LegendsOfElectra.blogspot.com

I've been writing insights behind concepts of Electra's Dictionary; why it is necessary to me as an artist and the search for identity in my other blog: LegendsOfElectra.blogspot.com
Some of it is like a dictionary or a map maybe, a hopscotch diary.  Some of it just more confusion and the tossing of illusion through the safety of prose.  It's a mural of phrases that may or may not reveal who really is Electra.  Come in if you feel like falling inside a chaos of prism selves.

Electra's Dictionary: Chapter 1 and 2

Electra's Dictionary

The Great Mind-fuck

Chapter 1

Setting:

Mental Hospital in the small town of Regal Grove, suburb of Motor City; a major metropolis in the Mid-West

Opening Scene:

Female psychiatrist dressed in black walking down a long hallway called in unexpectedly to examine a new patient:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Trent Gwynn: lead musician of rock band “Petrol Pump”

Dr. Torrent went down the corridor to the room they had been holding Trent Gwynn in and entered after a quick knock. Their eyes met from the doorway, dark eyes.  It was his eyes that dispelled any doubts that this person could possibly be a murderer.  They were haunted eyes-- but not cruel.  They looked enormous on his bloodless pale and gaunt face.  He sat in the middle of the stark room on the floor all shoulders and legs awkwardly contained in a straightjacket, his bones looking far too big to be bound in such a way.  Shadows fell on his face emphasizing the hollows under his dark eyes and in the grooves beneath his cheekbones, his floppy dark hair hiding the rest of his face.

He sees in black and white and dreams in comic book font; the bat lady. . . .

She came into the room occupying its entire space with her presence.  She moved bat-like in her dark colors, long flowing taffeta with billowing sleeves.  They move past her as she walks.  Following the wakes of her arms, long bat sleeves; bell sleeves.  Bell towers... bats in the belfries... gargoyle footmen... bell freeze?  Mystical lady are you free?  Was she a blaze from the flames of hell, like a torch in the castle of Hades?  The smoke affect of her bat material seemed as if to emphasize the smoking of her Medusa web-like hair.  Web-like, in that, although tangled or tossed, there was some organization to the mad living mass, some identifiable pattern... a pattern so easy to get lost inside, with mazes that lead nowhere.  And everywhere.

Or somewhere.

As the trails of her stilled themselves before his eyes, he realized his error.  Se was not real.  She was an apparition... a fiery—faery vision.  A vision.  She was too small to be a real doctor.  Tinkerbell... Shrink doc?  Headshrinker.  Which?  Doctor or witch...?  She took minds back to her elfin groth.  She kept them all in jars, enchanted by her obsidian, scrying eyes.  Eyes that could look into and devour people's souls.  Beautiful darkness with India ink pools crying India ink tears down a feather quill pen.  She held out her hand and gave him her card.  It was the queen of hearts.  But aren't they all?

She seemed to snap her fingers as if to break a spell.  And it did, a little.  He went to scratch his itch but remembered too late that he was still in the straight jacket.  Still?  Where was he again?  Bat lady.... she seemed to be saying something but it was muffled; only some of the words got through.

There were eight Gothic shaped windows (he had been there since early this morning and had spent a long time staring at them, idly counting them to keep himself from going insane).  All the shutters were still open, revealing a dark evening autumn sky that seemed to go on forever in its dismal gloom.  There was a huge moon, ominous, it loomed behind her, like a great watching Cyclops.  He lost himself in thought over wondering if that was the harvest moon and corrected himself because it was October.  The harvest moon had already passed.  He had forgotten; was lost in some kind of mental time warp, confused over events of this day, losing track over what day of the week it was and even what city he was in.  He was on tour with his band Petrol Pump.  Last night they had played in Regal Grove and he had been arrested early the next morning on charges of murder.  

The hospital attendants had given him something to sedate him, fearing that he would become violent but whatever they had given him was only contributing to his already surreal state of mind.  His thoughts had trouble making sense of anything but at the center of his turmoil was the twisted image of Lisa dead.  He could not believe it.  Would not.  Lisa Loath, his some time girlfriend for over fifteen years.  Why was he being accused of killing her?

Dr. Torrent muses as her gaze fell upon the rock-star who sat slumped on the floor: Lisa Loath had been missing for a week and the media was going crazy over what was behind her disappearance (or who) and of getting the scoop of a celebrity homicide.  Trent Gwynn was arrested and then sent here for evaluation, Harroway Mental Hospital; Regal Grove's mental health facility.  How could there be an arrest without a body? Dr. Torrent wondered.  And how was it up to her to try and make sense of this bigger than life case that was about to explode all over the tabloids?  She had been on staff here for about five years and although the hospital was prestigious in its own right, Regal Grove was just a sleepy little town.  Which was part of its charm, at least to Dr. Torrent, as that had been the main reason she had been attracted to this location when first she had moved to this part of the country from New York.  To get away from... the craziness, she thought wryly now.

“Bat Lady,” Trent Gwynn said out loud in a deep husky voice as he stared at her.

“What?” Dr. Torrent glanced at him as she put a folder away in the top desk drawer and searched a pocket for a pen or pencil to write a note which she tucked into another hidden pocket. 

“Or do I mean Dragon Lady?” his deep voice had a rolling lilt which was strangely ill placed in these surroundings, except for the Gothic structure of the hospital's architectural style.  His accent took the bite out of his remark, which had been an intentional stab, Dr. Torrent was keenly aware.  Before meeting him she had expected him to be English but one look at him and the sound of his “r”s made her aware he was entirely a different cup of tea.

“You're Welsh,” it was a statement and she shut the desk drawer with a metallic slam.

“Oh, very good, did the name give it away, perhaps?”

She didn't flinch from this obvious sarcastic verbal slap, in fact, she seemed to appreciate this.  There was a glint of amusement in her eyes from behind her dark framed glasses that quickly was hidden as fast as it appeared.

“What part are you from?” Dr. Torrent asked as she came around the desk to stand in front of it and lean, crossing her arms.

“Forgive me if I'm not in the mood to exchange pleasantries.  I've been here since early this morning and it's nigh on twilight now and no one's bothered to come in here and give me a fucking explanation why I'm being singled out.  Never mind that I'm ready to piss myself since the last time I did piss or even drink anything was in my hotel room early this morning.  Why don't you tell me something, Dr. Batlady? Everyone else here dresses in white coats but your apparel looks like you borrowed it from the bride of Frankenstein.”

She coolly raised neatly arched brows,

“I understand your discomfort.  I was not aware you had been so ill treated.  There's a bathroom attached to this room through that door and there are disposable cups by the sink.  Let me release your bindings,” she knelt down in one graceful motion that seemed instantaneous, as if she had the power to move faster than time.  First up there and then suddenly she was knelt before him, eye level.  Again, their eyes briefly met.  He was not prepared for her direct, liquid dark gaze which made him feel seasick.  He could see behind the librarian glasses, obsidian eyes which drew him down and into their inky pools, inside there.  Eyes like liquid chasms and skin like marble.  This close he could see the artificial stain of her full mouth from worn off lipstick which lent the illusion that she glowed in an unnatural light, bringing out the smooth angles of her features that looked carefully carved from stone.  Her graceful motions adeptly set him free and his arms dropped like lead, escaped of being bound.

His thoughts spun in distraction, like the sinking sensation he sometimes had while in the middle of creation when he was taken somewhere else immersed in composing: I am looking at myself from where I see you... down your eyes into the wall behind you there.  Now I can look out and see from inside your head.  See me from the way you look at me.  It is not that I am outside myself; it is rather, that I am rooted to something from your angle.  On this other end the fish bowl is always in view.  So the walls must be inside.  I see you better from the vantage of how you see that I see you.

