bristles. Her nostrils flare and close and flare again. Her hand is now a flipper. He staggers backwards, falls into the water, goes under. Weeds and mud envelop him, the bitterly cold water punching him in the chest. By the time he has got back to his feet, she is gone. He slithers onto the grass, the twigs and branches of a tree or a bush or something he can’t see plucking at his clothes. He runs again, shedding green tendrils of pond weed. Away from the lake, away from the building. Just away.
