disciple (ch. 16)
by Tom Stuckey
16
I stared out of the window to the moors that blurred a little in the wind and the rain, thinking through my response, she was testing me early which was a surprise, but it’s all a game really. “Hello Victoria.” She had the sweetest curls to her brown hair that bounced on to her face when she spoke, that and she kept crossing her legs and bouncing up and down in her desk chair to fix her skirt. “Can we talk a little about what has brought you here?” She asked. “I deepened my eyes into the landscape. “You want to talk about Rome?” I wondered if The Vatican had orchestrated this. “Yes if you are ok with this?” There are options I thought, to getting out of here quicker. “OK,” But then, why? It wasn’t so bad, I liked Victoria and the moors certainly had a charm about them, in a crippling kind of way, did anything exist beyond them, it didn’t seem so. “I went to Rome to follow a Saint.” I looked at her to study her reaction and to her credit she did not react, she was obviously fresh into her career, being young and still wanting to help. “And why did you decide to leave Rome?” Interesting. “I didn’t feel the need to follow him anymore.” She fixed her skirt. “And why was that.” She leaned back in her chair and smiled, she was really very attractive, I looked back out of the window. “Because...do you live near here? It seems that there is nothing but wilderness for miles.” She leaned back forward. “Yes I live near here, but let’s continue to talk about you, if that’s ok?” I imagined she jogged around these hills, taking the risks to be alone. “Are there wolves in this area?” She was experienced enough to know not too push. “Yes, I think there are having migrated back here a few years back. You like wolves?” I caught a thin reflection of myself in the window for the first time, the opaqueness made my eyes look particularly crazed. “I like them in the wild yes.” I paused and went on. “Do you not worry on your runs alone?” She looked a little less cheerful, maybe uncomfortable for the first time. “Sometimes yes.” I could see I needed to give her something. “There was also a woman,” She smiled and if I was not mistaken a look of intrigue. “in Rome. What is it when you think of something from the past and it appears as a taste in the mouth, absent of physical manifestation” She blushed a little but answered anyway. “Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia.” She re-crossed her legs and fixed her skirt again. “Can I ask why you were screaming on the plane?” I looked out of the window, but really I was looking at my reflection, seeing now Olivia’s parted legs covering my face. “Thomas,” I looked back at her but did not say anything. “I’d like you to try a technique for me tonight that might help with the screaming, would you be willing to give it a try?” I didn’t recall any screaming. “OK.” I said. “It’s a technique called Autogenic Training, that was developed by Johannes Shultz in the 1930’s and even is used by athletes today, I will give you this radio/CD player which you can play the exercises on, OK? And also you can record anything that you would like to, you could try storytelling” Worth a try I thought, maybe it would drown out the guy in the room next to mine, he screamed a lot.
*****
Meals were an interesting time of the day, a time when you got to mingle with the other insane, quickly getting to know them. No matter how much I ate in these facilities I could never get used to the plastic trays and cutlery, and the sound it made as you tried desperately to cut your food. It wasn’t the only thing that left lasting impressions either, there was the tepid water for tea and coffee, weighted furniture and even thickened sheets if you were thought to be at risk of hanging yourself during the sleeping hours. Otherwise it was a lot like a school dining hall, there was the people in charge of our welfare and our welfare that needed to be reconstituted. I looked around the room at the faces, all heavily medicated so that it looked like we were all looking into great expanses, looking to great distances in search of something in the void. There was Clive a British Chinese, who always wore a shirt and waistcoat no matter what. Clearly he was highly intelligent, spoke fast and if allowed to would talk about any matter of subjects, from biotechnology to Greek mythology in one sitting. He began to lore me in with an interesting topic of, The booming financialization of AI.
“Really it is just the beginning a warm up for when quantum computers kick in, this whole landscape will change, there will be fucking robots walking over these moors and they will be our masters. No in all seriousness,” He began to pull it back. “Data is the new oil," but slipped again, "but you could see how this is looking to replace blood, they are even looking at brain like computers that will be built out of perovskites.” I looked into his eyes to see if I could see any mechanics. He worked at a great speed and I enjoyed listening to him, hoping for him, that they would see his obvious genius and release him, but then in a few erratic words or gestures he would be back to where he started. “I couldn’t see why the yellow mineral couldn’t be used inside the human brain.”
Then there was George, a truly manic depressive, that was stuck in depressed mode. He did not say anything, just slowly moved his plastic spoon up to his mouth to let the soup move down into his stomach aided by gravity. Clive added, “Maybe they could use perovskites on George.” and looked to be weighing up George's skull for operation. I wasn’t sure that they had made a mistake with George, like he just sat there quietly eating and smiling, maybe someone had gotten so uncomfortable with his silence and had him committed, possibly his wife. “Hi George.” Sandra was sort of like an aged only fans girl, she flirted a lot and was fun to have around, she liked to get the men riled up, and also try and get cigarettes and lighters sneaked in by any means possible. Beyond that she was a rather affable personality disorder type. We all had labels, all in the files that were kept behind the large glass windows where the sane people read and made notes in them, and watched from safety. I couldn’t help thinking, however, that it was all a big mistake - and that you just had to figure out how to be on the other side of the glass. Synthetic love in the absence of the real thing.
A large woman in a nurses uniform came out from behind the glass, to take George for electric shock therapy, it was Tuesday, and the first time I had seen him not with a little smile.
*Read the next instqallment of Tom Stuckey’s new novella Disciple coming on May 12, 2026, at 6PM CST.
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BIO: Tom is a writer from Devon in England. His work can be found at A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bristol Noir, Nut House Press, and Pulp Magazine. He is the author of The Canary in the Dream is Dead and The Sun Marches upon Us All. Learn more about Tom Stuckey at www.tomstuckey.com.