He stood up slowly, like a bridge unfolding until he stood before her in his full height.  Tall, he towered over her and Dr. Torrent had a moment of surprise as he seemed to unravel to three times of what seemed his original length.  She kept her eyes steady on him from behind the dark frames, even as she imperceptibly stepped back an inch or two.

“Are you sure that was the right thing to do?” he asked her with a menacing smile, “I could be dangerous.”

Dr. Torrent looked bored and moved away, walking around the desk,

“the toilet's through there.  It's up to you if you want to disgrace yourself either by accosting a woman or pissing yourself.”

He assessed her thoughtfully and without remark went straight to the lavatory door.  Stiff from waiting so long, being held here with his arms tied awkwardly and forced to be confined in his movements, she noticed he was having some trouble walking, yet she also noticed he did his best to conceal this.

When he came back she was standing in front of the windows patiently waiting for him, looking out into the incoming fog.  He could not read her eyes as she turned to study him now, distorted as they were behind the black rectangular glasses that acutely characterized her professional poise and owed an aloof air of intimidation as well.  The darkness of the room cast shadows everywhere on her.  Her hair hung as if in long dreadlocks, some of it carelessly tied up into a knot around a ballpoint pen in an absent minded manner.  Her hair fell in spirals and spilled into dark shadows making him think now of Dracula's minions.  Like the Queen of Night.  Her skin was luminous.   Her silhouette was further distorted by the drape of her long dress and as his eyes followed down he suddenly noticed that she wore-- combat boots?  This incongruence made him look closer to make sure,

“Should I call you 'sarg'?” the edge in his voice took the humor out of his meaning but she caught the connotation seeing that his eyes rested on her boots.  This made her smile which he had not expected and he knew a moment of queasiness as he watched the transformation it made upon her face.  There was something other-worldly about her, the elfin shape of her features that he found disturbing right now.   “So what are you supposed to be doing here?  Writing up some report that says I'm crazy enough to kill someone?”

“I don't think you're crazy,” she looked at him steadily.

“So what am I doing here, then?”

“You tell me.  Why don't you tell me everything that's happened?” she asked directly.

“Didn't they already tell you everything?  Haven't you already formed an opinion?” he countered.

She took a deep breath and walked around to observe the landscape from another window before looking back at him,

“why don't we start at the beginning.  Let's start with introductions.  I am Dr. Torrent.  What would you like me to call you?”

“By my name.”

“Trent?”

“That is my name,” he answered.

“OK, Trent, tell me as much as you are comfortable sharing,” she drew one of two chairs to the center of the room and indicated that he sit down.

“Why?  Why should I tell you anything?  Why should I trust you?” he ignored the chair.

“Because I'm here to help you, I'm your doctor.”

“Help me?  What the hell can you do?  Sign me up for some electro-shock therapy?  If I'm not crazy than why do I need a psychiatrist?-- assuming that is what you are.”

She nodded,

“I am.  Well, for one thing, I may be your best bet.  Maybe your only bet right now.”

“Best bet for what?”

“Getting you out of this.”

“Since you say I'm not crazy, Dr. Torrent, then tell me why I am here!” he was beginning to lose his temper now.

“Because if you weren't here you would be in a high security facility for murder, would you rather be there?  Your manager and lawyer decided this would be a better route for you --unless you are in a hurry to find a shower buddy?”

Maybe she had gone too far.  He came at her then. It was like a kind of leap but he caught himself and stood leering at her instead, staring her down.  If he scared her she didn't reveal this in her eyes.  The dark inky pools were cool and one arched brow rose up in a sort of challenge, she seemed intent on homing in now and said,

“Why are you protecting her?”

“Who?”

“The person you were arrested for killing.  All that blood, so gruesome--”she made a show of shuddering.

There was something deadly about the way he was looking at her now,

“What are you talking about?”

She waited watching him.

“What blood?  I thought there was no body—whose blood?  Where?  You mean she's really dead?--what's going on?” he madly dug his fingers in his hair as if he intended to pull all of it out.

“You tell me, Trent.”

He seemed to go paler, turning ashen, almost white as he doubled over and started gagging and heaving as if he were about to vomit as his knees buckled before he fell to the floor,

“Oh Christ, tell me-- is she dead?  Tell me!”

She started to get her things together, picking up the folder from the desk drawer and swiftly closing it again before she began to head towards the door.

“Wait—where are you going?  What—were you just fucking with me?  Fuck you, bitch!  Were you just trying to mind fuck me?  Who are you? --Dr. Tor-ment?” he reached the door before she got there and stood in the way looking at her with blind rage.  His hair was now going in every direction, dark coils that sprung glossy in the light and fell around his face in a glorious array like some Celtic warrior, or Alexander the Great, glaring at her threateningly as he barred the way from letting her leave.  “Don't fuck with me—you tell me right now everything you know!”

“There is still no body,” she sighed deeply and walked calmly back into the room, going back to the windows to look out into the fading light of the sky before she turned to face him.

“Tell me, Dr. Torrent --is it common practice for shrinks to fuck with their lab rats?”

“I told you, I am here to help you.  Do you want to be helped-- or are you on a self sabotaging mission?  I prefer to know from the beginning if I'm dealing with someone who just wants to play games.  I'm not impressed with arrogant shows of drama.  I don't have time to pander to egos.  Besides it just gets on my nerves,” she watched him now.  His broad shoulders drooped into a heavy slouch as if his last bout of rage had taken everything out of him.  He walked over to the chair in the middle of the room and sat down burying his face in his palms, his face and forehead hidden behind large, elegant, long fingered hands that tapered into beautifully shaped tips and nail beds.  He had musician's hands, strong fingers with characteristically grooved knuckles and modest grace.  These were not murderous hands; they were hands that belonged to a sensitive artist who possessed intense emotions.

“Do you feel like talking?” she asked him now .

A song played in his mind.... The night haunts me as dawn now may soon arise.... so does evening then demise?  And all our plans to be revised?  Or is it better to be realized?  Is this a mask I doth devise?  What is the compromise?  I am straight-jacketed in mental lockjaw.  Call me pretty boy... whipping boy... a mirror as a mask is a... face that I claim here to be, let me put it down, let me take it off-- let me, please... let me... please.  Let me mirror you, mirror your mask of faces: created by an artist. . . .

He looked up at her, his face full of complete, utter despair, his dark brows knit tightly together, his eyes wide and full like the moon outside and just as stark.  After a long silence he finally said,

“I don't know what I feel like.  To be honest.  I just don't know what I would do, doctor, if you left me alone right now.... I've been alone in this room since they arrested me and dumped me here and you know what?  If I wasn't in here I'd be going crazy right now trying to find her and maybe that would be worse.  But then, I'd be able to try to call her, look for her because I'd know where to look, you know?”

She looked into his face and found empathy for his present state.  She could imagine how she would feel if she were in this situation.  Dr. Torrent studied him thoughtfully, noting the sheer look of panic within his eyes.  She was familiar with how that felt.  She nodded in reply to his question and she dropped her guard.  She looked around the room trying to see it from how he would be seeing it.  There was not much to it, the old battered walls had seen better days and the only object to look at was the institutional desk that seemed to judge everything that it faced.  The view outside was grotesque this time of year; images of Icabod Crane came to mind. 'I would hate to be left in here for twelve hours straight with nothing to look at and no idea what was going on,' she thought now with sincere sympathy.  It was not even human to be treated in this way even if he was facing criminal charges.  They had no proof of anything, but then, at least this wasn't a maximum security prison.

