by Gary Fry
“Am I…what, sorry?” he asked the smiling girl, switching his gaze back her way and noticing how she continued staring at him. She resembled a docile rabbit regarding the blistering headlights of an oncoming car…or maybe the headlights themselves, which made Daryl the hapless victim, that doomed and desperate proverbial bunny.
Just then, the girl began to repeat herself—“I asked you whether you were one of…” —but then another sharp intake of breath from everyone else in the lounge, as well as several youths now standing at the opening to the games room, prevented her from repeating the curious phrase Daryl had heard moments earlier.
The undisciplined. Was that what the girl had said? If so, what had this meant? He knew it certainly couldn’t refer to the people around him, because each appeared ruthlessly self-controlled, unimpeachably well-mannered. And was this a characteristic of every resident of this village? Did they all meet up each evening, in this pub, consuming only temperate substances and enjoying unfailing polite communal relations? Just what was going on here?
Daryl now felt roused to reply, somehow tempering his escalating disquiet. Many years ago, he’d become a master of emotional restraint, having learned the trick well as a youngster growing up in a fraught household and during a schooling focused on empirical subjects: science, mathematics, and behavioral humanities. Then, with much resolve in mind, he said, “I’m a…well, if you must know, I’m a cognitive scientist.”
“What’s a cog—…a cognitive scientist?” the girl asked, as if these words were new to her and she even had trouble pronouncing them. “Is that, like, someone really clever?”
He might feel flattered if not for the heightened attention he sensed from everyone in his vicinity. The villagers’ eyes wide and keen, they all seemed to observe his every move, making him feel threatened in an insidious way. But his disquiet arose not only from their scrutiny, but also from the fact that his interrogator was extremely pretty, almost impossibly so. That was when Daryl, with a haste he was unable to restrain, lapsed into absurdly misplaced pride.
“Well, I, er…” he began, none too successfully, but quickly overruled such an uncharacteristic lack of eloquence by adding, “I’ve dedicated my professional career to discovering the wellsprings of human behavior, what makes us all tick.”
“Tick?” asked the girl, her lush lips ruled like parallel lines. Her whole face now resembled a symmetrical mask of unquenchable curiosity.
“Yes, how people function in everyday life, I mean,” Daryl replied, keen to elaborate. “I’m interested in the underlying mechanisms that govern psychological life.”
“That sounds very dull,” the girl continued, and as she did so, all the people around her expressed disapproval with rigidly conveyed body language alone, their postures stiffening like branches, twiggish limbs protruding with carpentered precision… But now Daryl was letting residual perceptions from his earlier experience interfere with his present engagement. He ought to simply reply to the girl.
“No, not dull at all,” he said with an enthusiasm that came very close to lapsing into unbridled pleasure. His academic discipline always fired him up, whatever the circumstances. “Mental life can be so fascinating.”
“Not round here it can’t,” the girl added, her perfectly formed face distorted by the faintest tracings of a frown.
Again the crowd in the bar seemed to grow soundlessly critical, their faces registering dismay, but then Daryl rose involuntarily to his theme, his mind racing around with countless thoughts and ideas. His great passion in life had begun coursing through him, like hot blood in his veins. Then, as if about to perform some virtuosic party-piece, he said, “Tell me, young lady, why do you claim that it’s dull around here?”
“Because it is.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Hey, what is this?”
Daryl paused, deciding this was probably a good time to explain his impromptu goal here. “With your permission, my dear, I’d like to conduct a little psychological experiment.”
“What…kind of an experiment?”
If the sixteen- or seventeen-year-old had looked exasperated moments ago, she now appeared as warily intrigued as everyone else lurking nearby. The group of villagers clutched their drinks, standing pertly or seated on the edges of chairs, their bodies ensnared in all those pristine outfits. Everyone seemed eager to see where the discussion between Daryl and the girl would lead, even the mustachioed man who’d served the drink and now leaned over his bar top to observe these unprecedented developments.
Moments later, Daryl—unwilling to frustrate all his new adherents, the same way he enjoyed leading lectures back at university—began to perform a well-rehearsed game.
“This exercise is called laddering,” he explained, taking a step back to a more convenient location, toward the heart of the beer lounge. He noticed more youths gathering at the games room entrance, each clearly focused exclusively on this new episode. “You must respond to a series of questions, my dear, and by doing so, I can help you ascend your construct system.”
“What’s my const—” the girl began, but Daryl had already anticipated the inquiry and was ready with a smart answer.
“It’s a phrase I recently invented to describe how the human mind codifies and organizes information,” he replied, but then, mindful of avoiding any ignoble pride, he got down to business. Looking directly at the girl, he said, “And now tell me, why is it dull around here?”
“Because…well, because nothing ever happens.”
At least she was attempting to engage with the process, surely every bit as eager as her fellow villagers were to see where it would lead. Frederique had never been this interested in such rigorous material, preferring tacky magazines and the loathsome astronomers who wrote for them…but none of this would help Daryl demonstrate the veracity of his theories; he must get on.
Then he added, “And why does it bother you that nothing ever happens here?”
