Silent Treatment

by David James

  'Okay, okay, you may have a point. So in the end after, what a few weeks, months, a year of this idyllic make believe, they just return to society and all is well?'

  'There doesn't seem to have been a time limit on how long they would be here. But, yes, that's about the size of it.'

  'Sounds a bit strange to me,' said Ben.

  'Well that shows how much you know then! What would you do? Wait until they do something awful and then try to pick up the pieces afterwards I suppose?’

  'No, I just meant…'

  'I suppose then everyone would say “Oh, I don't know how that happened, it was all such a surprise that they did it. They must be evil or something!”'

  Ben was taken aback 'I'm sorry Sarah, I didn't realise that you felt so strongly about it.'

  Ben allowed a few minutes for them to both calm down before he said 'So all the surveillance stuff, that's just to keep an eye on them?'

  'Well, not just them, but all the professionals as well. To document all the interactions between them and assess how the patients deal with certain situations. See how they could improve aspects of behaviour. There are reams of reports about their daily interactions. There's pretty much a log of every days activities,’ said Sarah.

  'It's very technical,' she continued. For some reason she felt reluctant to tell Ben too much. But what was surprising her most was how she found herself recognising some of the theories.

  'And before you ask they are all called “patient one”, “patient two” etc. So no names.'

  Ben stood up. 'One more question though Sarah?'

  He looked straight at Sarah as he said 'Did it work?'

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Sarah had been honest with Ben. Up to a point. She had let him know the gist of what was in the documents. But not all. She really needed Ben out of the way now so she could delve deeper into the documents.

  'Had you got anything else planned for the day?' she said.

  Ben looked at Sarah. Was she trying to get rid of him?

  ‘I may have a look around this place, there’s plenty I haven't seen yet,’ he said obligingly.

  'I think I might have another look through the documents whilst you are out. I can let you know if I find anything else interesting,' replied Sarah.

  Ben stood up and said 'See you for dinner then.'

  Sarah watched Ben leave quietly though the front door. She waited until she judged that he must be away from the house. She reached down and picked up the journal Ben had prised out of the locked drawer.

  Ben wasn't sure exactly where he was going. It was just that he had felt like a spare part. It wasn't helped by Sarah keeping things back from him, which he was sure she was now. And he was surprised how defensive she had been when he had questioned what was in the documents.

  But most importantly, he had noted that she hadn’t answered him when he had asked her if the treatment had worked.

  As he shut the door behind him he looked out across the village. He could see the direction that he and Sarah had first arrived from; no point in looking there again. As he looked in that direction, he did wonder when they would be walking that way again and leaving the village. He had the feeling that it would not be left up to him.

  Over to his left in the distance was the office building, he felt he had seen enough of that for a while. Which really left the direction behind him; behind the house they were staying in. He walked past their house and headed away from the main part of the village.

  Almost as soon as he had left the buildings of the village behind, the pathway became less distinct and more difficult to follow. Soon, it had all but disappeared completely. It answered one of his many questions he had; the village had been created in the middle of the forest. It hadn't been added on a route that was already there.

  He began to push into the undergrowth, but his progress started to slow. The branches swung back into his face as he moved them out of the way. He let out a loud cry as another one hit him square in the face.

  As he rubbed at his eyes and stumbled on he saw a flash of white across his vision. His eyes were watering now and he rubbed furiously at them in an attempt to clear them. Then he saw another flash of white cross his still blurred vision.

  For some reason he decided to cry out 'Hello! Who's there?'

  There was no reply.

  His eyes began to clear partially and as he looked down at his feet, the tears drying from his eyes, he could see that he was standing in the middle of a fire.

  His eyesight now restored he realised that it was thankfully only the remnants of a fire. He bent down and touched the blackened embers; they were stone cold. He stood up slowly and realised that he had a decision to make. He could either slink away and try to be as inconspicuous as possible, or he could push into the woods.

  The woods were perfectly silent now; he looked hard ahead of him, but there was nothing but monotonous green. If he had seen anything, and he couldn't be sure because of his impaired vision, it wasn't there anymore. He took a deep breath and started to move off deeper into the woods. The small clearing that had been made to accommodate the fire disappeared and he was soon pushing slowly and painfully ahead.

  He saw it again.

  It was clear this time; no mistake a definite flash of white that had no natural place in the green wall of the woods.

  He quickened his pace, trying desperately to keep his eyes trained on the shape. He started to half walk and half run, his eyes fixed ahead of him. And then he caught his foot on a root and pitched forward, painfully landing on the floor.

  He looked down ready to curse the errant root and to shout out his hatred of all these damn trees. But the forest was blameless.

  He had bumped into a distinctly man made piece of office furniture. Ben laughed out loud; the absurdity of seeing a small coffee table out here in the middle of the woods was too much for him.