“I'm sorry,” she said now, “I see a lot of people pass through this place.  I've learned to read people, I can spot the players.  Your lawyer told me that she--Lisa-- had asked for a  court order to keep you away from her last week.  She filed a restraining order.”

Trent Gwynn was thoughtful as he digested this information but remained calm and did not react.

“Did you know about that?” Dr. Torrent asked him.

Slowly he said,

“Yes.  I did.”

“Why would she have done that?”

He moved back in the chair and adjusted his posture.  His back cracked as he moved and he stretched tiredly,

“I don't know... there have been a lot of fights lately.”

“Physically?”

Now he became tense,

“She's the one who's more prone to getting physical that way.  Lisa tends to get violent especially when she's been using.  Her temper gets really bad.  Makes no sense most of the time, she just rants.  She goes through clean fazes but lately mostly that's all she does and it's—honestly, hard to watch.  So we fight about this.”

“You mean drugs.”

He nodded in acknowledgment and shrugged,

“she's come at me with a knife or whatever happens to be at hand.  She gets crazy when she finds things on my phone she doesn't like but....  I can't be with a junkie and I've told her that.”

“Can you tell me what your relationship is with her?”

Trent Gwynn gave her a wry smile,

“that is... a very complicated story.”

“Well, try to describe it the best you can.”

He ran a hand through his erratic disheveled thick glossy hair that was now going in every direction, hanging in heavy waves around his neck, overgrown and shaggy.  His facial hair was dark and present, looking like far more than a few days of growth had gone without seeing a shave, which only emphasized the medieval look about him: square jaw beautifully outlined in scruff, smooth, contoured, angled cheekbones and a razor sharp bridged nose that looked like it had survived a few brawls.  Not the usual sallow faced, acid-rocker type, she thought.  Handsome in that Gaelic way.  Masculine.  Yet poetic.  He reminded her suddenly of a bard, someone she could have seen strumming a harp instead of a guitar, some wise traveling talisman.

Sitting at ease now against the back of the chair he stretched long longs before him, lank arms dropping to his sides as the straight jacket's metal hardware clanked helter-skelter, mocking him as it looked so out of place on him,

“We used to be involved,” he began taking a deep breath.  “Years ago.  I was very into her.  She was into me.  But things got pretty weird.  A little fame and success can do that.  The attention of the media, it changed her.  She was in Petrol Pump, my band, back when it first started.  She wanted to do her own thing so she left, which was fine.  The egos clashed –her with the others and there were a lot of disagreements about commercial choices.  She wanted us to be more main stream and all that but I just wanted to do what I liked, not kissing up to corporate buffoons; I was always more interested in the indie path.  That was over fifteen yeas ago.  Crazy, sometimes I can't believe I got this old.  We were kids back then.  You know?  That whole fame trip was wild.  Hard to handle.  It went to her head and she got heavy into drugs.  We went our separate ways.  Then a lot of things happened in our lives.  Life shit, you know.  Tragedies, messed up shit that really ages your soul.  And I guess we found ourselves with each other one night at the right time and the right place.  Or the wrong time.  We've been through a lot together and sometimes.... just having someone there who knows you and has known you through it all and remembers you from before everything changed.... We keep going back to each other.  I see other people.  She sees other people.  But after the breakups, the bad press, the legal fiascoes, the phone rings and its her --and.... I go back.”

When Dr. Torrent left Trent Gwynn's room shutting the door behind her, she headed down the hallway on her way to the reception area.  She heard her name being paged and stepped over to the nearest intercom phone and dialed the front desk.

“Dr. Torrent?” the receptionist's voice weirdly echoed from the receiver.

“Yes.”

“There are two gentlemen here to see you' Steve Allison and Aeddan Jones, they say they represent Trent Gwynn.”

“Yes, I know—please have them wait in the reception area, I'll be right there.”

After Dr. Torrent put down the phone, she walked briskly in the direction of the lobby where there was a waiting area by reception.  Her combat boots echoed down the concrete hall as another message blared over the paging system of the hospital.  As she turned the corner a text came in on her mobile.  She took it out to see who it was from.... Hayden—what did he want?  Annoyed she read the message: You caused quite a stir when you left the Halloween Convention early, what was so urgent?  She ignored the text and put her phone back into her pocket, walking breezily toward the two men who stood up upon her approach.  One was dressed formally in a dark gray business suit, the other wore jeans with a shirt and tie under a black leather sport's jacket.  They both waited politely as she closed the distance between them.

“Dr. Torrent?” the one in the suit asked first meeting her eyes directly.

“Yes.”

The one in the leather jacket quickly moved to shake her hand,

“I'm Aeddan Jones, Trent Gwynn's manager,” he said in the same strong Welsh accent that Trent Gwynn spoke in.  He had a firm hand shake and stood tall, meeting her eyes with a direct gaze.

She shook the other gentleman's hand formally,

“And you're Steve Allison?”

“Correct—I'm Trent's attorney,” he said with a crisp Michigan accent.

“Let's go to my office where we can talk,” she lead the way down another long hallway but her office was one of the first.  She opened the door and politely nodded them to enter before her.

“Is there any new evidence?” Dr. Torrent asked from the chair behind her desk, her desk lamp's glare made her eyes impossible to see from behind her black rectangular glasses.

“Lisa Loath's car is still missing but....” the American lawyer shrugged.

“Can we go see him?” Trent's manager asked now.

“Certainly.”

The lawyer seemed to want to get a feel for the psychiatrist's impression so far and watched her carefully now as he said,

“Lisa Loath is very—well — compromising.  Where ever she goes, trouble ensues.  This isn't the first time that Trent's connection with her has lead to legal problems.  There's a laundry list of history regarding her conflicts with the law that she's pulled him into by association.” He was young, in his mid to late thirties, blond and blue eyed, confident and abrupt.

“Yeah, she's trouble,” Aeddan nodded regretfully, “she did us all a favor when she backed out of Petrol Pump-- but I guess it didn't end her problems for  us.”

After Torrent left them, walking them back over to Trent's room, and giving them privacy, she walked again through the hospital lobby, heading to exit out the front doors.  This was supposed to be her day and night off but she had been called in specifically for this.  Not that she minded.  She had been more than happy to be called away from her husband's political convention.  Husband—perhaps not exactly an accurate depiction of who he was, Dr. Torrent often thought with resentment, 'warden' maybe.  They were estranged and because of the battle over the custody of their daughter they were both unfortunately tied to each other for better or worse until Persephone reached legal age.

When she got in her Volvo 240, white with black racing stripes, she took a moment to warm up the engine and turned on the radio as she waited, wanting to leave her work stress behind until she had to return the following morning.  As ironies go, the radio disc jockey announced that the next song was by the band Petrol Pump and made mention of the mystery over the disappearance of Lisa Loath, former band member and ex-girlfriend of the lead musician's.  Dr. Torrent reached to turn the radio off but the first few notes of the song came on before her finger reached the button.  His warm voice filled the car even as the cold of the evening pervaded the interior.  There was a deep hollow strum of an acoustic guitar that blended deeply with his voice, sending a chill through her, beginning at the nape of her neck, going down her spine.  She had never listened to his music, this was the first time she was hearing it.  It was not what she had expected.  The music's moody warmth of both instrument and singer surprised her with the affect it had on her.  The artless beauty of his voice touched her, making her catch her breath as she listened. 

