Melody a first contact n.., p.1
Melody: A First Contact Novel, page 1
MELODY
A FIRST CONTACT NOVEL
David Hoffer
Copyright © 2020 David Stangland
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-7357548-0-2
ISBN (Paperback) 978-1-7357548-1-9
Cover design by Damonza.com
Contents
Copyright
Prologue
Part I – The Father
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part II – The Machine
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Part III - The Child
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Prologue
Twenty-five years ago
Clear water streamed down a wall of frosted glass that glowed with a deep blue light. The water bubbled and flowed over the etched shapes of a dolphin, an octopus, and a school of smiling fish. I remembered being like one of those creatures, living deep within a faraway ocean with others who were just like me.
But today, I stood with my brother inside the hospital lobby waiting for my dad who was talking to a man at the counter. I looked up at my brother, Eric, who was holding my hand. “I’m not afraid.”
“You never are,” he said, but didn’t look me in the eye.
Dad returned from the counter and tousled my hair. “Come along Stephen. We don’t want to be late for your appointment.”
"Why are you doing this?" Eric asked.
“Because nothing else has worked,” Dad replied. “We're lucky the doctor is allowing Stephen to have this treatment.” Taking my hand from Eric’s, Dad led me along the hallway where we turned opposite the direction we usually went. “Don’t you worry about a thing, buddy, you’ll soon be good as new.”
I don’t think he believed that, but I smiled anyway, wanting to please him.
“There’s nothing wrong with him," Eric insisted.
Dad slowed his pace and lowered his voice. "You heard what the psychiatrist said; your brother needs help before his delusions get worse."
Within Eric’s mind a whirling finger of crimson sprouted from the center of a growing storm. Or so I imagined. The doctor had told me that what I saw inside of people wasn’t real, nor was the music I heard playing in my head. They were symptoms of an illness, she said, like having a cold. I wasn’t sure about that, but my father believed her, and that scared me. What if I wasn’t who I thought I was?
Crimson deepened to purple, a sure sign that Eric was about to lose it. Delusion or not, I’d seen this before. Quickly looking around to make sure nobody could overhear me, I said, "Dad's right. I need to get better.”
Eric’s shoulders slumped, and the finger of purple faded back into the swirl of color that moved within his head. Dad tugged at my hand, and I hurried to keep up as we walked to the end of the hall. Pushing open a heavy door, Dad gestured for me to enter. I did as I was told but looked over my shoulder to make sure Eric followed. He did, dragging his feet.
Inside the room was a silver table surrounded by computer screens, cords, and machines. The lights were way too bright and it smelled like pee and bleach. I didn't like it.
Two ladies turned toward us as we entered. The one holding a clipboard gave me a friendly smile which I tried to return. The other woman was my doctor. She was old, dressed in green, and had a gray streak running through her hair. She patted my head then extended her hand to my dad.
"Mister Fisher, it’s a pleasure to see you again," she said.
My dad didn’t let go of her. "I appreciate you including my son in this trial. I’ve tried everything, medication, therapy, but the symptoms only get worse. I don’t know what else to do. You should have heard—”
"Yes, yes, I understand,” the doctor said, untangling her hand from his. “While the early onset of schizophrenia is extremely rare, rest assured that your boy’s not the first I’ve treated. Though the procedure is experimental, it’s precisely targeted and perfectly safe. I’m confident this will change his life, and yours.”
My dad said nothing, only took a deep breath. Leaning over me, the doctor reminded me that her name was Samantha. I stared at my shoelaces, ashamed to be the cause of so much trouble. If I could turn invisible, now would be the time.
"Feeling brave today?" Doctor Samantha asked.
Wanting to assure her that I was, I raised my eyes, but the words caught in my throat. A man was wheeling a cart toward the table. Scary things were on top of it, flashing and beeping. Some were sharp. I pointed. "What’s that for?"
"Tools for us to help you get better," the doctor said.
"Oh," was all I could think to say.
Doctor Samantha introduced the woman beside her as a nurse. After greeting me, the nurse held up a flimsy gown. "You have to change into this. Would you mind if I helped you?"
I did mind but nodded anyway just to get this over with. After lifting the shirt from my arms, the nurse took off my shoes and pulled my pants around my ankles. Embarrassed, I stepped into the waiting gown as quickly as I could.
“Everything's going to be fine,” Dad said, and squeezed my arm. “Try to relax and do what the doctor tells you. I'll see you once you’re finished. Okay buddy?" Struggling to hold back tears, I bobbed my head.
