James Hackett

Breathe breathe breathe breathe…
No, no, no not again, I failed again no!
I can hear their voices, concern dripping off their words. The faces that are so full of carefully contrived emotion. Just like before, it is all going to be just like before. No, please no.

I do not care anymore, I really don’t, why won’t they just let me go, let me fall into my void, let me meet my end. Why must I fight for a life that kills me inside? Why won’t anyone else see the death that is already within me? All I am trying to do is let my body meet my spirit; let me go…I do not want to be here any longer.
The sounds fill my head….my mom…dad…the ambulance, now the lights of the hospital, the sounds and smell of it clawing into my senses. Familiar resignation is the mask I have to wear now. I know the speech, the ideas, the comments, and the encouragement to be better, to see all that I have to live for.
As always.
But different.

I have no more tears, no more explanations, no answers to give that will convince my doctors all I need is a break, a little vacation…too much stress, just some therapy and some time and I will be good again, in fact better than before…”oh yes I know better now and I know how to stop myself from being that sad and in that much agony…yes really I will be fine…”

This time I have nothing more to give, no more lies or suggestions and helpful insights to my inner workings that will help my relationships be better, that would heal me.

This time I am simply broken beyond repair. I stepped off my ledge and fell into another kind of chasm, one that I have let consume me inside and out.
“Layla….Layla…Layla!”

Harsh red imprints of the telephone wire she used glare out angrily from the skin of her neck and the barely audible scratchy sound that was now her voice seeped past her lips.
“mmm wha?”
“Come back Layla, focus on my face and voice and come back.”
“ uggghh good grief…don’t you know when to quit?”

It wasn’t much of a greeting but it was enough for him to know she was coherent and not suffering any brain damage from her attempt.
“why won’t you just let me go…give up already…”

Everyone’s favorite shrink was yet again trying to talk to the inner me.
Hell and dammit.

“I want this to be over and you just keep bringing me back…why ..why..why..”

The restraints cut into skin as she turned and twisted seemingly trying to escape the sound of the one constant voice that could simply never let her go.

The frenzy and frustration within clouded her eyes from seeing his sheer relief at hearing her raspy but rage filled voice hiss tempestuously at him. It took all of his years of training not to break down in front of her, gripping the rails of her bed till he could no longer feel his fingers; he collected his thoughts and pulled himself back from the tears and his own fury as the nurses recorded her vitals.

How could she possibly have thought to leave him alone? Life without her was not an option.
He was her personal therapist for the last 7 years.

Andrew Rorke, the very best this side of the hemisphere and maybe the next had to offer. His is a story that dumbfounds even the most ardent physics guru.

You see Andrew was born in Ireland to parents who were both artistes; his mom a famed poet and his father a master of clay. His family and friends thought he would follow in their footsteps and build on his natural talent as a painter. It seemed as though that was his intent until one day he came home from high school and announced he was accepted early into a pre-medical program and wanted to become a doctor. Not just any kind of doctor but the kind that constantly asks, “How does that make you feel?”

Needless to say his parents were completely thrown; they could not understand why he would give up a life of art, color and complexity to go study of all things medicine, the most in-exact science of them all.

But true to form he was the stubborn Irish man they had raised him to be and made his way after much talking and a little yelling, across the ocean to the very fair Cornell University in the little town of Ithaca.
That was the beginning.

Pre-med in Cornell, accepted to a PhD program at the University of Miami, then straight to NYU Medical Center for his residency.

Andrew the painter had become Dr. Rorke, top graduate that many hospitals wanted working for them.

It was as if he used the artist in his soul to help patients paint their own self portraits.

His life was set for a lucrative private practice with a consultancy at the hospital of his choosing, and then Andrew pulled yet another unexpected twist and opted to move to the most southerly isle in the Caribbean, Trinidad.
No one could figure out why he did it.

There was nothing in that island for him; everything he could possibly need lay at his feet in New York. That is what his colleagues thought anyway, Andrew however wasn’t so sure.

It all started with his very weird dream of a woman shrouded in black mists calling him. He smelled sea air, heard steel drums weaving a seductive tune as he tried to get closer to the accented voice that kept calling him.

She wasn’t calling him Andrew though; she called him by his birthright.

“Aindreas… warrior, Alastar… defender of mankind, Antaine… invaluable, Ardghal…man of high valor…come, it is time. Come!”

That morning all he could remember was the music and the accent, but a niggling uneasiness would not leave him for weeks after. Always at the back of his mind he heard her undeniable command to Come!

Two months later he was finishing his rounds at NYU when he heard a woman with the same unmistakable accent chatting with a visiting relative.

Before he could stop himself he walked straight into the room startling the woman and her daughter.

His whiskey intoned Irish lilt putting the women at ease as he began to speak, “Good evening ladies, please forgive my intrusion.”

“Not at all Doctor, is something wrong?” The younger woman asked.

Andrew sensed the tenseness slip into her frame as she looked from him to her mother wondering if he was the bearer of bad news.

Smooth move Andrew, frighten them, all because you can’t forget a weird dream.

Mentally slapping himself he calmly said “Sorry no, I just heard your sister speaking and wondered where you were from?”

The tension eased out of the room to be replaced by the heightened body temperatures Dr. Rorke usually induced in women.

“A, a. Doctor you trying to sweet talk me, a lil ole lady like mihself.”

Andrew smiled at the older woman as she and her daughter blushed an identical deep crimson. His insides heaved with a sense of longing as she spoke. Her voice more heavily accented than her daughter’s shook his memories alive transcending him back to his irrepressible dream.

“We are from Trinidad and Tobago Doctor, a small island in the Caribbean, you know someone from there?”
As the daughter said the name, he knew.

It was time for him to take another journey, hopefully his last.
Hopefully this time it would lead him home.

Looking at Layla, finally sleeping as the sedatives did their work, he knew it was she who called him.

He also knew he had already stepped beyond the Hippocratic Oath he swore. And when his fingers trailed against her damp cheek he knew he would do it time and again to save the woman he shouldn’t and couldn’t love.

The one woman his gut told him was the only one he would ever love.

Now he had to do whatever he could to heal her, he could only hope she forgave him for the extreme measures he was about to undertake.
Life rewards us, whether we want to be rewarded or not.

I let the emptiness take me over and I received a reward. A small padded room and a very pretty white top, with matching pants and of course restraints, the new must have accessory.

See, I was very bad yet I got a new wardrobe, new friends and my very own brand new smelly place to live in.

The constant meetings however are draining. No one gets it yet, I am done, this is my end…all they need to do is let me go.
Oooo goody!
Another reward.

Hmm, new jewelry, I never wore jewelry that went around my head b4…hmm a piece to bite on…kinky!

The faces of concern again surround me, they really should just…..*Blackout*
Where am I and why does my body feel so strong?