“Uh, well, I suppose because…I like having fun.”
“And why do you like having fun?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“But…” He hesitated a moment, his mind adjusting to the girl’s question. “…but why does everybody like having fun?”
“Well…what other reason is there to be alive?”
Daryl could think of plenty, his obsessively conducted research chief among them, but he was supposed to be focusing on the girl: up and up her mental ladder he must climb… That was when he asked, “And why do you believe that other things aren’t worth living for?”
“Other things…such as what?” asked the girl, and as she did, Daryl noticed all the other people around them—everyone except the youngsters standing at the games room entrance—develop even keener expressions of curiosity. Daryl had the impression they all approved of the way he’d directed the conversation up till this stage, as if he’d been making points they’d also tried conveying to their junior peers… Indeed, Daryl believed he must now press home this putative advantage.
“The exercise doesn’t work if you ask questions. That’s my role as the investigator. So let me suggest other virtues in life such as study, work, and…” He paused, scanning left and right with his peripheral vision, and then, recalling words spoken earlier after he’d arrived in this pub, he finished, “…and discipline.”
At that moment, the girl—whose name, Daryl now realized, he’d yet to ask for—grew visibly annoyed and immediately fled back to all her junior friends nearby, leaving her inquisitor alone with the older, seemingly approving adult drinkers.
For a lengthy spell, Daryl felt quite embarrassed and continued staring across at the girl who, after reaching the doorway, had turned to glance back, her eyes looking haunted and hurt, as if to say: You’re just the same as the rest of them. Well, you’re in good company now, and believe me, you’re welcome to them.
But that was when one of the people close by spoke to Daryl.
“Can a cognitive scientist
fix broken people?”
Turning quickly away from the youths, Daryl spotted a short, bearded man dressed in a smart suit and tie, wearing a stiff expression that was pitched somewhere between anxiety and optimism. A few others around him appeared similarly uppity, as if hoping Daryl could now tell them something they desperately wished to hear.
Setting aside countless nebulous suspicions, Daryl asked, “Fix people? Well, I certainly believe that my psychological approach can lend itself well to a therapeutic agenda. But…do you have someone particular in mind?”
As his questioner stepped forward to take him by one arm, several others directly behind also looked ready to leave the pub.
“Come with us,” said the bearded man, and, abandoning his unfinished drink just as his companions now had, he began leading Daryl away.
6
The last image Daryl registered before being directed back into the high street was the girl staring from a bunch of other youngsters, each of whom wore knowingly critical expressions…except for her, who now looked unmistakeably worried.
He wondered whether she was concerned about him, and if so, what this might imply. After fleeing with dismay minutes earlier, concern on her part seemed unlikely, but that was certainly what her expression had suggested. And if she was fearful for him, Daryl thought, what might be about to happen?
Outside, as a cool evening breeze quickly assaulted him, Daryl turned to observe his companions, two men and a woman. One was the short, bearded guy who’d asked (or did Daryl mean instructed?) him to leave the pub. The other man was tall and gaunt, whose marching posture was no less rigorously coordinated than that of his friends. The woman was smartly attired in a long dress that exposed her arms, with neatly applied makeup, faultless jewelery and well-toned musculature. All were clearly middle-aged, and yet remarkably well-preserved for their ages. Daryl had always admired people who’d reached this period of life; some of his academic heroes had done their finest work during the later stages of their careers.
But none of this should blind him to any unpredictable developments or even danger he might be about to face… Pacing swiftly along as the threesome continued moving down a street opposite The Tempered Wolf, Daryl raised his voice above a whistling wind from a restless sky. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but…well, where are we going?”
He thought again of the girl’s face when he’d left the pub, how she alone among several youngsters had looked scared…possibly of the people now leading Daryl elsewhere in this strange village?
Just then, the bearded man replied, “Please allow me to introduce you to Dr. Curtis.”
“Good evening, sir,” said the tall, gaunt man, his voice clipped and measured, perfectly befitting his responsible profession. A medical doctor, thought Daryl, his respect increasing as he glanced at this guy…but that was when the bearded man spoke again.
“And this is P.C. Robinson.”
He was now clearly referring to the woman, who then—with similar brevity, her tone officiously direct—said, “Pleased to meet you.”
After nodding at the out-of-uniform police constable, Daryl looked again at the bearded man. “And what’s your role here?”
“I’m Councillor Chapman,” the guy snapped back, his face looking sharp and watchful, bleached by the rapidly rising moon.
Now that Daryl had a proper opportunity to observe the trio, he found it difficult not to notice the clinically crisp motion demonstrated by their unhesitating postures, as if every limb had been artificially combined, each joint well-oiled to become smooth and flexible. For one foolish moment, his perception still under stain, Daryl even fancied that their faces had assumed the form of geometric shapes, not unlike those that characterized all the trees and vegetation he’d seen in the village, just after experiencing a loss of balance in that field close to his car.
Daryl certainly mustn’t forget why he’d come here, but he was also intrigued by what these three eminent local people wanted from him. He’d been asked if he could fix people…and what on earth did this mean?
