THE MADNESS OF DR. CALIGARI

by Dennis Weiler

  Elena tells her bizarre tales in an upbeat sing-song tone, which makes the eerie elements even more unsettling.

  Sometimes your dreams continue the stories. You are always one of the toys, usually the patchwork princess with the yellow yarn hair—a fact that makes your question your deep-seated desires. A giant Elena looms above you and the other playthings in these visions, manipulating you to fit her stories. She dictates the plot and you must do as she describes. Even if that is to disembowel the bunny. It does not bleed stuffing, but ropes of sticky intestines.

  Elena screeches at the sight of them and points her enormous finger at you. “You’re a bad Penny,” she bellows. “You’re a bad Penny.”

  You do not sleep the rest of the night after waking up from that nightmare. You lie and count the time in between the nurse’s inspections, or when they are called to a room by a more disturbed patient. No night passes without some interruption.

  You imagine the liberation of walking on bare feet in your hushed, dark room... but you are worried they have planted a hidden camera or a microphone. It would be a shame to be caught by such a simple stratagem. So you remain immobile and practice minute control of your muscles.

  Every other afternoon there is physiotherapy with Annie, which keeps your body from wasting. You eat the soft meals they put in front of you with slow, automatic movements. You are instructed to start and you stop when you don’t wish to eat any more. You take the meds they give you and make a show of swallowing. You can be directed to the toilet and you comply without hesitation. The more you make life easier for the nurses the more complacent they become around you. After a time you learn the easiest ways to spit out pills or throw them up again in the privacy of the bathroom.

  Twice a week the statues are brought into a therapy room where the doctor waits for you. It is another off-kilter chamber with too many walls and a black floor. He takes your pulse and checks your reflexes one by one. Two of you—Margot and Deirdre—have sluggish reactions. You wonder if their medications prevent them from recovering. Deirdre has a gleam in her eye. A woman who wants to get better.

  There is a raised platform at the rear of the room with a short ramp for ease of access. The doctor herds you up there and encourages you to stand. He places you in various groupings or in a wide circle as if figuring out some obscure configuration of bodies that will unlock mysteries. He moves your arms or legs into poses, leaves you in those positions, and takes photos from in front of the stage. He regularly consults an ancient, battered leather-bound journal during these sessions. You hawkishly watch every time he picks it up to spy on it. You only snatch a couple of faraway glances: the thick white pages are covered in a black scribbled script, sometimes with diagrams, and formulae. You do not recognise the language.

  He uses a stopwatch and takes notes with a voice recorder, remarking on rigidity of limbs, or if any of the poses shift. You begin to realise that he wants guaranteed stillness, until he commands motion. He works particularly with Lisa, Gertrude, and Alice, instructing them to make simple movements. They do as he says every time. He teaches them a small set of coordinated steps, almost like a dance. He adds simple music, and there is a hypnotic quality to their dipping movements and waving arms, which they execute perfectly to his commands.

  Over a period of weeks you notice that outside of the therapy room none of you are improving. You have learned enough about your condition to know that long-term, acute catatonia is unusual. Many people recover quickly under the right treatment. You six are stunted in your release from paralysis. You consider demonstrating some sign of change, but you are curious. You want to know what the doctor is planning.

  He continually works with you during your therapy sessions, making eye contact, and ordering you to stand, or sit, or move your head. You refuse, despite the immense effort this takes to resist. You notice a difference in the colour of the pills the nurses give you, and do your best to avoid eating them completely. Sometimes this is impossible and your thoughts become elastic, pliable. Your body wishes to move as the doctor commands, but you have habituated it to only recognise your cues, so it resists even when your faculties are affected.

  He is frustrated by this, but Margot and Deirdre are similarly recalcitrant. He adjusts his plans, and begin to situate the three of you in cross-legged poses on the dais with arms raised straight up. Your three companions are directed to circle in between your fixed points, while executing their choreography.

  One day he brings in another doctor to observe you. She is young, petite, with a razor sharp cropped hairstyle, and a jewelled septum nose piercing. They consult quietly together first, and you overhear him call her Deborah. The doctor sets you, Margot, and Deirdre on the platform in your usual spots, and sets the others dancing. Deborah taps the screen on her phone and the speakers in the room play a strange tune. It sounds old, somehow. As if recorded in a Minoan temple. You don’t know why that thought comes to you, but it seems apt.

  The dancers’ movements suit the rhythm exactly. They are more graceful with the accompanying tune, as if they are inspired by the music to refine their steps. Their clothes flair out slightly and brush against your skin as they pass. A breeze begins, and you sense something else stirring and uncurling in the room. As if another sleepwalker is being stirred into unconscious dance.

  The doctor taps her screen and the music ends. The three women continue their silent dance, until the doctor calls a halt.

  “Good,” she says. “It’s almost there.”

  “Who will speak?”

  Deborah regards your group, and shakes her head to indicate her lack of knowledge. “Whoever is chosen.” She pauses, “Maybe all of them.”

