The Permutation

Homeostasis (Part 5) Christopher

Monday, December 14th, 4:00 p.m.

"Stroud!" A voice said, accompanying a banging on plexiglass, "You've got a visitor."

Christopher heard the man's words but did not feel a pressing urge to act on the information. Christopher's head rested on a threadbare pillow. He had pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. The fabric square this institution generously referred to as a blanket had fallen off of him and now rested on the floor, but Christopher hadn't noticed, nor had he made any move to pick it up.

"You're going to want to see this one, Stroud," the man said. This man sounded like the one with the name tag that read, Hoff.

As far as the orderlies went, Hoff was the one with the most humanity. The others quickly saw everyone as "patients" to be separately cataloged than actual people. Still, Hoff treated Christopher like a human being who was just having a rough time instead of somebody with a mental disorder. If Christopher could force himself to speak at that moment, he would have told the man how much it meant to him, but Christopher hadn't spoken for a long time.

"Christopher," Hoff said, "Come on, man, if you don't get up, they're just going to drag you out of there, and neither of us wants that."

Hoff's words made sense, but the man didn't understand. Christopher's body didn't want to listen to sense. The world didn't make sense, and his body refused to play the world's games any longer. Christopher's mind was in league with his body, and the only sounds that managed to escape his mouth were the whispers of prime numbers, but even those were just muscle memory and offered no solace.

Once the others forced him up, he would be able to walk, but autonomy was out of his grasp. It was all he could manage to follow even basic orders. Christopher wanted to tell Hoff that he heard the man and would have loved to get up and make this easier on all of them, but none of this was easy. Christopher must look catatonic from Hoff's perspective.

"Come on, man, it's your daughter for God's sake. I know you can hear me. I've dealt with patients like you. The light is there. Now shake yourself out of it. She's your girl, man. Step up. For her."

Christopher urged his body to listen, but it refused to cooperate. It knew that Christopher was the last thing Gracie needed. He'd been an idiot to think he could change himself enough to take care of someone else. Christopher could barely take care of himself. The last time Gracie saw him, he'd been a hero. That's the image he wanted her to remember, not this pathetic, unmoving wretch in a psychiatric hospital.

After the events at the Nueva Vista Drive-In, the authorities had questioned Christopher and thought his contributions to their investigations were not overly useful. Christopher didn't fault them for that, but they perceived his inability to communicate as mental instability bordering on hostility. It wasn't his fault he'd reacted with violence when they tried to touch him.

Why did they need to touch me?

The authorities made Christopher wait in a cell. He hadn't been able to defend himself or explain what had happened. He wanted to tell them he had a daughter waiting for him, but all those words were out of reach. They'd known all along. Christopher discovered that piece of information when his public defender came in and told him the authorities were forbidding him from seeing Gracie for the foreseeable future. At the time, the words sent Christopher into a screaming, and crying rage with prime numbers shouted at officers in lieu of expletives. Now Christopher understood the wisdom of their decision.

Not only did Gracie not deserve to have someone so unstable in her life, but Christopher did not wish for her to see him like this. She had seen enough of him come completely unhinged to last a lifetime, and he would never be able to forgive himself for it.