"Violence
was never really a problem at Chambers Academy. There's the
occasional bit of fisticuffs, and an odd cat-fight, but it was always
hand to hand. We don't have a precedent for a student whipping out a
length of steel pipe and letting loose.
As
for why, well, we should have expected something in hindsight. Ms.
Sarah Cruz was the daughter of the first man on the moon in over half a century. She got attention, and speaking bluntly, in an
environment filled with rich, spoiled prima donnas whose greatest
aspiration is to join the ranks of the glitterati, you'd do the kid a
favor by kicking her into a tank full of piranhas. At least then it
would be quick.
Jealously
cuts deep and stings hard, and the envious share only their pain.
Ms.
Cruz's grades started to slip before that Orion 2 capsule did a retro
burn. We thought it was just a dip due to stress, but... it got
worse. I'm sure you can guess why.
I
was officially assigned to her on June 5th,
about one month after the mission. I got the call when she turned in
a quiz soaked in tears.
As
much as I wanted to get down to doing something helpful, our first
session was just me asking about family history, about her moods,
allergies, and other first session clinical BS.
The
week after, when we met next, I asked her about her home life. I
grew.... just a little concerned when she told me that she didn't
want to talk about how things were going with her family.
Officially,
I didn't jump to conclusions. We changed the subject and talked about
how bitchy her classmates were getting.
Unofficially,
I did not want to find out that a national hero was beating his kid,
if not worse. My faith in humanity is tenuous enough as it is, and
the prospect of drinking my liquor cabinet dry to numb the pain of
that revelation is neither a pleasant nor cheap one.
During
the session after that, she shared with me her anxieties about
friendships made after the spotlight was cast on her. Her voice was
an octave higher, her tempo significantly more rapid – something
was happening and I couldn't get an answer from her even when I
asked.
I
did get an answer from my nightly news troll the next evening, on the
front page of the Huffington Post: “'Captain Daniel Cruz, missing.'
'Mental
Illness suspected,' were the other three words that were burned into
my skull, and I knew that things were going to get significantly more
complicated.
I
think that was on a Wednesday, Thrusday maybe. Sarah didn't show up
for the rest of the week.
She
did next week. It happened on Tuesday. Surveillance footage showed
that one of the other students - Marceline Higgins I think was her
name – she called Sarah's father a “schizo astronaut.”
And,
yeah, that's when Sarah pulled a steel pipe out of her bag and
engaged in some visceral stress relief. Campus police showed up,
cuffed her, and dumped her in the on-campus holding cell. Under
watch.
I
was called in to evaluate her. She was shaken and crying and told me
that her dad wasn't crazy. She was sure of it. I asked her what was
going on in her family, and she told me that she wanted to show me
something the next time she visited. I scheduled for an appointment
on the next day.
She
wasn't pressed for charges, though it took some creativity on my part
to convince the police that it wasn't pre-meditated.
When
we met the next day I didn't know what to brace myself for. She sat
down on my office's couch and told me that her dad had been writing
ever since he got back home from his mission. He first wrote in his
diary, then in cheap journals, then on napkins and receipts, and then
on the walls of their house.
She
showed me one of the cheap journals, and that he wasn't writing
exclusively in poetry. Or even in English.
Within
were things like structural diagrams made out of optical illusions,
cross-sections of neurons, mathematical proofs in numbering systems
that I couldn't decipher, and all of them were written over pictures
of this odd, spindly, branching character or figure with dark red
blobs all over it. Its shape was never completely consistent, but
only had slight variations.
All
of it was in pen. It was not compelling evidence for a sound mental
state.
I
stopped flipping the ink-soaked pages when I came to one that had
more familiar symbols. I told her that those looked like electrical
schematics.
I
recommended that she see an off-campus psychologist, but she
protested. She said that she trusted me more. I made an appointment
for the end of the week.
She
showed up and pulled a device out of her backpack. I asked her what
it was and where she got it, and she told me that the school's
electronics club built it for her. She told me to get a tissue and
hold it under my nose. We both did.
She
pressed a button and my office vanished. Every wall, every book,
every piece of furniture was replaced with gray sand, no sound, and
a black sky holding only the sun. I couldn't breathe, but I knew that
I didn't need to.
That...
thing from every page of the notebook stood in front of me.
Perfectly still. Slowly distorting, changing. I felt a ringing in my nerves
that vibrated into a cold pain.
I
felt something damp on my lips and blinked back into the office.
Sarah was in front of me, with red blossoming in her tissue. I
checked mine, seeing that it was the same.
And
that is why, gentlemen, I am not surprised to see you, or your DoD warrant, or your concealed firearms.”
