A lot of kids at his school grew up in religious families and, from what he could see, that didn’t make them better people. Pat worked hard to be good to others and didn’t need a belief system to fall back on. He was content knowing that he was a good person even if others thought he was odd.
Then he met Justice. He happened to notice her tall hourglass figure and curtain of red hair shimmering under the fluorescents in the cafeteria. He had been convinced he had never gone through puberty, but that all changed when he saw Justice. What was strange was that she saw him too. When she caught him staring, she took it upon herself to pull him from the darkness. Nobody questioned it. Nobody made fun of her for it. She was so popular that people just assumed Pat had become better because of her. Their friendship drifted seamlessly into a romantic relationship, and they ended up marrying directly after high school graduation. Owen Sherwood bought them a home and there they lived until the accident.
Justice had brought Pat out of despair and it was his turn to rescue her. His body was present as she was ripped from him. His body was present at her memorial service. His body was present when he went to bed alone for the first time since getting married. His heart wasn’t present. His heart was with Justice and knew she couldn’t be gone forever.
***
When he woke the next morning, the first person to greet him was his wife.
“Justice.” He sighed. It was like his dreams had drifted into reality and he didn’t question it.
“Patty.” She sat beside him in the king bed and gazed into his eyes. “You look exhausted.”
“I am.” His hand reached for hers and he was certain he felt her warmth.
But this couldn’t be real.
“I am real.” She insisted as if reading his thoughts.
Pat grabbed his phone from his bedside table and quickly pulled up his app for the Thought Conductor. It was registering that the chip was off-line and his heart sank.
“You are not. I am hallucinating.”
“Darling, why would you say that?” Justice’s voice was filled with emotion and sounded as if her heart was about to break.
“You are not real and something is wrong. I must have…I must have…” A light bulb went off in his brain and he remembered suddenly how he had fallen last night.
Kicking his sheets aside and letting go of Justice’s hand, he slid off the bed and rushed to his bathroom. He looked in his mirror at his thin haggard face. He was in his early 20s, but the few lines his face did have were very pronounced. Under his eyes were dark circles and dried drool was crusted on the right corner of his mouth. He ran his fingers across the place where they had inserted the microchip and he could feel a raised bump the size of a golf ball a few inches behind his right ear.
The demonic humming started up in his ears and below that the sound of women screaming for their lives. He could see Justice behind him in the doorway. She looked real, but he had to remind himself that she wasn’t. He would know when she was real and this wasn’t it.
“Excuse me.” He said to the hallucination as he shoved past her and went downstairs.
He forced himself to walk through his morning routine and eat a bowl of cereal as she watched him quizzically from every doorway. As he tried to ignore her, a dog walked through his living room, but he knew he had no dog. Even though this was frightening, he kept telling himself that when he got to work, he would be able to figure out what to do.
As he was leaving, Justice smiled in amusement as she said, “I will make you believe, my love.”
***
“There’s the prodigal!” Theresa shouted whenever Pat was within earshot.
“Please. Shhh…” Pat held up a long bony finger to his lips to shush her. The noise he was experiencing in his head was enough without her screeching.
“We have been dealing with the media all day. One reporter is claiming that you nearly assaulted him when he asked for the truth. Is that true?”
Pat slowly shook his head. “Of course not. He ambushed me at my own home, knocked me over, and deactivated my chip.”
Theresa held her breath. Even though she had always loved Owen Sherwood despite his flaws, there was something about Pat having schizophrenia that obviously bothered her. She seemed to be a holdover from the past when it was unacceptable for people to be different than the majority. As much as she tried to hide this from others, Pat could recognize the expression on her face as mild disgust and fear.
“Oh, is that so? Are you having…trouble now?” She asked cautiously.
“Yes. I need a list of all the microchip surgeons in the area immediately so I can get it fixed.”
“Of course, but…”
“Now, please.” He knew if he didn’t act quickly, he would revert to his old self. The chip’s effects would only last until the brain figured out what was happening.
Pat turned on his heel and headed to his office so Theresa wouldn’t have space to complain about the task he had given her to do. When he was in the comfort of his office, he pressed his knuckles firmly into his eyes so that when he pulled them away he saw fuzzy purple dots.
A few emails later, Theresa brought him a list of the doctors to whom they supplied the microchips. Many of the calls he made ended in leaving messages with secretaries or having to leave a voicemail. When his calls resulted in nothing, he pulled open his desk drawer and dug around through the contents until his hand landed on a pill bottle. When he had been first diagnosed, they prescribed him a medication that gave him horrible tremors and nausea. Even so, he continued to refill the medicine just in case. Tentatively, he swallowed a pill and washed it down with lukewarm coffee.
Even though he had come to work at 10 am, he left for an early lunch at 11:30 am. It felt like he was walking in a fishbowl everywhere he went. He was amongst people but didn’t feel part of humanity. It took all his energy to not let things overtake him.
His body took him to his favorite dinner place and he sat in the same booth he had shared with Janice a few nights before. At one time, he thought he was a good person to others, but that wasn’t a certainty anymore. He knew he would hurt so many people just to bring Justice back.
“Patrick Sherwood, right?” A scruffy but handsome man in his late twenties approached the booth and broke through the fog of Pat’s musings. His smile was bright and he seemed to be riding on a cloud of confidence.
“Yes.” Pat wanted to respond sarcastically, but he was emptied of witty responses.
“Do you mind if I sit?” Pat nodded and the man sat across from him. “I’m Dr. Clive Evers.” Pat did not say anything, but he recognized the name. That was one of the voicemails he had left despite his better judgment. “It’s great to finally meet you.”
“I don’t get that often.” Pat laughed derisively.
“I doubt that. You are widely recognized for all you’ve done to advance mental health treatments.”
“What my father has done.” Pat took a long sip from his drink and raised his eyebrows.
“Well, of course. He was a great man.” Dr. Evers flashed a crooked smile that would certainly kill Theresa on the spot.
