'Are you hearing voices, now?' he asked.
Tell him no!
'No.'
'You're not?'
'No.'
Tell him you don't know what he's talking about! Tell him you've never heard any voices!
'I don't exactly know what you mean by voices,' Francis said.
That's good!
'I mean do you hear things spoken to you by people who are not physically present? Or perhaps, you hear things that others cannot hear.'
Francis shook his head rapidly.
'That would be crazy,' he said. He was gaining a little confidence.
The doctor examined the sheet in front of him, then once again raised his eyes toward Francis. 'So, on these many occasions when your family members have observed you speaking to no one in particular, why was that?'
Francis shifted in his seat, considering the question. 'Perhaps they are mistaken?' he said, uncertainty sliding back into his voice.
'I don't think so,' answered the doctor.
'I don't have many friends,' Francis said cautiously. 'Not in school, not in the neighborhood. Other kids tend to leave me alone. So I end up talking to myself a lot. Perhaps that's what they observed.'
The doctor nodded. 'Just talking to yourself?'
'Yes. That's right,' Francis said. He relaxed just a little more.
That's good. That's good. Just be careful
The doctor glanced at his sheets of paper a second time. He wore a small smile on his face. 'I talk to myself, sometimes, as well,' he said.
'Well. There you have it,' Francis replied. He shivered a little and felt a curious flow of warmth and cold, as if the damp and raw weather outside had managed to follow him in, and had overcome the radiator's fervent pumping heat.
'… But when I speak with myself, it is not a conversation, Mister Petrel. It is more a reminder, like 'Don't forget to pick up a gallon of milk…' or an admonition, such as, 'Ouch!' or 'Damn!' or, I must admit, sometimes words even worse. I do not carry on full back and forth, questions and replies with someone who is not present. And this, I fear, is what your family reports you have been doing for some many years now.'
Be careful of this one!
'They said that?' Francis replied, slyly. 'How unusual.'
The doctor shook his head. 'Less so than you might think, Mister Petrel.'
He walked around the desk so that he closed the distance between the two of them, ending up by perching himself on the edge of the desk, directly across from where Francis stayed confined in the wheelchair, limited certainly by the cuffs on his hands and legs, but equally by the presence of the two attendants, neither of whom had moved or spoken, but who hovered directly behind him.
'Perhaps we will return in a moment to these conversations you have, Mister Petrel,' Doctor Gulptilil said. 'For I do not fully understand how you can have them without hearing something in return and this genuinely concerns me, Mister Petrel.'
He is dangerous, Francis! He's clever and doesn't mean any good. Watch what you say!
Francis nodded his head, then realized that the doctor might have seen this. He stiffened in the wheelchair, and saw Doctor Gulptilil make a notation on the sheet of paper with a ballpoint pen.
'Let us try a different direction, then, for the moment, Mister Petrel,' the doctor continued. 'Today was a difficult day, was it not?'
'Yes,' Francis said. Then he guessed that he'd better expand on that statement, because the doctor remained silent, and fixed him with a penetrating glance. 'I had an argument. With my mother and father.'
'An argument? Yes. Incidentally, Mister Petrel, can you tell me what the date is?'
'The date?'
'Correct. The date of this argument you had today.'
He thought hard for a moment. Then he looked outside again, and saw the tree bending beneath the wind, moving spastically, as if its limbs were being jerked and manipulated by some unseen puppeteer. There were some buds just forming on the ends of the branches, and so he did some calculations in his head. He concentrated hard, hoping that one of the voices might know the answer to the question, but they were, as was their irritating habit, suddenly quite silent. He glanced about the room, hoping to spot a calendar, or perhaps some other sign that might help him, but saw nothing, and returned his eyes to the window, watching the tree move. When he turned back to the doctor, he saw that the round man seemed to be patiently awaiting his response, as if several minutes had passed since he was asked the question. Francis breathed in sharply.
'I'm sorry…' he started.
'You were distracted?' the doctor asked.
'I apologize,' Francis said.
'It seemed,' the doctor said slowly, 'that you were elsewhere for some time. Do these episodes happen frequently?'
Tell him no!
'No. Not at all.'
'Really? I'm surprised. Regardless, Mister Petrel, you were to tell me something…'
'You had a question?' Francis asked. He was angry with himself for losing the train of their conversation.
'The date, Mister Petrel?'
'I believe it is the fifteenth of March,' Francis said steadily.
'Ah, the ides of March. A time of famous betrayals. Alas, no.' The doctor shook his head. 'But close, Mister Petrel. And the year?'
He did some more calculations in his head. He knew he was twenty-one and that he'd had his birthday a month earlier, and so he guessed, 'Nineteen seventy-nine.'
'Good,' Doctor Gulptilil replied. 'Excellent. And what day is it?'
'What day?'
'What day of the week, Mister Petrel?'
'It is…' Again he paused. 'Saturday.'
'No. Sorry. Today is Wednesday. Can you remember that for me?'
'Yes. Wednesday. Of course.'
The doctor rubbed his chin with his hand. 'And now we return to this morning, with your family. It was a little more than an argument, wasn't it, Mister Petrel?'
No! It was the same as always!
'I didn't think it was that unusual…'
The doctor looked up, a slight measure of surprise on his face. 'Really? How curious, Mister Petrel. Because the report that I have obtained from the local police claims that you threatened your two sisters, and then announced that you were intending to kill yourself. That life wasn't worth living and that you hated everyone. And then, when confronted by your father, you further threatened him, and your mother, as well, if not with an attack, then with something equally dangerous. You said you wanted the whole world to go away. I believe those were your exact words. Go away. And the report further contends, Mister Petrel, that you went into the kitchen in the house you share with your parents and your two younger sisters, and that you seized a large
