“She shines like a star, doesn’t she?” said Dr. Lewis, more succinctly. “I just hope she doesn’t turn out to be meteor.”
“Why?” I said.
He looked sad all of a sudden, thoughtful. “Because they fall to the earth. And they burn.”
DR. LEWIS: Take a seat. Sorry about the plastic chairs.
ME: That’s okay.
DR. LEWIS: Paris has told me a little about you. But why don’t you tell me something.
ME: Like what?
DR. LEWIS: I don’t know. How about your favorite music.
ME: Oh. Uh, I used to like hip-hop stuff. But now I mostly listen to, I don’t know what you would call it; electronica. Stuff without voices. Just … beats and bass, you know?
DR. LEWIS: (Rolls up his sleeve. There is a tattoo reading COME AS YOU ARE in gothic script down his forearm and an anarchy symbol.) I listen to a whole load of stuff. When Kurt Cobain died, that was the day I decided to be a psychologist. Sounds stupid, but it’s completely true. I was, what, seventeen?
ME: (inside my head) Oh, he’s not as old as I thought. It’s the gray hair, I guess.
DR. LEWIS: I just thought, what a waste, you know? I thought if I could stop one person from doing what he did, then my life would be worthwhile. It’s like … a world ending, every time. Do you know what I mean?
ME: (thinking of my mother, her likes and dislikes, her opinions, her favorite foods and movies and her jokes and smiles and angry days, the songs she liked to sing, reduced to a red puddle of blood on a tiled floor) Yes.
DR. LEWIS: The loud music helps?
ME: With?
DR. LEWIS: Your voice.
ME: Oh. Yes. It does.
DR. LEWIS: This voice, do you have any idea who it might be?
ME: (puzzled) I don’t … I don’t think I …
DR. LEWIS: I mean, is it someone you know? Someone you knew?
ME: It’s a voice. It’s not real.
DR. LEWIS: The shrinks told you that, right?
ME: (nods)
DR. LEWIS: (sighs) The voice is real to you, is it not? I mean, you hear it, like any other voice? With your ears?
ME: Uh, yes.
DR. LEWIS: So it’s real. It’s a real phenomenon. It doesn’t matter if you can see it or not. It’s real to you.
ME: I guess.
DR. LEWIS: It’s possible to do scans, you know. Functional MRI. Electrical signals. What we know is that a person who hears voices, when they do hear them, the exact same brain areas light up as when they hear real speech. It is, for the purposes of the brain, exactly the same experience as hearing an actual person speaking.
ME: Okay.
DR. LEWIS: Anyway. Your voice, it isn’t someone you know.
ME: (suddenly too hot, suddenly itchy all over) I don’t think so.
DR. LEWIS: History of mental illness? Other hallucinations?
ME: No.
DR. LEWIS: And what does it say, the voice?
ME: Horrible things.
DR. LEWIS: Like?
ME: To hurt myself. To not talk to people or it will punish me. Stuff like that. But not so much now.
DR. LEWIS: Drugs?
ME: Yes.
DR. LEWIS: Hmm. And when did the voice first speak to you?
ME: The police precinct. I’d just found a foot on the beach.
DR. LEWIS: That was you?
ME: Yes.
DR. LEWIS: Wow. And what precise words did it use?
ME: I think … it said, “You’re disgusting.” I think.
DR. LEWIS: Interesting. Did you agree?
ME: Um, with what?
DR. LEWIS: Did you agree with the voice that you were disgusting?
ME: (Thinking how weird this is, how Dr. Rezwari never wanted to know anything about what the voice said. Only that it threatened stuff, and that meant it had to be stopped.) Um. Yeah. I guess so.
DR. LEWIS: Gender? Age?
ME: The voice?
DR. LEWIS: Yes.
ME: A woman. I don’t know how old. Forty? Not young.
DR. LEWIS: Hmm.
ME: Does that mean anything?
DR. LEWIS: Do you think it means anything?
ME: I thought … it’s dumb, but I thought maybe the voice was a ghost. Of one of the dead prostitutes, you know? And that it wanted me to solve the murder.
DR. LEWIS: Imaginative. But I doubt it.
ME: You said the voice was real.
DR. LEWIS: Real to you. Because it is you. On some level. Often, the people I talk to, their voices say things that deep down they think about themselves. The voice says they’re dressed like ****, or whatever, and the person looks in the mirror and thinks, yeah, I’ve become a bit of a slob. Or the voice bans contact with other people, but actually the sufferer really, unconsciously maybe, believes that they don’t deserve contact with other people.
ME: (blank mind)
DR. LEWIS: It’s a lot to deal with. We have to take it step-by-step.
ME: You think I’m … doing this to myself?
THE VOICE: Who is this man? What are you doing? You ******* worthless piece of ****. When you get home you’re going to bleed. I’m going to—
ME: (screams)
DR. LEWIS: I’m sorry. I don’t mean to distress you.
THE VOICE: ******** ***** this ******* ******.
ME: (puts hands over ears)
DR. LEWIS: The voice is speaking to you now?
ME: (nods)
DR. LEWIS: Okay, okay. Let’s leave it there. Listen. I don’t know if I can help you. But I would like to try. Would you accept that?