Given thought

“What can you tell me of this author?”
“James knew him as the monster.”
“And you?”
“I haven’t made my mind up yet.”
“I need something to go with here, Mr. Feldman.”
John Feldman laughed long and hard.
“John?!”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I was just given a thought.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you believe in heaven and hell?”
“Is that important to you?”
“No not really. I know your answer. I just want to hear you say it.”
“Now Mr. Feldman, my answer really doesn’t matter. If I answered you would say that was the answer.”
“That was the answer.”
I noticed he had the book open and looking down at a page.
“OK, I’m game. May I see?”
“Sure… Sure.”
Mr. Feldman handed me the open book. I looked at the page and felt my eyes grow wide.

one week later

It was a week before I saw Feldman again, He walked in without any expression and promptly sat down, holding tight to the book.
“Good day, doctor,” I said.
“Mr. Feldman."
“Sorry. Mr. Feldman.”
“It's alright. You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“Never mind. What should we talk about today?”
“Whatever you would like.”
“Nothing really, 'cause it doesn’t matter, 'cause it doesn’t really matter. We’re just entertaining his people.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean if the readers don't like it, he might change it.”
“Change what?”
“The story.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“He changed my life many times in the course of a day.”
“Who did James?”
“No, the author of the book.”

Entry one of first day

“But this isn’t a book or a movie, this is real.”
“I also believed that once.”
“And this book has changed that?”
“The book changes a lot of things.”
“Like?”
“Well, like your lovely girlfriend. Angela is a blond, right?”
“How do you know about her?”
Mr. Feldman laughed. “The book, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Like I said, there are a lot of things that change.”
“If it’s a book then it shouldn’t change.”
“But it does because it is always being revised until the final words are written.”
“So you're saying if the writer wanted to make it so, James could still be alive?”
“No, James is dead, for that story is done.”
“So the book can’t bring back James?”
“Yes and no. It is the writer who has decided not to bring him back, but if the writer wanted he could bring him back, but as a memory or a ghost.”
“A memory… A ghost.”
“Why would he bring your friend back to ruin the memories of the bridge?”
“The bridge?”
“Yes, where you made the choice to become a doctor.”
“I've seen a lot of bridges and I made my choice a long time ago.”
“Or so it would seem.”
"And what do you mean by that?"
“You will see in the next few days, but I’m tired now. May I go?”
“I can send for the guards.”
“No need. they're coming.”
“How do you know that?”
“The book,” we said at the same time.
For a moment I thought I should laugh, but something sank inside of me. The only thing I could think of was that Jason had told him about the bridge. Then again, how could Jason remember? He was stoned out of his mind.

The Meeting

“I’m surprised. After all, they would have you believe I killed your best friend.”
“We were old school friends, that’s all.”
“That’s not what it says in the book.”
“The book?”
“Yes, the book that your friend James had. The book that I now guard.”
“I wouldn’t have thought they would allow you to keep it.”
“They! Like they have a choice.”
“I guess my first question would be…”
“Why did I do it? Yes, I know what you are going to ask before you ask it. Your dialog is in the book.”
“I believe that you’re going off of experience. You know the sorts of questions you, yourself, would have asked.”
“Could be, but to answer your question, I didn’t kill him. He did.”
“He?”
“Yes, the one who wrote the book.”
“Ah, I see.”
“No you don’t and neither did I the first time I met James.”
“The first time? I thought you only saw him once.”
“I did, but now I see him often. Each time I reread what happened.”
“May I see the book?”
“No, not yet. He doesn’t want you to.”
“Oh, I see. And if I just grab it from you, would that change the story?”
“No, because I know you won’t take it. You thought about it just now, but you can’t.”
“John, please work with me here. Your life is hanging by a thread.”
“Don’t you think I know that? And yes, I do know how it ends. But I can’t tell you.”
“And why would that be? If the story of our time together has already been written, why not just show me how it ends?”
“Because you never ruin a book or movie for someone by telling them the ending first. It’s just not polite.”