What had she expected?  She hadn't really thought about it.  She had stopped listening to current music years ago and, only put the radio on for news or weather and sometimes to listen to classical music.  Not that she had an aversion to music, necessarily, but she did have an aversion to the way everywhere anyone went, everyone was force-fed the bubblegum white noise that is always filtered through public places.  She found it invasive and irritating; interrupting her thoughts with the commercial, brainwashing mindlessness. 

Taken off guard as she was now, she listened intently and did not turn the radio off until after the next song came on by another artist.  She sat in silence for a moment or two still haunted by the sound of his voice echoing in her mind and the memory of those deep, dark, eyes.  She reversed the car and pulled out of her parking space.  She drove in silence through the darkened streets of Regal Grove with that song repeating in her thoughts all the way home; its catchy verse playing on repeat, as if finding a way into her subconsciousness. 

For the rest of the night it played in her mental stereo and was still stuck in her head when she woke up the next morning.

Chapter 2

In the background the hollow echo keeps repeating, like a steady drone of the clock.  A metronome.  It ticks in time.  Reminding you of their time.  Outside there is no ticking past.  The hum of life has its own beat.  And somehow things are always moving.  It is locked in the destination of time.  Predetermined?  Stamped on expiration dates.

When someone is a prisoner they make a compromise with their jailor, if they want to live.  You can stand by your principles and be dead by your principles.  Or you can claw your way out and plot revenge.  You tell me you are God?  OK, let's say you're God.... For a glass of water you will be my God.  One day when the God is asleep holding the keys, I will get out and come back to be his God.  The madness of a society is tolerated because there is a compromise with the jailor.

He had been moved to his own room in the deserted part of the hospital, which was on the direct opposite side of the mental facility from where he had originally been held.  This section of the hospital was older and much of this part was dilapidated.  The reason they had decided to move him to this part was to be away from all the main traffic of the hospital, mostly to avoid the press people and other noisy, curious visitors.

“Who's in there?” he asked as they were walking down a long corridor the day Dr. Torrent brought him to where he had been moved. 

“Oh—no one,” she replied with an odd distracted expression, “all the rooms in here are vacant right now.  Since the new part of the building was added, everyone's been moved to the new renovated west wing.”

“You mean there is nobody here at all in this part of the building?” he asked drawing dark brows together and returning her odd expression.

She smiled,

“Just you.  Not including the ghosts, I mean.  And then there are the old skeletons in the closets.”

Opening the door to his new room she had stepped aside to let him enter first.  As he looked around the room it occurred to him that the room did actually feel haunted.  He found something comforting about that though, thinking that, at least, he wouldn't be lonely.  His guitar and other instruments had all been brought here for him.  Aeddan had requested this and Dr. Torrent had not objected; from her professional perspective, she felt it was better to keep his mind occupied than to have him just brooding over things for long periods of time.

There was a plain iron bed in one corner of the room that had been freshly made up for him with bleached, stark white sheets.  White curtains had been installed over the windows in haste just hours before to prepare for the rock star's requirements-- the factory ironed creases visibly apparent.  Besides the bed, as far as furniture, there was only a couple of ancient looking old wooden chairs and an old battered up chest of drawers.  There was an industrial looking sink in another corner of the room with an antique beveled mirror over it.  The historic Gothic windows and accordion radiators reflected the same antique, pre World War time period that was also obvious in the interior wainscoting that framed the yellowing, paint-cracking walls.  Trent had found himself curious to inspect the walls closer, noting the worn off paint line that had been rubbed off all along the length of one part of the room, somehow finding the pattern it made interesting.

“That's from all the headboards rubbing up against the wall,” Dr. Torrent explained.  Trent followed the line of headboard scars that marked the room clearly cheek by jowl. 

He was knelt and turned to look at her,

“How many beds were in here?”

“At one time over twenty.  This place was crammed during the Vietnam War according to the archives I shifted through at the local library.  The name of the hospital 'Harroway' is named after an old prominent family who founded Regal Grove and some other near by neighboring cities.  The cemetery across the way, which is actually visible from your window here, has all the family's plots.  They were all buried there.  Not to be macabre, but it is actually an interesting stroll to walk through there and see all those old headstones.  This area has a lot of history.  Before even the boom of the auto industry.  You wouldn't know it from looking at it now.... it turned into a ghost town after the crash of the motor moguls.  The bailouts didn't help anybody here.  This hospital has seen the likes of veterans of all kinds-- sometimes I think of this mental health facility as the subconscious of the American culture; the lost American dreams.”

He tilted his head to one side to listen, finding what she said inspiring somehow.  He looked around the room again and thought about what she had said.  It took him out of his own personal problems and he was grateful for that.  He understood lost dreams and what it does to a people; a culture.  Being Welsh, he knew only too well how dominating political powers trample to dust a way of life that does not fit the whims of the ruling society.

“That is deep,” he said as he stood up and looked at her with new respect, not having expected her to be  liberal minded.  He walked over to the window where she stood and looked out over the cemetery she had spoken of and then looked thoughtfully at her again.  His intelligent dark eyes studying her with open curiosity even as she seemed unaware of his close stare.  There was obviously more to this witch doctor than he had first given her credit for.

After she had left he had wandered around the room awhile.  The emptiness created a hollow echo.  Good sound.  Nice acoustics.  His shoe scraping the cement floor.... the echo and then his throat as he cleared it ricocheting off the empty walls.  He looked at his guitar leaning up against the iron bed and as thoughts passed through his mind, chords played in his head.   Maybe it had been the doctor's presence but he found himself almost relaxing into a sort of calm.  The conversation between Dr. Torrent and himself still lingered in his mind.  He was half tempted to pick up his guitar but resisted.  There was no getting away from the fact that he was a prisoner here being held here because he was being accused of murder.  Murder!—and for murdering Lisa.  He still couldn't get his mind around that.  He always believed that people know if somebody close to someone is dead-- that they could feel it.  And he wasn't feeling like she was dead.  If anything, his instincts made him feel actually angry at her because this seemed the kind of act she might pull just to piss him off.  She would have no qualms putting him through this kind of shit.  Thinking this now angered him even more and he went over to the sink to look at himself in the mirror above.  His floppy hair and facial scruff darkly shadowed his face.  He looked tired; he noted the dark smears under his eyes.  He hadn't slept more than a few interrupted hours at a time once he had been let to rest in a room with a bed before being moved here.  He rubbed his palm against his chin and jaw and then leaned over the sink to rinse his face with cold water.  When he looked at himself again he looked into the darkness of his own eyes, seeing his mother's there.  He missed her.  He said out loud,

“What would you think of this mess I'm in now?”

In his mind he heard the likely answer,

“I never liked Lisa for you.  Told you she would get you into nothing but trouble!”

He felt a chill go down his spine.  It was like she was right in the room with him. 

He walked abruptly away from his reflection, as if to close off that thought like with a click of a mouse.  He went over to the gallery of windows.  In one swift, bold move he pulled the curtains over the windows to shut out their ominous view.  He stopped in front of his equipment, studying his guitar.  Like a prosthetic, it had become a part of his body, really, and even his nervous system.  Beginning from those very early years. Almost like his diary.  Through evolving as a musician from ignorant boy and past Stairway to Heaven, it had saved his life more times than he could ever count.  After his fathers death.... when all the world lost its color.  Years of grieving.  The constant shadow of clinical depression.  Discovering his father dead with his wrists slashed had lead him to no longer be able to discern colors, making him, in essence, color blind.  He didn't like people to know this about him.  Most people didn't know.  He could only see in black and white.  Monochromatic.