“Call out if you need anything,” Eric said, shooting a distrustful glance at the doctor. “We’ll be waiting right outside."
"Thank you," I said, meaning it, then waved goodbye as Dad herded Eric toward the door.
"Would you like help getting onto the table?" the nurse asked.
Wanting my dad to see me being brave, I shook my head and climbed up all by myself. But when I turned around, all I saw was the metal door swing shut. The nurse gently pushed on my chest until I was lying face up on the table. The thin fabric covering my back didn't stop the cold metal from giving me a shiver. She fit leather straps around my wrists, telling me it was for my safety. Something sharp pierced the inside of my arm. But I didn't cry out, even when a tube was put into me. Doctor Samantha then placed moist things on each temple. They were cold. When I tried to touch one, my hand tugged at a strap connected to the table.
"They’re called electrodes," Doctor Samantha explained.
"What are they for?" I asked.
"They create a tiny electrical current, which will make those delusions go away."
"Will it hurt?"
"A tingle, if that. And one of my associates is giving you a sedative to make you more comfortable. You shouldn’t feel a thing."
That didn't sound so bad. “Okay,” I said, feeling sleepy.
After telling me to open wide the nurse placed a piece of rubber between my teeth and instructed me to clamp down. She then pulled a strap over my forehead and secured each of my ankles. Nobody had warned me about this. I felt afraid. It occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't have shared anything with this doctor. That was such a good idea I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before. Good thing I didn’t tell her what I had come here to do. Who knows what she would have thought about that?
"This will be over before you know it," the nurse said.
A man's face hovered over me, the same person who pushed the cart. "How are you feeling?"
I felt lightheaded and too tired to answer. Darkness crept from the edges of my vision and light from the overhead lamp became a circle, growing smaller. Though I tried to fight it, the outside world became a speck. Then darkness fell.
◆◆◆
I woke up with my head on fire. Gasping, I tried to pull off a mask that somebody had placed over my face. But I couldn’t move my arms, nor could I talk. My body slammed against the table and I felt the doctor fumble with the electrodes on my head.
Another symptom of my sickness was being able to reach inside of people. This I did, demanding the doctor to make the pain stop. But instead she flew against the table where she slumped to the ground, along with the man. The nurse reached for the strap to release my arm. But the moment her hand brushed mine crazy whir
I was now alone with what seemed an ice pick stabbing into my head. Music, my constant companion, faded into nothingness. Who was I, where was I, and what was I supposed to do? As I searched for the answer I lost track of the question. Then, as if I looked through a waterfall, the distorted image of my brother took shape. Grasping a tattered thread that reached into a place I could no longer recall, I called out to him – help me, please.
Part I – The Father
Chapter One
Present day
“What do you like best about school, Clay?” I asked. “Do you have a favorite subject?”
My thirteen-year-old patient slumped deeper into the lounge chair and stared at the ceiling with his arms crossed and mouth sealed into a line. Throughout the session he’d been responding with a defiant stare, discomfiting silence, or, if I was fortunate, a monosyllable. Not once had he looked me in the eye.
“I hear you like to draw,” I said. “Is that true? I’d like to see some of your pictures.”
With an impatient sigh, Clay made a show of looking toward the door, reminding me that we were well past our scheduled time. But I sensed a profound problem bothered this boy, well beyond the former psychologist’s diagnosis of depression.
“What do you do in your spare time?” I persisted. “Do you like music, have a favorite band?”
A dismissive shake of his head was the reply, none of my business the message. I sympathized, having myself endured a parade of psychiatrists that probed and prodded my adolescent mind.
“Ever find yourself wishing that you didn’t exist?” I asked.
“Yeah, like right now,” Clay sneered.
Progress. He spoke. “That’s a good one. Do you sometimes think people talk about you behind your back?”
“You’re wasting your time, Doctor Fisher.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Maybe I do.”
Just watching the boy, I felt sure that something tormented him. Seconds turned into a minute as I puzzled over what lay beneath that hard shell. Clay bore my scrutiny stoically, being an expert at keeping to himself.
“What’s troubling you, Clay? I have a feeling you don’t know how to ask for help.”
“My mom forced me to come here,” he said, though his eyes bounced off the empty chair behind my desk. It was nothing more than a flicker, lasting less than a millisecond. But it was enough. I can often tell what people aren’t saying, and the more suppressed the emotion the easier it is for me to detect. Everybody has it: the ability to read an expression, a tone of voice, or visual inconsistency so fleeting that most people would hardly notice. But I had paid attention and knew what troubled Clay with a surety of seeing my own reflection in the mirror.
