The Treatment and the Cure Read Online Free Page B

’insight’. You’ve done the right thing by telling us about the Nothingness Spirit. We’ll tell the doctor all about it and he’ll be able to help you. Any time the Nothingness Spirit starts to bother you, you let us know. Will you do that?”
    “Yes,” you say, defeated, knowing you’ve destroyed yourself. Knowing that within an hour the Nothingness Spirit will become a reality in your file. A true presence in cold print on the page. A living force that will be summoned by other minds to explain every sleepless night, every change of mood, every odd remark, every laugh, every tear, and every facial expression you will wear for the rest of your life.
    You have created your own demon.
    You know it would go something like that. Even if the details are wrong, it would go something like that. So you can’t say anything to the two screws who are probably watching you. You struggle to calm yourself. You take deep breaths. You have a breather and stare away to the blue haze of the sky with your eyes half shut against the sun and try to think the sky down into yourself. The sky is so very calm and old and has seen more troubles than your own. You suddenly remember some words: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me.”
    Lovely words. They give you a feeling you can face whatever might happen. You’re not religious. You’ve never been to church. You suppose the words are something about God, but it’s the words themselves, and the strong, gentle sound of them, and the picture they give you that suddenly makes you feel all right, or nearly all right. They must have been written thousands of years ago, yet it’s as though they’re meant for you, yourself, right now. You let out a deep breath and there’s a sort of good tightness in your chest and you don’t feel very afraid of the two screws talking, or about digging fast and slow, or even about the room at the end of the verandah.
    It’s Thursday, the night you’re rostered to sit up watching television. At six o’clock, when the other men are going into their cells, you go into the television room with the four who are rostered with you and the screws lock the door behind you. There’s a billiard table in the middle of the room and the television set is up on a high stand near the window. The five of you move your chairs into position near the billiard table so you can rest your feet on the side of it if you want to. Or you can pull two chairs together to make a couch and lie full length. There’s Bill Greene and Ray Hoad and Zurka and another man named Williamson, whom they call The Wild Man as a joke because he’s so timid. The Wild Man has got a brass whistle and a cigarette lighter the screws gave him. It’s forbidden to take your own matches or lighter into the television room at night, so they let The Wild Man have an official lighter for the five men. Nobody uses it. They all bring their own lights anyway. The whistle is to call the screws from the office if anyone goes berserk or anything. The Wild Man is very embarrassed about having the whistle.
    “Blow yer whistle, mate,” Bill Greene says to him.
    The Wild Man grins, very sheepishly.
    “Give it a blast. Go on,” says Ray Hoad.
    “No, it’s all right,” says The Wild Man.
    “You’d better test it,” says Ray Hoad. “The pea might’ve fell out.”
    “I heard something drop,” says Bill Greene.
    “Jesus, The Wild Man’s lost his pea!” cries Ray Hoad.
    “He’ll be buggered without it,” says Bill Greene.
    “Sure it’s not in yer pocket?” says Ray Hoad.
    “Turn ’em out,” says Bill Greene. He starts helping to turn out The Wild Man’s pockets.
    “That pea’s government property!” says Ray Hoad.
    “The whistle won’t work without it,” says Bill Greene.
    “What if somebody goes berserk?” says Ray Hoad.
    “There’ll be murder done!” says Bill Greene. “Blood all over the room!” says Ray Hoad.