He reached now for his guitar and sat down on the bed and his body relaxed with it on his lap.  His fingers found their signature chords absently and he strummed without much thought or effort.  Like stroking a cat.  He played reflectively to himself, no song, just streams of randomness.  It just felt good to hold something familiar close.... Head examinations, legal cross examinations, the press probably enjoying his misery and the hospital staff looking at him as if not sure if he was animal or vegetable.

He rubbed his eyes pausing from strumming and took a deep breath.  When he uncovered his eyes something caught his attention.  The keyboard he used for songwriting was hooked up to an amp that he usually also plugged into a laptop in order to record ideas while creating .... and he noticed it now.... it was there, sticking out of the back compartment. They must have over looked it, not realizing it was there.  Or maybe Aeddan had.  He stood up and went over to it now, putting his guitar down.  He pulled out the laptop and brought it over to the iron bed, sitting down with it.  He turned it on. 

Was he being paranoid?

He felt as if someone was watching him.

At the corner of his eye he saw a shadowy movement.  A cold draft touched his cheek and his heart seemed to drop heavily to his feet.  But when he turned nothing was there.  He turned back to the computer screen.... What was that?

There was a weird icon on his desktop screen.  He had never seen it there before.  What was it?  It looked like a gryphon but with the head of a bat.  He knew he had never seen this before.  What the hell was it?  He clicked on it.

Something else started to boot up.  The screen showed logos and numbers.  Then there was a list of options displayed to choose from.  The first one was, “Electra's Dictionary” and below that was what appeared to be titles of cases.  Like a psychiatrist's notes of patients and their charts.... One of the other document's titles was, “Electra's history/notes and observations”.  Who was Electra?  Maybe she was a patient here?  Why would this have popped up on his screen?

Curiosity got the best of him. . . .

Chapter 3

He sank into the words that appeared on his screen as though sinking into another dimension:

ELECTRA'S DICTIONARY:

The Prance of the Panther. 

I’m not a number.  My fingerprints belong to me; my fingertips.  What I do is my life and not for status for scrutiny --that opinion does not count to me.  I don’t care.  I’m not their number.  And time is only when we share this planet.  I didn’t agree to their rules.  If we were in some other time there would be other scorecards, so you see, I walk away from chains and uniforms. There’s freedom.  But not on their time. There’s freedom on my mind --but it’s not their kind. . . .
I am going to tell you a story about a girl.  Let’s call her Electra.  She creates a comic strip that tells a story. Within the comic strip is a diary that is known as Electra’s Dictionary. Through this it is possible to tell. There is no need to explain or apologize. There is no type of repercussions for the things that she reveals. The density of words allows more to be said as the interpretations of words can always be defended by the subjective tendency to error in understanding, especially on the behalf of the reader. In order to be a good thief you must also to be a good spy.

If this were a trail of clues the blue print would look like splices of a cross-section diagram. You put different colored films over the surface and examine how this influences the way that it looks. Other realities are exposed. Within every one of those realities is an infinite number of interpretations. Which is the right one? This question is irrelevant because all and none would be the answer and I know that is a contradiction in terms. Follow me. . . .

You take a knife and cut into the cross section. You lay a film of ultra-marine over it and then alizarin crimson. You take away one and view. You put them together in two separate orders. Ultra violet is my favorite color; it contains so many, like the violet dawn.

I would make a series of mobiles; three-dimensional sculptures to explain that the dimensions actually are more than three-d. Maybe they are like solar systems. Every planet, every moon, every galaxy… contains many mobiles, many cross-sections and infinite dimensions. With so many possible realities the pondering of Truth becomes erroneous.

I remember being handed my assignment before I was jettisoned to life. I forget my way and exhaust possibilities while spinning in a battle to steady the focus. I get lost.  I am lost.  But let’s talk about her. Our heroine. The one who draws a comic strip. Why comic? Is it funny? The tragedy of life is hysterical. I still think the Greeks did it best. So let’s invite their chorus for this comic book opera and this splice may be seen through Freud’s interpretations or the lunatic inside.

Either way. Not sure. Which way it goes.  Or will go.  Ready?  Let’s go.  Let Go. . . .

“I am Electra.  As old as time. . . .I’ve been called so many things, so it doesn’t matter what my name is. Dinosaur or Thesaurus Rex-- wrecks…. the web. The lines get tangled and often overlap. Literary or literal, words never say enough.

“Electra. . . .Who is she? A psychological assessment would give us a clinical, deeper understanding of her. But would it show her in her truest light….? In the absolute sense of truth?  We consider the Greeks as our birth of thought. What do we know of Electra? And here, I do not mean the classical Electra, as in Euripides or Sophocles, nor am I referring to Freud’s Electra. Our Electra, who remains silently locked inside a dark world and uses symbolic suggestions instead of language to keep her barriers up and to politely snub the world. The dictionary, or lexicon is a primer, every line spoken in rhymed code. And yet we do know that her use of the choice of calling her diary Electra’s Dictionary is obviously meant to suggest all classical references to Electra in the ancient and modern sense. A guise, concealed behind what seems like simple self-analysis woven in a diary.

“The question remains, as it always has, how much do we tell or how much do we distort in order to tell everything and remain safe within anonymity? I have written pages, volumes and years of this, at this very task. Those volumes have been destroyed. By me and by someone else who discovered them…. and acted to keep certain secrets safe. Or to just keep them. Some pages sit in legal offices, confiscated by…. one of many enemies.

“It took that last lesson to finally learn mother’s rule of “never put anything in writing….” Both my mother and the man who fathered me left no physical evidence or documentation. I know this because I have looked and searched.

“What is a poet to do? Find solace in poetic license. These facts must be revealed in riddles of alliterations and allegory for the purpose of the secret(s) I am and have been bound to, and the need to unburden my soul.

“We must begin somewhere. A starting point?

“Words work for you and against you. My cryptic language is not intended to be mistaken for pretentiousness. The simplicity of words are intentionally dense. Fewer words said the more truth is stated. Look for it. You must accept these rules, as they have been the very rules, which have crippled me. Double meanings. Lines written invisibly or grammatically oblique. You see, I am committed to truth. And why should anyone care? It doesn’t matter if you do or not. Not to me. Just that I tell. This. But I will not spell it out because-- I think it was Cocteau who once said, “the matters I relate are true lies.” The truth lies somewhere between the lines. Sometimes I do not know which is myself. Mother was a good liar. She kept track. I never could.

“What relevance do I have to this selfish greedy world only interested in immediate self-gratification?

“Truthfully, so often I despise my species…. hmmm…. I think I will entreat you with temptation.

“Come in,” ~in a breathless whisper~ “as an emotional vampire that feasts on the delicacy of the untainted I ask you:  How pure is your soul? --because I don’t want your blood. Cocteau also said, 'The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.' I am an artist but I am a poet first.  I will use poetry to reveal what I must and to conceal what must be concealed.  I must be cautious in what I say. Suggest but never say aloud.  Be careful what you miss.  If you care or dare, take it or leave it.  This is a story that must be told.  In the 21st Century-- it makes sense to use, along with poetic license: images….