  The doctor seems taken aback by this. “Surely not. His notes indicate there will be one oracle.”

  “Your grandfather only dared work with one subject. And often in uncontrolled environments.”

  He bridles at her criticism, and shoots her a haughty look. “With ambition comes risk.”

  She bends her head as one does to a superior. Her words are those of an acolyte repeating a well-worn response. “The way to know is to do.”

  ***

  Since that last session with the two doctors there is a subtle change in the institute. It’s like a new scent is in the air and everyone can smell it, the patients most of all. It reminds you of the nature documentaries they play on TV endlessly: the group of zebras with heads raised, tails swishing, muscles trembling with the need to spring away from danger. But you patients have nowhere to dash from the watering hole.

  You are bunched together, restless, vulnerable.

  Two days later a dense mist sweeps down from the mountains and over the tree tops. It swaddles the glass of the sun room on all sides, sealing you in grey. Natasha doesn’t braid anyone’s hair, and Rosie shoots you angry glances from where she is slumped in the couch as if she blames you for this omission. An edgy lassitude possesses you all. You worry that if one person is set off the whole room might erupt into berserk energy.

  Elena dumps out all the dolls and bricks in the middle of the floor for one of her storytelling sessions. She creates three strongholds of multi-coloured blocks, and plunks the princess in the centre. She picks up the ragamuffin doll, the swan, and the bunny in both hands and begins to dance them around the ramparts. She hums a tune. It’s off-key but it’s similar to the one Deborah played in the therapy room. As best you can you glance around at the other statues. You think they are paying attention despite their frozen postures.

  Rosie stands up and begins to clap to the tune. Elena beams up at her and sings louder. The toys caper faster. Two more patients rise to their feet and clap. Nurse Sara drifts to the doorway and watches, but doesn’t intervene.

  Rosie begins to chant, “Dance, dance, dance, dance...”

  Lisa, Gertrude, and Alice quietly stand up. Sara issues a startled gasp, but now she is the one frozen in pla
ce.

  All the patients clap, and Elena’s singing becomes manically loud. The three statues converge in the centre of the room and commence their dance around the blocks. At once, the atmosphere shifts in the room and Elena’s voice seems to resonate and double as if others are singing harmonies with her.

  Sara is released from indecision, and enters the room, her hands already raised in a calming gesture. One of the patients is on her in an instant, her arm locked around Sara’s throat, keeping her immobile. Sara claws for release but is stretched back with little purchase.

  Rosie’s head turns and singles you out in the room. You see the malice slip forward from its hiding place. Still clapping, she skips over to your chair, and lowers her face to look you squarely in the face.

  She raises her fist and slowly uncurls her fingers to reveal a secreted pencil. “Daughter of man,” she whispers to you, “you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.”

  Rosie grips the pencil like a weapon. “You are a bad Penny, among the righteous. Without you, I can step upon the path again. And see the glory anew.”

  She strikes at your eye but your hand whips up to catch her wrist in a surprisingly firm grip. Rosie’s eyes widen first in surprise, then with satisfied glee.

  You head-butt her.

  She roars in pain and staggers back. Your skull reverberates from the contact and your vision is spangled with stars of agony. Amidst the dazzle and the noise a figure stands up in the centre of the room: a woman in a straight white gown, and long dark hair. Her face is a cluster of stars in an empty void.

  Your head rings and feels twice as heavy as normal. The figure begins to move towards you, but in strangely displaced movements, as if she is warping from one spot to another, to avoid contact with the other patients.

  Suddenly she is front of you. You see the sparkling white of her shift, but you will not raise your head to look into that face, even though it feels as if a thousand hands are upon your skull, pushing it up.

  You are a rebellious house, Penelope, says a voice in your head.

  “DESIST” the voice booms from the doorway. The doctor is a blot overlaid on blossoms of pain. Elena drops into a foetal ball on the floor, the statues refreeze. Rosie retreats to her couch, blubbering, with her hand over her forehead. Nurses swarm into the room bristling with injections.

  Soon you are tucked up in bed, in a haze.

  But the imprint of the woman remains on your drugged vision. She is the strip of shadow underneath the door, the spear of light through the window, a presence which slips between the empty spaces looking for a way out.

  You are glad for the drug that keeps you fuzzy, because your instinctive reaction to Rosie’s attack has woken something in you. Now, in the background, hums a desire to move again of your own volition.

  You resist the urge. Not until you observe the doctor’s special rite.

  ***

  The waiting wears on you. The usual routines recommence, except for the sessions in the therapy room. The doctor pays special attention to Lisa, Gertrude, and Alice and has extra treatments with them alone.

  He enters the examination room when you are being scrutinised by the resident physician, Dr Allen. You have an angry bump on your forehead, but it’s not as bad as Rosie’s black eye. The cameras in the sun room did not catch your interaction, although they captured Rosie’s staggered retreat through the bodies back to her couch. You discover she is insisting that you attacked her. Given both your records, Rosie’s account is the least credible.