They’d reached the end of the lane, where all of the village’s property ended and gave on to many fields of darkness. Multiple trees, dim and distant, swayed in a relentless breeze, and Daryl simply knew that these would be the unorthodox species he’d observed earlier in that weird fringe of perimeter woodland. Nevertheless, instead of wasting time observing their murky, angular forms, he listened to his new companions, who’d just started talking among themselves.
“Surely we have the right suspect,” said the doctor.
“Yes, we’ll have no more trouble here,” replied the police constable.
“Indeed. But let’s see what we can now do to fix him,” added the councillor, and then turned to Daryl to indicate, with one back-turned thumb, a building standing on the next corner, whose moribund facade suggested a disarmingly deceptive formality, a place in this locality that few people talked about, let alone ventured near. And that was when the man said, “The killer’s in here.”
Daryl grew alarmed, but was unable to resist when the trio directed him through this new building’s front entrance and then into a lobby no less lugubrious than the property’s frontage. A man was seated here, in a cramped security booth, his suit neatly pressed and a cap perched with remarkable symmetry upon his perfectly bald scalp. He was also about fifty years old, and after standing and coming across to greet the newcomers with a robotically precise gait, his dull eyes winked in the lamplight coming from a single corridor nearby.
“I assume you’re here to see…well, we all know who,” the guard said with the same economy of language that seemed to characterize everyone else in this village.
“Our visitor might be able to help,” the councillor replied, turning to point at Daryl as if he’d now become one of the strange villagers, all these ruthlessly marshaled residents of such a remote place. And then the bearded man looked back to the guard and added in a strained voice, “Lead us on to the undisciplined.”
7
Daryl had recently settled on the notion that despite their bestial antecedents, human beings were essentially rational creatures whose minds functioned like sense-making devices, using perception and memory to structure behavior in a cognitive process he’d often termed “situated choice.”
This part of his theory had proved uncontroversial, but his claim that all immoral acts were simply bad choices made in specific situations certainly had. In this regard, his work challenged a received wisdom asserting that dishonorable behavior only occurred when emotional factors overruled a fundamentally rational psyche.
The point had formed the core of criticisms from many other professionals. It was also the reason—or so Daryl believed—that colleagues at the university in which he worked had often shunned his intellectual endeavors. But he suspected that the motivation behind such negative attitudes was envy. After all, for countless years, most commentators on the subject of human identity had subscribed uncritically to an underlying assumption that Daryl’s work had recently overturned: yes, there was certainly a beast in man, but even its savage actions were rooted in reason.
As Daryl was led along a corridor boasting low, flickering light, he thought about Frederique back in Leeds, the only person who’d ever tried to understand and support him. Right now, he felt great love for her, a surprising sensation that he believed was inversely related to the mounting unease he experienced as the passageway lost a little of its scant illumination and then terminated to reveal two heavy-looking doors, each shut tight.
“What have we come to see?” he asked, as the bearded man—the village’s councillor, Daryl had been told—stepped aside to let the bald guard pass, while the doctor and police constable looked on. Then the uniformed official produced a key from one pocket and pushed it into a slot in one of the doors, below a head-wide panel higher up, which, now unlocked, was slid aside to allow onlookers a clear view inside the room beyond. Daryl had thought the whole door would be opened, but perhap
s that was considered too dangerous. And in that scenario, what on earth existed behind the panel?
“Please observe,” said the councillor, stepping back to beckon Daryl forward. Daryl went, now feeling even more uncomfortable, and moments later, still wary of his four new associates, he proceeded to glance through the newly created opening.
After stepping up close, Daryl stood on tiptoe and then found himself looking inside a small room, about the size of an average bathroom. What little light animated its interior came from a small window on the left-hand wall, framing a mawkish moon. Then, once his eyes had properly adjusted to the gloom, Daryl noticed a figure in the far right-hand corner. It was slumped on the floor, curled up like a spider, its limbs tucked into itself. Daryl was immediately put in mind of huddled prisoners he’d seen in about a million chronologies of great wars: the emaciated, ill-fed frame; the unkempt hair; the lack of suitable clothing in such a dingy location. But seconds later, as if responding to Daryl’s fearful thoughts, the figure stirred slightly, its arms and legs unfolding, stretching out, gaining tangible strength, and then, with a silence Daryl found increasingly disturbing, began climbing to its feet. It was certainly a man, Daryl realized at once; the guy boasted a curveless frame, had a flatness of the chest and a modest bulge about the groin. And that was when he advanced into the heart of the room, as if, with animal intelligence, he’d just become aware that he was being watched.
“He can’t harm you,” said the police constable, presently unseen to Daryl, just a voice in his peripheries. “Whatever happens next, he’s unable to get out of there.”
Whatever happens next… Daryl wondered what the hell could happen next. Nevertheless, on the other side of the door, ill-defined by the stage-light that was the waxing moon, something certainly had begun happening to the figure’s body.
“He’s about to change,” added the doctor, now looking, as his associates were, over one or the other of Daryl’s shoulder.