“I am an artist –but, you see, nobody cares about art anymore. So I will draw in a modern cult style. I always loved Batman and his Gotham city as a kid… and all those dark B movies in black and white…

“The first time that it happened, I had not known that I could do it. It happened by itself, spontaneously. Sheer pain spliced through sensory walls, the lick of the belt; a scorpion's venom. Bolts of neurological overload. Am I going to die? I wondered. Was I still afraid to? Because there it wouldn’t hurt anymore. I heard thoughts ricochet down my spine.  Someone said: you are safe… I’m watching you… come with me for awhile and lets talk as this chastisement continues… I watched and went away, enclosed in a net of magickal protection. Familiar. I knew to trust it beyond my life.  So I did.  And part of me went to sleep. While a part of me was healed. There lies a part of me that is eternal and I was reminded of an infinite knowledge. I was then six.

“I watched her get beat, watched the rage and energy of spite. And then she lay there unmoving and unmoved. She was … hollow. Hours.... then days passed. She stared senselessly at the ceiling.  Everything was far, far away. Wrapped grimoire,  enclosed, enchanted, within fingers. Kept safe.  She saw and heard faces and loud voices as if from some other dimension.  And then she felt herself drift and went away for awhile, closing her eyes.

“That was the first time it had ever happened. She could slip out of her body. Like Magick. It was a way out. She was brought to safety and she was told that she could return there any time she was in danger and that here she would always be safe.

“Sometimes it was only in that other place that we existed. So many days passed and they are forever lost to me. Like a sleep walker, I could perform in life as I was somewhere else. Why could I do that? Was I a super hero? This brought a laugh in reply, 'there is really only one super hero, all others are messengers. This pain is not for you, you need not do penitence. There is another task more pressing to accomplish.'  Or-- I asked?

Or fall from grace.

“The last entry of the diary was gone. Incomplete now, like someone erased I got lost inside my reflection knowing someone had got in. The reflection stared. Who’s in there? --was it so important that I know who she is? I am not my body. It is the soul that is eternal, why should the rest matter? 'It is the uniform.' If I wear my French maid outfit then that is the part I play. Does this provide insights or hints? 'Humility.' Or humiliation-- like a courtesan or geisha; a French maid? 'You’re not a French maid.  On this level you are female.' A female thing. I am a bastard.  No, not a French maid.  But almost the same thing; dressed up in a role, forced to act for others' pleasure. 'How so?' Because that act is enslavement.  There is no freedom there. 

“But then, really, aren't we all slaves?  Freedom....?  --what is that? A stupid lie they tell.”

Trent sat for awhile in stunned silence.  He had no idea why but he felt deeply disturbed.  Who's words were these?  It wasn't that he felt he should not be reading this that perturbed him, it was something else entirely.  Whether or not he had received these personal files by intention or error he was not concerned at all.  He accepted it, as it had occurred without his prompting.  But it was the words that provoked him.  The anger that he could feel in the person who wrote them.... and then, he could not help wondering why it had appeared on his laptop.  He felt a chill and a cold rush of air go past him as if he were not alone.  This place. . . . it was haunted.  Maybe that was how the files had come to his computer.  But that was crazy thinking.  Wasn't it?  'Shit,' he thought, 'this loony bin is driving me mad.'

He looked at the time on the computer screen.  It was now after midnight.  An orderly had come by with some food for him hours before.  Not hospital food, the fact that it was his latest favorite sandwich of Provolone cheese and tomato suggested that this had been sent here by Aeddan's doing, along with the case of Evian water, a bag of blue chips and some trail mix.  For awhile he had forgot where he was, reading those words took him out of his head, transferring him, as if into some other world, part fantasy part comic book.  He wanted to know whose words these were.  And yet, the mystery added such a thrill that he wondered if he preferred not to know.  Only-- he did want to know.  Who was she?  Was she a patient here?  Were these writings from a shrink's file, a diary of someone who was locked up in here like himself? He found a seductive pull towards the screen wanting more; some strange eroticism that drew him and seemed to turn him on.

______________________________________________________________________________

Next entree....

Misinterpretations

The dictionary....

“Who am I?  My face looks like nobody from my family. It used to bother me. And anger my mother when I asked her about it. It was something I was not supposed to be suspicious of. Maybe I was adopted? Don't all kids think that at times? Why the cover up?  Pat was a bastard.  Died of a drug overdose. She was a hippie. And was my idol, my role model.  My life was empty after she died. And then we moved far, far away from everybody we knew.

“We moved overseas. Dad was an ad man.

“If ever there could be my most poignant antithesis it would be a commercial materialist. So my dad and I were natural enemies. He told me I was the bane of his existence. When he said that it hurt. Looking back, though… now—I’m proud of it. All the terror of my childhood can almost be justified if I believe that what he called me was really true: the bane of his existence. So, I was the cause of his pain. But I just wanted to be daddy’s little girl.  Have a father’s love. But he never loved me, he hated me. Realizing that was my first heartbreak.  His rejection. And then she rejected me too.

“Moving to Holland saved me.

“I was eleven when Pat died, obsessed with suicidal thoughts.

“But I found my roots in the romance and beauty of that country, along with its controversial history; the people's obstinate resilience, their opinionated brutality; their humane tolerance; and the lush landscape and architecture that I got exposed to everyday but most important of all: the art museums which house the historical and world famous, splendid masterpieces. It was this that awakened me to the meaning of life that goes beyond this one me, this one self.  And being awakened to that broke a spell-- or cast one as I searched for definition. I flourished, becoming a tuning fork for the gods, the muses and was visited by inspiration like a re-occurring fever, or a werewolf that returns at the full moon. For the first time, I felt alive. Visual arts, literature, music took me to a better place and that was the only place that I chose to ever exist.  I know that is where the key had to be buried.  Because.... there I am not lost.  And there is where I am. There is Electra. There before the grace of the muses go I….

Conjugations....

“I never knew my father.  Memories are often ugly scars.  Small cells of bacteria that slowly eat away as they multiply.  So many I’ve blocked.  Like so many other things.  Things that hurt.  I must keep it all very far away.  As if those feelings belong to someone else.  The codes I left behind I hid too well.  Lost in the similes.  There are places inside that I can't go.  The edges that curl up when the paint peels.  Thick rubber band skin.  Gummy layered on, half left still un-dried.  Skin not quite tough.  Not tough enough.  The fairy god mother always says, 'come with me...' And her hands, opaque, ghost pale leading up to marble arms beckon me to her.  The halls go on forever.  With their false turns, the misleading paths.... the amazing labyrinthine spiral...onion layers... that peel away.  In search of the exit.  The exit out of here. I don't want to be in here.  Inside.

“Words can really trip you up.  So maybe it's better if I say nothing.  Or, at the very least, say as little as possible.  Of course, the temptation is to spill it all. But I can't.  I learned that long ago.  Apples mean poison in another person's language, and lithium can spell promise or God in another.

“I think something gets destroyed when you learn how to switch off an instinct in order to survive.  And I don't know if it ever comes back again.  That split, that schism; unfocused, like a hidden path that leads you off into a dream.... and you must take it because it is a way out... I’m not even sure which hurts more, words or whips, silence or Novocain, but when you ask and there is no reply.... not even an echo, you find that that forest may not even exist in the mind or even at all... when the tree falls, nobody's there.