“You hear a voice, don’t you?” I said, and it wasn’t a question.
Clay’s body went rigid. “Did you see that in a movie? Thought your kind went to college.”
“Many suffer from the same affliction, Clay. Rest assured, you’re not alone.”
Clay half rose from the seat, torn between stalking out or admitting the voice exists.
“You can go,” I said. “But ignorance only makes the voice stronger. I can teach you where it comes from, and more importantly, how to manage it. But to do that, you need to sit down.”
“Nobody can help me,” he said, frozen into place.
I said nothing. After a tense few moments, Clay dropped back into the chair. He pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees. “How did you know?”
“Let’s just say it was an educated guess.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong, just like there’s nothing wrong if you catch a cold or break a leg. What you’re experiencing is a hallucination caused by a misfiring of circuits in your brain. That’s all there is to it.” Clay exhaled, which I hoped meant he found comfort in that knowledge. “Where does the voice come from?” I asked.
“A shadow,” he murmured.
“It’s typical for the manifestation to come from the outside,” I reassured him. Unlike the voice that spoke to me, that lived inside my head. “Is the shadow with us now?”
“Sitting in the chair behind your desk,” he said, and fractionally lifted his chin. “It says it doesn’t like you.”
Unable to help myself, I looked toward the chair…nothing. “What else does the shadow say?”
Clay clenched and unclenched his hands. “To hurt myself.”
I chose my next words with care. “Voices can often be critical, it’s the nature of the affliction. Don’t do what it suggests or believe what it says. How long has this been going on?”
“Since always.”
I found myself clenching and unclenching my hands. My own voice was born after having suffered pain on a metal table, and it treated my mind as a screen to flash terrible images as tangible as the young man sitting before me
“Is it possible,” Clay started, then glanced at the empty chair.
“That what you hear isn’t your imagination?”
He nodded.
“It’s only as real as your subconscious thoughts. Understanding that these hallucinations are due to the dysfunctional wiring in your brain can help correct what you see, and possibly, quiet that voice.”
For the first time, Clay’s eyes met my own. “Can I ever get rid of it?”
That was the same question I often asked myself. Never could I shut down the voice, only muffle it through the generous use of medication reinforced by a disciplined repression of thought. “It’s more likely you’ll have to come to terms with it. Though we need to spend more time together, I’m confident that as treatment progresses you’ll be able to see this as I do…an illness to be managed.”
Clay expelled a long drawn out breath. He nodded.
“Do you…” I began to ask, then thought better of it.
“Do I what?”
“You don’t happen to hear music, do you?”
Clay blinked. “Should I?”
“No, no,” I said, flushing. Truth was, I heard music, even now, playing softly in the background, as if it came from behind a closed door. “You’ve made great progress today, Clay. Next step is to come up with a treatment plan that’ll work best for you, if you’ll allow me to help.”
“Thank you, Doctor Fisher.”
“Call me Stephen. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m late for a birthday party.”
◆◆◆
Hidden amongst a sea of balloons, my wife, Fran, was at the patio table cutting slices from a white-frosted birthday cake. Eric stood beside me in a darkened corner of the backyard, both of us looking upon my five-year-old daughter. We all wore pointy party hats.
Danika lifted a new computer tablet up and over her head. Swaying unsteadily on her feet, she pointed the camera somewhere between the waning crescent of an aging moon and the bright speck of Jupiter. “Help me!” she implored.
I dropped to a knee and looked up at the screen. The tablet was a gift for her birthday, as was the app she was using that identified celestial objects wherever the camera was pointed. But all I saw was a black canvas dotted with unremarkable stars. There were no galaxies, planets, satellites, or anything most people would find interesting. Danika was not most people. “Honey, what is it you want to do?”
“Take a picture,” she said. “But I can’t move the lines.”
Steadying her elbow with one hand I used the other to drag the cross-hairs on the computer screen over a random white speck. “There you go, you found a star. Good job.”
“That’s not it!” Scrunching her lips together she bounced her head to the right. “That way, down a little, up a little” –I followed along with my finger– “Not that one. Oh, let me show you.” While trying to point at the screen she lost her grip on the tablet sending it flopping to the ground. “Oh no! Is it broke?”
I picked up the computer from the lawn and wiped away the stray blades of grass. “It’ll be fine. How ‘bout we take a look at the moon? There are craters—”