  Allen checks your pupil reflexes, and you relax as much as possible at the invasion of light. You sense the unseen woman standing behind you in this moment. You can feel the icy regard of those dead stars upon your neck.

  “Any signs of concussion?” the doctor asks. He is observing you very carefully.

  “Apart from this impressive goose egg on her temple, she checks out fine. Well,” Dr Allen raises your wrist and lets it go so it remains in place, hanging, “as fine as she in this condition.”

  He frowns and studies your chart. “Perhaps we need to change up her medication. She should have improved by now.”

  “I’ve consulted with Dr Olsen about this case. She outlined a therapy we’ve been investigating. I have hopes it will be successful.”

  Dr Allen stands, and pulls off his gloves now that the examination is over. The doctor moves before you to bend and stare directly at your face. Your flat gaze locks with his piercing regard. “If that doesn’t work then Deborah believes she can convince Penelope’s husband to try ECT.”

  It’s hard to suppress any flinch of surprise.

  Dr Allen nods as he jots notes on your chart, “It can be effective in these cases.”

  Behind you the phantom presence presses against your spine.

  The doctor smiles at you. “I’ve no doubt Penelope will respond to the right course.”

  The desire to spit in his face causes a muscle to twitch in your thigh.

  ***

  The therapy sessions recommence. There is a new tension in the doctor, and he monitors every part of your ritual exactly. Deborah returns to watch another run-through. She stands behind you so you cannot see her reaction, and her conversations with the doctor are too low to overhear.

  Outside the sessions Rosie and you are kept apart, and Elena is no longer allowed to play with the toys. She sits, defensively curled, her expression blank. You wonder if she will retreat further into herself, and become a statue. And you wonder how she knew that tune, and what is her history of treatment?

  You cannot be a sleuth because of the path you have chosen. Answers come to those who hunt. They do not drop into dormant hands. Frustration agitates your mind, and threatens your control.

  Previously you were convinced your inaction was the best revenge, now you waver. You remember this kind of intractable attitude was never one you admired. Before.

  The released spirit lurks close by. You consider there may be other ragged remnants teeming all around this place. Inescapable observers.

  You are a rebellious house. You keep hearing that phrase.

  You wonder if you should open the door and free what you have shut away.

  ***

  It happens unexpectedly. Late one night, Deborah enters your room and urges you up and into a wheelchair. The corridors you are wheeled through are empty except for bouncing light. You are dozy, and strain not to squint against the glare.

  The room is lit with large white candles in three tall candelabras. A huge backdrop hangs behind the platform. On it is drawn a jagged path in black pointing to the top of a cliff, upon which perches a lighthouse signalling a diamond flash of light. The flickering shadows from the candlelight dart across the faces of your fellow statues, and you can feel the wraith skipping in and out of the moments in between.

  Deborah eases you into your position on the stage, facing front, and you hear whispering. The doctor moves into view and there are other people with him. It’s hard to discern them in the darkness as they all wear black clothing. Their shiny faces exude a simmering excitement.

  The doctor wears a vaudevillian outfit with exaggerated makeup. He is stepping into a part, and taking the power of that mantle upon him. “ Ladies and Gentlemen, you are witnessing a rare re-enactment, and those of you who have questions will be answered. All secrets will be penetrated, if you remember our instructions, and keep to them exactly.”

  The audience nod their heads, and stare at you with open fascination.

  Deborah starts the music. It’s a more complex version, with strings, drums, rattles, and odd hissing. Lisa, Gertrude, and Alice begin their sinuous weaving between the three seated positions, and to your mind’s eyes you are wrenched somewhere else: a black plane on which stand three white towers, while three
priestesses carrying snakes wheel around a white flamed fire.

  The great presence permeates: it is the heat, the bricks, the tongues of the serpents, and the breath of the women. You are both the tower and the motion, and your stillness in the distant room is imperative to experience the ecstasy of the whole.

  A penitent resolves from beyond, and you observe him dispassionately.

  A question hovers in his mind, a stupid one about investments. You can answer it easily enough as it is simple to pick it out from the threads of man’s predictable patterns, but it is odiously dull, and will not grant you egress.

  What you want, what you always crave, is to slip out of this flat realm and into the curves and curls of human interactions. To embroil yourself in the passion and pull of fleshy existence. Where you can cascade change in delicious combinations.

  Here, on your territory, they are easy to influence. Mistakes are made when they are pulled out of their world and made walk in your unusual spaces. Only those who are practised at stepping outside the familiar can resist your sway.

  You perceive his thought processes clearly. The question, in this weird unspace, seems foolish, corpulent. How can he pass on this rare chance to force insight of one of the great mysteries?

  The question flashes into his mind, “When will I die?”

  You are out, and in his world.

  Shudderingly, you are wrenched back into the room, along with the vast presence. All the statues are compelled to stand, even you.

  The doctor, he who thought he had planned so carefully, grabs the seeker and attempts to push him to the door.

  Deborah stops the music but that will not prevent this prophesy.