“Talking to myself is an exercise in rhetorical frustration. There's not even an echo. And maybe that's why I’ve spent hours staring into mirrors to see if I’m still there.  Or why I need to leave an imprint, a mark or stain, a blotch of ink or a splat of paint.  The volumes I’ve written in my mind in indelible, invisible text will never be seen or heard or even understood. Locked within an erased legend that showed a way.... that now will never be discovered. I fall silently. I wrote them in code, words of truth needed to be expressed, silenced by the agony of which they were repressed.  The selective alteration of reality, behind the obstacles of words and double meaning, with the anticipation of the backlash of having them spat back afterward. . . . and that fear of letting them be exposed during a moment of weakness.  Falling out of my mouth in dream to become the weapon of my jailer... so the fluency of false suggestions that keep it all purposely confused....confuses me too. At times of desperation these walls, that defend me, trap me too, even though they are invisible --invincible-- they are more impenetrable than steel.

“The clues.  You see.  They are written on the walls.

“Still, I can conjure up a will to put on deceptive disguises to make you and everyone else believe that I don't care, that I am someone else.  I am invisible.  Invincible.

“Does cruelty spawn pearls of invention or just insanity?  I really don't know who I'd be without that.  Without this secret coded Rubik's cube I am absorbed in.  My own Frankenstein.  What am I without my madness.......”

Trent read her words for hours, the entrees on his computer seemed to be infinite and the hours he spent caught up in her mind flew by him. . . .

He watched her from the window as she walked from the parking lot, absently, saw the car pull up, knowing it was hers, partially lost in the reverie of his mind as he played the strings of the guitar he held.  She drove a Volvo with racing stripes.  His eyes followed her as she walked across the path towards the main hospital building.  She turned suddenly to look up at his window as she passed and he quickly hid himself before being seen by her, but still watched as she passed, watching her walk all the way to the hospital's tall main building until she stepped inside.  He strummed his guitar and words passed his lips, aloud, he sang,

“Electra walks out from the darkness fading soft and loud, she wanes and waxes and goes where no one is allowed....” the notes had already become embedded in his mind so he played this without effort, his fingers having a life of their own while his thoughts strummed.  He had been up all night writing music, drunk with inspiration.... he had never been this prolific.  Since he had been at the mental hospital, he had written five complete songs and had come up with enough ideas for other songs to make a complete album.  That in itself was a record for him.  Never had ideas come so fast.  He knew that it was his discovery of the Electra files.  It was Electra.  She haunted his dreams night and day.  But he didn't care.  His creative mind had ignited with such stimulus. He thought wryly that it was almost worth being caged up here.  Almost.  But he hated having his freedom taken from him.  He knew that was part of Lisa's revenge too.

One of the things that he had not mentioned to Dr. Torrent was their last argument.  It had been over some girl that Lisa had seen him with.  For years their relationship had been an “open” one, she slept around worse than any dog he knew.  The difference was that he never got jealous of her activities.  He loved her but not in the story book romance way and not in the single minded need to posses her way either.  She suited some of his moods, just not all of them.  She had never really got the part of him that was the artist.  She never understood the need that drove him for a cerebral, yet organic passion to create.  She never got his need for long periods of solitude.  But that also did not mean that he could ever walk away from her, he'd always love her, just not all the time or for any length of exclusive consistency.  Her addictions turned him off and her clinging, needy demands for constant attention made him want to escape from her immediately after any encounter with her.

Electra had captured his mind.  Even without knowing what she looked like.  Yet he did want to know.  It would be impossible, he knew, to just let this go once he was free to leave Regal Grove.  He turned his head to look at the gargoyle that always seemed to be watching him.  His thoughts going back to the dictionary.  It was as if he fell into her mind when he read her words.  Her thoughts were like some other world, a world so different and so removed from any world that he had ever experienced. 

She was lost.  But he also knew that she knew that.  And didn't care because she didn't want to be found.  But she did.  And he knew that too.

There was something so tantalizing because he had begun to feel that he understood her implicitly, but there was no way that she would ever know this.  Or even know that he had access to these files.  But then, he thought, wouldn't she just hate him for reading her secret dictionary?  There was a bittersweet frustration in the knowing that she didn't even know he existed.  Could never know that he'd read her thoughts every day for the past several days since he had discovered them.  Which brought him back to wonder how was it that he could?  He had been given the freedom to have his equipment with him to use.  Freedom.... even as he was incarcerated.  Did she have the same arrangement with Dr. Torrent?  If it helped the patient, Trent knew that Dr. Torrent would be all for it.  And Electra claimed to be a poet.  So maybe writing was her “medicine”.  Maybe she needed it the way that he needed his music.

Trent would often reread her lines, going back to previous pages as he went forward.  Sometimes he could identify with things she wrote about but mostly he felt as if it was like looking through a telescope on the alternate universe. Electra experienced her emotions by putting them into symbolic images.  Her emotions became attached to the images instead of the things themselves.  The distance allowed her to feel without ever having to be immersed.  Trent only had distance-- or put distance-- to any discarded past.  But looking out from her eyes helped something clarify about himself.

He had begun to dream of her, her words, when he slept, sometimes he woke up saying them in his head.  The strange rhythm they had as if singing in his thoughts.  The haunting imagery she could invoke.  That sense that she could not be contained, not by rules or by physical boundaries, could not be confined within restraints.  It compelled him.  She did not want to be possessed, she did not want demands or anything that could compromise her personal commitments to herself and somehow this only seemed to make him crave to posses her; posses her mind, get in and split it open and see her words speak of him. 

That he could be in danger of treading a little too closely to the edge with this infatuation did not concern him.  He was addicted to the inspiration she evoked by the seduction of the spell that was cast by her words.  And he wanted to stay for as long as he could under this spell, woven in her mind, wrapped in the illusion and madness.  He began to believe that this had been some kind of fate which had brought him here.  To find her.  But where was she, who was she?  He knew that he couldn't leave Regal Grove without finding out who she was. 

He knew he hadn't murdered anyone.  He refused to let himself believe that what he was being held here for would stick.  Sooner or later Lisa would turn up.  He knew she wasn't dead.  Eventually this farce would end.  He was sure that if Lisa was really dead he would know it, somehow, he would feel it and he was not getting that feeling.  He was sure she was just looking for attention.  After knowing her for over fifteen years he knew all her tricks. 

And it was because of the discovery of Electra's diary that he found it was possible to accept this loss of freedom-- at least for now.  Knowing she was here.  Because right now he could not lose Electra and had begun to wonder how he could contrive a way to stay here ….when the inevitable was to happen.

There was also a sense of guilt about not telling Dr. Torrent about his discovery of Electra's dictionary.  But he knew there was no way that he could reveal this to Dr. Torrent; that it was the doctor's responsibility to protect her patient, that her Hippocratic oath would conflict with his discovery and interest of Electra's file and would infringe upon the patient's confidentiality.  He suspected Electra had to also be in this very building, in one of those rooms they had passed on the way here, the day he was brought to this room.  That was the only possible explanation, why else had it been possible to download her diary entrees here? 

The high security police watch had been lessened some, now there was only the guards in front of the building and the locked door of the stair well that lead downstairs.  He had tested this.  Explored the perimeters of his imprisonment.  Had managed to get out long enough un-noticed to walk up and down the halls of the floor.  He had slipped past his self locking door after Dr. Torrent had left a few times and with the aid of a guitar string, would return discretely awhile later.  He had always been mechanical, good at locks especially.  But even after a few of these clandestine investigations to the room he had begun to suspect was hers, he found it was always quiet from where he'd stood to listen outside the door.

But he did feel guilty about Dr. Torrent.  He wasn't used to guilt.  It didn't make sense to him now either.  It was because he liked her.  He also trusted her. He wasn't sure why.  He just knew that if he had to, he could trust her with his life.  His gut instinct?  Or the fact that the doctor was beautiful. 