  As he looked around him, he was in no doubt now that he was standing on the edge of some form of encampment. The tree branches had been bent around to provide a framework for the foliage that was forming some sort of crude wall, Whoever had made it hadn't wanted it to be obvious. Ben thought that from twenty feet away it would just look like an ordinary patch of woodland.

  As he walked forward he could see that there were other things he would associate with an office, not the outdoors. There was what had once been an office chair and as he reached what looked like the edge he felt his shin hit something metallic. He brushed away the leaves and branches that were partially obscuring it and realised he was looking at a rather battered, but still recognisable, filing cabinet. In the middle of the woods.

  Hardly believing he was doing it, he opened the draw and in front of him was the answer to the flashes of white he had seen.

  He reached down and picked it up, holding it in front of his body as if he was in a clothes shop and as he did so he had a flash of recognition; he now resembled one of the things that had flashed across his eyeline.

  As Sarah opened the journal she was surprised it was not as it had seemed. The exterior had been very much designed to look old fashioned and she had been expecting hand written notes on old fashioned paper inside. But the outside was a facade and inside there were modern printed notes.

  Not done this for a few years, but I feel this is the best way to keep you up to date with what we are trying to do here. I know we will meet up soon, but I would still like to keep a record. I will attempt to outline what we are trying to achieve and hopefully the progress we make.

  They arrived today and no matter how hard we had tried to be completely prepared, we weren't. Some of the building work wasn't completed. We managed to keep them away from these areas; after all, it is difficult to create the illusion we want if there are wires hanging down from the ceiling!

  The staff were all in a state of high excitement. Indeed I've not seen some of them so animated before. We have a few younger members of staff; it was a deliberate policy. When you are trying something th
at is not the norm, it can be better to use people with no preconceived notions as to how things should be done.

  We have some people who you could probably describe as veterans, but even these seasoned campaigners looked uncharacteristically excited.

  Sarah leant forward in the chair as she read. It was with a mixture of excitement and dread that she read on. She noted that clearly there were gaps between entries that had been made and she wondered how much time had passed between each entry.

  Everyone has been assigned their patients. The ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ have been allocated and the family groups have been established now. It has been suggested that we add some brothers and sisters as well. But this is still under discussion. After all, it would mean using some young participants. There are moral as well as legal considerations, so we are going to hold back on that one. It has been suggested that we could introduce them at a later stage, sort of “And here's your older brother who has been away at a camp”, or ill or something. We haven't worked out the details yet. Someone said it sounded like a soap opera plot; which wasn't helpful.

  It all feels a little like the beginning of a school term or something similar. We had the first real interactions taking place today. Each house had breakfast at the family table. I think the families were a little surprised at the behaviour of the patients. But if they were behaving anything like normally, they wouldn't be here would they. If they just needed a slight behaviour modification then there wouldn't be the need for this level of elaboration. We could all go home. No, they should have known what they were expecting.

  Well, after this morning, they certainly are more aware of the potential problems.

  Had the first meetings with the families this afternoon; without the patients of course. Their enthusiasm is thankfully still there. Encouragingly they are starting to make suggestions for activities with the patients. I had to reign in some of the suggestions as I had to remind them that this is a controlled environment and we can't recreate an entirely normal life here. But I didn't want to quash their good intentions. It is still very early, but it is already becoming clear that some of the children may be more challenging than others. One in particular has already needed more resources than the others. A quick look into his background and his behaviour becomes less surprising. It has been suggested that he would benefit from an older brother figure as he isn't responding to a strong father figure. We will discuss this at our next meeting.

  There seemed to be quite a gap before the next entry as Sarah continued to read.

  It has been a busy week. And the cold I had last week doesn't seem to have gone away yet, so had to delegate some responsibilities.

  We tried the experiment of an evening in the restaurant. I now realise that this was too soon and take full responsibility. The security staff were very useful and alert; posing as waiters of course. It seemed to act as a mental overload for the children, especially child A. He seemed to calm down slightly when he was back in the family environment. Which is a positive.

  At the follow up meeting it was agreed that instead of taking all the children along at the same rate, we treat them individually. When one child is judged to be ready then we will move them onto the next stage. It was generally agreed that child A would need more resources and careful management.

  As a final note, it was suggested that internally at least, we don't refer to them as child A, B etc. So henceforth child A has become Jack, Child B Sally, and the others as Arthur and Simon. It was suggested that calling them Child A made them sound more like lab rats.

  It was also agreed that the researchers involved with the children in the family environment will be referred to as their “parents” from now on. It was felt that it would add to the authenticity.

  Things have settled down into a daily pattern now. Which is precisely what we wanted; the children seem to be responding to the structured days, generally speaking. Jack is still too quiet and sullen for his parents – they have suggested that they take him away from the house. A day trip if you like. I explained the difficulty with this, namely that we can't leave the compound. But they suggested that they just go a short distance; maybe a pseudo camping trip. Their rationale was that they might be able to bond more easily away from the confines of the compound, even if it was only a short distance. We will discuss this at a later meeting.

