Flowers for Algernon

for an instant the shimmering flower turns into the golden disk twirling on a string, and then to the bubble of swirling rainbows, and finally I am back in the cave where everything is quiet and dark and I swim the wet labyrinth searching for one to receive me… embrace me… absorb me… into itself.

That I may begin.

In the core I see the light again, an opening in the darkest of caves, now tiny and far away—through the wrong end of a telescope—brilliant, blinding, shimmer­ing, and once again the multipetaled flower (swirling lotus— that floats near the entrance of the unconscious). At the entrance of that cave I will find the answer, if I dare go back and plunge through it into the grotto of light beyond.

Not yet!

I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been. And as I start through the opening, I feel the pressure around me, propelling me in violent wavelike motions toward the mouth of the cave.

It's too small! I can't get through!

And suddenly I am hurled against the walls, again and again, and forced through the opening where the light threatens to burst my eyes. Again, I know I will pierce the crust into that holy light. More than I can bear. Pain as I have never known, and coldness, and nausea, and the great buzzing over my head flapping like a thousand wings. I open my eyes, blinded by the intense light. And flail the air and tremble and scream.

I came out of it at the insistence of a hand shaking me roughly. Dr. Strauss.

'Thank God,' he said, when I looked into his eyes. 'You had me worried.'

I shook my head. 'I'm all right.'

'I think maybe that's all for today.'

I got up and swayed as I regained my perspective. The room seemed very small. 'Not only for today,' I said. 'I don't think I should have any more sessions. I don't want to see any more.'

He was upset, but he didn't try to talk me out of it. I took my hat and coat and left.

And now—Plato's words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames:

'… the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes</emphasis>'

October 5

Sitting down to type these reports is difficult, and I can't think with the tape recorder going. I keep putting it off for most of the day, but I know how important it is, and I've got to do it. I've told myself I won't have dinner until I sit down and write something— anything.

Professor Nemur sent for me again this morning. He wanted me at the lab for some tests, the kind I used to do. At first I figured it was only right, because they're still pay­ing me, and it's important I have the record complete, but when I got down to Beekman and went through it all with Burt, I knew it would be too much for me.

First it was the paper and pencil maze. I remembered how it was before when I learned to do it quickly, and when I raced against Algernon. I could tell it was taking me a lot longer to solve the maze now. Burt had his hand out to take the paper, but I tore it up instead and threw the pieces into the waste basket.

'No more. I'm through running the maze. I'm in a blind alley now, and that's all there is to it.'

He was afraid I'd run out, so he calmed me down. 'That's all right, Charlie. Just take it easy.'

'What do you mean 'take it easy'? You don't know what it's like.'

'No, but I can imagine. We all feel pretty sick about it.'

'Keep your sympathy. Just leave me alone.'

He was embarrassed, and then I realized it wasn't his fault, and I was being lousy toward him. 'Sorry I blew up,' I said. 'How's everything going? Got your thesis finished yet?'

He nodded. 'Having it retyped now. I'll get my Ph.D. in February.'

'Good boy.' I slapped him on the shoulder to show him I wasn't angry with him. 'Keep plugging. Nothing like an education. Look, forget what I said before. I'll do anything else you want. Just no more mazes—that's all.'

'Well, Nemur wants a Rorschach check'

'To see what's happening down deep? What does he expect to find?'

I must have looked upset, because he started to back off. 'We don't have to. You're here voluntarily. If you don't want to—'

'That's all right. Go ahead. Deal out the cards. But don't tell me what you find out.'

He didn't have to.

I knew enough about the Rorschach to know that it wasn't what you saw in the cards that counted, but how you reacted to them. As wholes, or parts, with movement or just motionless figures, with special attention to the color spots or ignoring them, with lots of ideas or just a few stereotyped responses.

'It's not valid,' I said. 'I know what you're looking for. I know the kind of responses I'm supposed to have, to create a certain picture of what my mind is like. All I've got to do is…'

He looked up at me, waiting.

'All I've got to do is…'

But then it hit me like a fist against the side of my head that I didn't remember what I had to do. It was as if I had been looking at the whole thing clearly on the black­board of my mind, but when I turned to read it, part of it had been erased and the rest didn't make sense.

At first, I refused to believe it. I went through the cards in a panic, so fast that I was choking on my words. I wanted to tear the inkblots apart to make them reveal themselves. Somewhere in those inkblots there were an­ swers I had known just a little while ago. Not really in the inkblots, but in the part of my mind that would give form and meaning to them and project my imprint on them.

And I couldn't do it. I couldn't remember what I had to say. All missing.

'That's a woman…' I said, '… on her knees washing the floors. I mean—no—it's a man holding a knife.' And even as I said it, I knew what I was saying and I switched away and started off in another direction. 'Two figures tug­ging at something… like a doll… and each one is pulling so it looks as if they're going to tear it apart and—no!— I mean it's two faces staring at each other through the win­dow, and—'

I swept the cards off the table and got up.

'No more tests. I don't want to take any more tests.'

'All right, Charlie. We'll stop for today.'

'Not just for today. I'm not coming back here any more. Whatever there is left in me that you need, you can get from the progress reports. I'm through running the maze. I'm not a guinea pig any more. I've done enough. I want to be left alone now.'

'All right, Charlie. I understand.'

'No, you don't understand because it isn't happening to you, and no one can understand but me. I don't blame you. You've got your job to do, and your Ph.D. to get, and—oh, yes, don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity, but still you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level. I passed your floor on the way up, and now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. So let's just say good-bye here and now.' 'Don't you think you should talk to Dr.—' 'Say good-bye to everyone for me, will you? I dont feel like facing any of them again.'

Before he could say any more or try to stop me, I was out of the lab, and I caught the elevator down and out of Beekman for the last time.

October 7

Strauss tried to see me again this morning, but I wouldn't open the door. I want to be left to myself now.

It's a strange sensation to pick up a book you read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover you don't re­member it. I recall how wonderful I thought Milton was. When I picked up Paradise Lost I could only remember it was about Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge, but now I couldn't make sense of it.

I stood up and closed my eyes and saw Charlie—my­self—six or seven years old, sitting at the dinner table with a schoolbook, learning to read, saying the words over and over with my mother sitting beside him, beside me…

'Try it again.'