And she was.

The strange, dark surrealism of being here in this place was further complicated and exemplified by the other worldly glamor of Dr. Torrent and often, the doctor's exotic, sultry beauty got mixed up with his dreams of Electra.

She had that kind of intelligent beauty.  Was it the glasses?  And he wondered what she looked like without them.  A lot.  In one of those dreams he was reaching to take the glasses from her face, and as he reached, her hair came loose, cascading down like a waterfall that fell like a shroud, replacing the glasses so that her face remained still obscured. It was only after hours of being awake from a dream when it had occurred to him later in the day that he had dreamed of her in his bed, lying under him.  Was it because he was pent up in this place?  No way to have any kind of release from physical needs?

It was like having duel illicit affairs with two women at the same time while neither of them knew about it.  Instead of being embarrassed though, or even ashamed, he liked the perversity of it.  Very much.

in a corner by the well/ in a corner there to dwell/ i am your whipping boy/ or just a ploy/

smear the lines of us/ i’ll be your oedipus/ and you can elect-tro-shock therapy me/

dynamic personality/here in the corner of my mind/ the room inside/ standing silently in

my doom/ i hear you in my room/your voice inside the place you hide/ am i insane & this

just suicide?/if i am willing to surrender/ down into the pits of despair of splendor/

will i spear an apple with my bow?/ will i know?

There was a weeping willow that he was fond of looking out at. One window in his room was at an angle and as it faced in another direction, away from the front manicured lawns and towards the entrance to the hospital, he could see the parking lot on the other side of the weeping willow where he liked to watch Dr. Torrent pull up each day. From this direction, the old cemetery that took up a huge part of the property could also still be seen.  Beside this was an old run down church with more weather beaten gargoyles.

Where he had been arrested was about twenty minutes from here at the hotel he had been staying at, and awakened early by the authorities at his hotel the morning after a late night concert.  The hotel had been oddly situated by some abandoned, old metro area just outside of Detroit.  Abandoned buildings were everywhere and it was apparent that this was where there once had been a lot of car factories before the big old boys went bust. He had noticed on the way here in the police car that parts of the surrounding city area had become repossessed by nature.  Besides abandoned buildings there were homes too, decayed in ruins.  He had seen some wild animals running, catching a glimpse of some deer and a fox leaping through the broken down door of a Tudor style house. The suburban and feral landscape was a curious mix.

It was possible to get lost in thought staring out in this direction as the far distant movement of a highway was heard and the occasional car or truck could be seen on a nearby visible road. In this direction clearing his mind was not as hard, he could almost forget where he was. Sometimes he was gripped with the terror that Lisa could be dead.  And it was those times when he reached for his guitar to play something loud and angry, as if to beat this thought out of his mind and to avoid other thoughts like: what if this time Lisa really did do something crazy?  What if she was dead and set him up for it too?  What if he would be locked up forever?  The good doctor had been right to allow him his instruments because it was only the solace of his music that kept him from slamming his head into one of the concrete walls of his room.

“So how have you been holding up?” Dr. Torrent asked looking around his room, observing the array of instruments that were haphazardly laying around in a creative state of chaos.  She pulled a chair by the window and sat down, setting her black leather bag against the wall beside her, taking out her clip board, her files and notes.  She crossed her legs gracefully, still wearing those combat boots, he noted.  Her attire these days was far more conservative than she had dressed the first time he had seen her.  Today her simple dark skirt was worn with a softly knit sweater, also dark and now as she reached inside her bag for a pen, she became very business like as she clicked her pen to write on the paper attached to her clipboard.

“It's been fantastic so far,” Trent said with the sarcasm that Dr. Torrent had come to expect from him, but he no longer regarded her with the hostility that he had upon their first encounter.

“I'm sure you know, there is still no word of Lisa Loath's whereabouts,” she glanced up at him from behind her black frames.

“I heard from my lawyer today,” Trent nodded with distracted annoyance.  “I wonder how long I am going to be caged up in here.  How long before she decides to come out of hiding.”

“So you think she's hiding?”

He met her eyes levelly,

“I do.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Do you believe in mental telepathy, Dr. Torrent?  Although being a doctor I am sure you would be trained not to,” he seemed to challenge her with his words.

“I am not all total science,” she answered him.  “Why?”

“Because I can feel it,” he put his hand against his abdomen and kept his eyes steady on her.  “If anything had really happened to her, I'd know it.  I know I would.  I'd feel it in here.”

Dr. Torrent returned his steady gaze,

“I see. Then where do you believe she is right now?”

“Well.... the last anyone heard, she was in Seattle.  I know she is recording an album there.  I don't think it's too hard to figure out the rest, but then, how would I know?  I mean, I have no way to go looking for her either and Lisa knows how not to be found.  She's done this before.”

“Humor me, what are you suggesting?  What do you mean by not 'too hard to figure out the rest'?”

“You have to understand the way her mind works.  Her need for attention.”

“So you think you know where she is?”

“Yeah.  I do.” He said this calmly, without doubt or worry but with a shrug of irritation.

“Where?”

“Here.”

Dr. Torrent leaned forward,

“You think she's in Regal Grove?”

“Or if not, most likely on her way here.  Seattle is a few states over, if I understand the American geography well enough-- I mean, even with a car, it would take a few days.”

“But her car is missing.”

“She wouldn't be using that car.  It was a rental, wasn't it?  No, she would either be on a bus or be hitch hiking, unless she managed to borrow a car.  That would be my best guess, easier to avoid being discovered if she was on her own and she isn't ready to be discovered just yet.”

“Why not?”

“Like I said: attention. No, I should narrow that down more.... she's trying to get my attention.”  

______________________________________________________________________________

His thoughts unraveled… like streams of consciousness plunging out of him as he gripped desperately to the neck of his guitar, his guitar that was like an arm to him.  He knew every bruise of it, every nick and bang on it, the sophomoric graffiti he had so long ago written all over it were like familiar scars he depended on.

But disturbed, his thoughts returned now to Lisa.  Where was she? Or could she really be dead? Had she taken her own life? How very like her to do this if only to get back at him. In destroying herself she took him down too. Every action she took had layered consequences --and always they were selfish. His hands mirrored his tangled mind field as they twisted to produce complicated chords that cried and howled with an eerie quality that ricocheted across the room, bouncing off the walls and echoed his angry thoughts. Bouncing off the walls. He felt as if he wanted to climb these walls.

Only, did he want to get out of here? Out there was even more madness. Out there was the media circus show, the cloying paparazzi that had, at one time, seemed so glamorous when he was young and stupid enough to wish for fame. If only he had known that with fame would come some trade offs with the devil.

As his fingers struck a familiar chord it resonated through his ear drums and brain taking him down a passage.  This is the way: like slipping into anesthesia he found the magic to walk through the gate to Avalon and notes danced through his fingers, making him gratefully drunk with the tremors and resonance. Better than any high he ever knew, hanging on a note and blending, moving with it, like great sex, only better because he didn’t need anyone else to feel this rush. He reached for a piece of paper and wrote down the chords he had just played, followed by the notes that cried and still hung in the air. It was the kiss of the Muses. Visiting him in his madness as he watched without seeing a vision outside the window. Notes carried like the wail of Orpheus through the ether.  He closed his eyes and let it rip through his senses, the music carrying him gladly out himself. Like a trance.  He fell into that glorious state of being where the artist becomes one with the invention and the two exist in an eternal loop hole in time that promises to carry both to other realms infinitely.

Hours transpired without ever noticing the passing of time.