  (This was approved).

  The camping trip for Jack was arranged and didn't go as planned. The parents have reported that as they proceeded away from the village, all was well until they began to make a small camp and fire. His reaction completely took them by surprise and he reacted hysterically. Before they could restrain him he ran deeper into the woods. The security team are at present searching for him. Please note, no blame is to be attached, all our efforts are being put into locating him.

  On a side note, I have asked for an outside doctor to come in. I know we need to have as few people knowing about us as possible, but I need to be at my best and am still feeling a little weak. Don't worry, it is someone we can trust.

  I am pleased to report that Jack has been found. He was missing for three hours but he was persuaded to return to the house. Our review meeting (notes available) has made an initial conclusion that the camping has brought up some childhood trauma. Whilst regrettable, it has in fact given us an insight into Jack's psyche and it may be important in tracing the causes of his behaviour patterns. His parents have been instructed to gently coax any information out of him that they can.

  It's been a month now and we had our periodic review with all the staff today. Looking at their faces the enthusiasm is still there; but dealing with the children is proving draining, especially for the younger ones. Ideally we would rotate the staff, let them have time off and return rejuvenated. But we can't do that. If we are trying to create a stable, home environment for the first time for the children, we can't just rotate their mothers and fathers! So we will have to cope as best as we can.

  Interesting session with Jack. Maybe interesting is the wrong word. We tried a simple word association with him and the results were surprising, if not a little disturbing (available in the appendix).

  When we spoke on the phone you asked about some sort of time line. I'm sure you are aware that due to the nature of what we are doing here we can’t give an exact timetable. We can't look at previous examples and gauge how far we are along. So, and I know you don't want to hear this, I'm afraid I can't tell you precisely when we will finish.

  How will we be sure that we have changed the behaviour and more importantly the potential behaviour of the children? We can simulate normal interactions in the village. But the real test will be when we are not there to guide them.

  When we judge that they are ready, they will be handed back to you, as agreed.

  On a personal note, the doctor I mentioned arrived and left without incident, he left me some tablets. Hope they help. I need all my energy for this!

  Sarah put the journal on the coffee table in front of her. She looked down at her phone and realised that she had been sat there for most of the afternoon; as she looked out of the window, she could see that the sun had moved around the house and the room was getting darker.

  She wondered where Ben was. She toyed with the idea of going out to look for him, but realised that she had no real idea where to look. She picked the journal up and began to read again.

  There seemed to be a noticeable gap in the timeline, as she read she felt that they had skipped on quite some time.

  Sorry for the lack of update. But I decided to take a short rest. Well, actually it was decided for me by my boss. I am finding it increasingly exhausting here.

  It pains me to say but I can't really guarantee that I will be the one that finishes the work. The treatment from the doctor isn't really improving my health. He has begun to insist that I leave here temporarily at least, but I suspect he wants me to leave permanently. But we have come this far and I can't give up now.

  The sessions h
ave proceeded as was originally planned. I have kept my illness private from the rest of the team, but there are some aspects that I am beginning to find disturbing. There have been several incidents of low level aggressive patterns of behaviour. Most noticeably from Jack. To a certain extent this was expected due to his background, but it seems to be getting more pronounced rather than diminishing. Most surprisingly, I have had reports about the behaviour of Sally. Whenever I have seen her she has always seemed happy and smiling; almost as if she shouldn’t be here at all. But some members of staff have said that she can suddenly snap. The smile can turn to uncontrollable rage. I will monitor this.

  As a general point, the parents seem to be getting closer and closer to the children. Which is to be welcomed. But at what point do they get too close? At what point do they forget that they are not the actual parents and are researchers in an experiment? I discovered that some incidents have been actively covered up by the parents. It was only due to the surveillance cameras that we were able to observe it. It almost seems that I may have to remind them that they are not the real parents.

  **Note, I need to check if the camera in house A is still having intermittent problems.

  Things took a disturbing path today. The children in house A managed to trap their parents in their bedroom and left the house briefly. The security team managed to round them up quickly, so no damage done. But I feel that the authority of the parents is slowly eroding. Progress on their treatment seems to have slowed as well. The children seem to be retreating into their own worlds again. And they won't let us in there. All of the parents say that the children have become less likely to talk to them. They seem to be becoming withdrawn.

  I have found myself having to intervene, almost acting as a mediator between the children and the parents and researchers. I have had a few sessions alone with two of the children, I even began to mention to them about my own family. I know you wouldn’t approve of this, professional detachment and all that, but it just seemed natural. I gave the example of my own problems with my own child when she was younger. Some of the ways we worked through the problems she had. The children seemed to respond to this. It was meant as an example as to how problems can be overcome; no names of course.