The Meeting

We never spoke about that night ever again, Now don’t get me wrong, James came out alright. He became an aerodynamic engineer. We kept in touch like most friends do, losing each other after a few years, and then finding each other again. The last time I talked to James, he had embarked on a comparative study of religions. It was a shock when I heard that Doctor John Feldman had put a bullet through James’ head. According to the official reports, someone had sent James a book with only blank pages and he checked himself into the state hospital. He was having a normal eval when he became the object of Dr. John Feldman’s anger. And that’s how I got appointed as the head psychiatrist of the state mental hospital, taking Dr. Feldman’s place. And who would be my first client? Dr. John Feldman. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? Ironic even under normal circumstances, but what makes this especially hard is that John Feldman was my mentor in college, a brilliant man in his own right, and now it is my job to decide if he is sane enough to be tried for my friend’s murder. When they brought him in, he was in handcuffs and the tailored three piece suit he normally wore had been replaced by an orange jumpsuit. It was strange to hear his familiar walk muted by rubber-soled white tennis shoes instead of the share click-click of black patent leather shoes as he walked into the room.
“Ah Doctor Boxer, it is a pleasure to see you again.” His voice wore a cheerful veneer, but I could sense his stain in its undertones.
“Doctor Feldman.”
“Please, it’s Mr. Feldman now. No license, remember?”
“Please, John, have a seat. Gentlemen, you can remove the handcuffs.”
“No…I prefer to have them on.”
“If say so, John. But really, I don’t feel that you pose a danger to me.”

The Bridge

I stayed with him the whole night, not sleeping a wink, just watching over him to make sure he wasn’t going to freak out. It was that night I discovered a lot of thing about life. I thought it was just an old saying, but it’s the truth -- it does become the darkest before the dawn, a pitch blackness; even the moon seemed that it had drifted away from the earth, becoming a large star in the night sky, unable to give the comfort of light to the world of shadows. James twisted and turned, screaming out in from a nightmare world only he could see. When he was quiet, the world was quiet. No owl or coyote kept me company on that night’s vigil. No possum peered at me from the underbrush beside the river. Is it always that quiet in the depths of night? As I stared into the darkness, my eyes changed, giving me a type of night vision, not perfect, but enough that I could see the mist rise up from the water beneath my dangling legs. For a moment I was a Dark Age traveler resting for the night, watching water sprites dance on top of the water. Their dance kept me awake, assuring me that James would be alright. His demons would leave him soon. I glanced downriver and saw a dense wall of fog rolling toward me and wondered whether the sprites had summoned it or if the fog had been sent by some higher power to squash their magical diversion. My mind kept playing back the conversation James and I had had before he’d come down enough to go to sleep. At last, a sliver of red pushed against the blackness. A bright red ball rose slowly, casting brilliant rose shadows on the fog. I was both exhausted and energized. I looked at my best friend, sleeping peacefully at last and knew for the first time what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to become a psychiatrist so I could help people get through those moments of crisis and find peace.

Wasted Pages

Do you know where nightmares come from? I didn’t either until I got the job of state psychiatrist. My name, if it is important, is Albert Boxer. I would like to believe I’m one of those go getters. It was never my plan to become a psychiatrist. I wanted to be a superhero or a space captain. I grew up in a small town, raising chickens and planting a garden, sweating in the summer heat and dancing with fairies in the cool summer night. My best memory of James is running through the twilight, playing hide and seek, hiding in the tall weeds, wondering when James would find me and I would be it, worrying that boogie man would get me. Boogie man. What a laugh. It wasn’t until later when James and I were teens that I got the scary call from him needing my help. He was down at the old bridge, sitting on the edge, almost hidden by the grapevines that clung to the decaying wood. The rope still dangled from one of the bridge supports, waiting for some lithe kid to grab hold and swing out over the swimming hole. But James wasn’t swimming that night. He was freaking out from taking LSD. I didn’t find out until later that his new ‘friends’ were testing how many tabs a person could take before he lost it.