Cutters

By dcsross

Haunted by the private demons of psychosis, twenty-nine year old Zach is isolated from the world outside the hospital. With the help of a anxious, self-mutilating girl named Emma, he embarks on a hitchhiking trip to escape the ennui of contemporary life. As Zach and Emma get closer, they end up revealing their quirks and dangerous idiosyncrasies to one another. 

Will the pair be able to find some way to connect, or will they be lost in the whirlwind of their own personal dervishes? 

​

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freyja eBooks
• Release date: Oct 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781393265146

Book preview

1

Every time you get out of the hospital you feel like an extra large piece of shit. People tell you how sick you are, and all the pretty nurses look at you like you're subhuman. Older mental patients long for the good old days where the other mental patients were always DTF and there were plenty of private places to get it done in.

Now the hallways and janitor's closets were all filled to the brim with 360 PTZ cameras. Insurance purposes, or to give the ward that special 1984 feel.

Regardless, I was out. Freer than a dumb-ass bird, and still thinking about the bipolar 20 year old who really liked sitting next to me and pressed her thigh against mine in group. It's a damn shame there was no place to take her.

Also she was probably a Russian spy.

There was a full moon last night and the whole ward went wild. I had to avoid getting caught up in the hurricane of limbs in orange pyjamas. No time for that non-sense. They told me I was getting out, and I knew they could change their minds anytime they felt like it.

I spent the whole night drafting the perfect craigslist personal ad. Needed someone to tell me I was pretty, in not so many words.

They took me out of the ward, and out the front door of the hospital in a wheel chair. I felt like a goldbricker.

My inbox was full of spam from some third world harvesting email addresses, but one response stood out. A 35 year old in the next town over was looking to party, whatever that meant.

The hospital gave me a taxi pass to get home, but they didn't specify to the cab company where my home was. I could have gotten him to drive me to the airport for all they cared. If I had the money I could go to a Turkish opium den and die.

The best part about being free? Your existence becomes an act of rebellion. Camus said that. Or something like it.

They can't kill me, and believe me, they've tried. Nobody believes me.

The cab pulled up to the front entrance of the emergency room. I got in and handed the driver the voucher.

Where you going?

I checked the address the woman from craigslist sent me, and then repeated it to the driver.

We started driving. The smooth pavement of the hospital turned into the cracked streets of Nanaimo.

So what were you in the hospital for? Everything alright?

I think so.

I didn't know how much the taxi driver wanted to know. I figured he was just making conversation and didn't really want a breakdown of my breakdown. Also, most people think of mental illness as some cinematic train-wreck. We're either cutting our wrists in the bathtubs, or plotting to blow up credit card headquarters. Not to mention all the murders.

At least once every six months the general populace encountered a schizophrenic in the news who, while experiencing command hallucinations, killed someone.

This was really bad for us. The majority of schizophrenics are mostly just a nuisance. Rooting through the neighbours garbage looking for secret messages from the KGB, and whatnot.

Admittedly, I almost became one of those terrible news stories. I was in Montreal during my first psychosis. I heard church bells and left the house thinking I had to go find God, whatever form it took.

I wound up in a mall, being commanded to do things by signage. Talking to myself, babbling incoherently, I saw a man in a black trench coat with a black hat, who the signs told me was the devil. Every fibre in my body wanted to grab that man by the shoulders and throw him through a plate glass window and stomp on his head until it emulsified.

Thankfully, I didn't. I wound up in the hospital the next day. Stayed for a month, did outpatient for a month, and eventually got better. Better is relative. The hospital still called to me.  

The taxi man and I drove in relative silence until he turned on the radio, which immediately started talking to me about my mission on earth. Like a lot of schizophrenics I knew, shamanism is a big draw, no matter the ethnicity of the person.

How did the hospital release me when I was still delusional? Very good question.

Nature has a purity that nothing else does. Being in a forest or a garden is like being in an alien environment for most people. No sirens, no horns, no garbage trucks. Sounds. No deep fryers, no gas stations, no silica beads.

Professional's like to think mental patients think we're special, but that's not it. It's not a desire to be elevated above the rest. It's an affirmation that we don't belong in offices, or behind receptionist counters, or in mall kiosks. Nature has it's own telepathy, and like zealots we feel we need to relay the messages we hear.

It was a thirty minute drive to the craigslist woman's house, but time passed effortlessly like wind through a chain link fence.

We stopped on the curb, and I signed the hospital transportation pass. The taxi sped away after I got out, and I opened my cellphone to send the craigslist woman an email.

I'm outside, I typed into gmail.

Waiting on her front lawn, I started to frighten myself with all the possibilities of this encounter.

We have sex and it's bad.

We have sex and it's good but I get a disease.

I step into the house and she is really a he.

I step into the house and her boyfriend/husband is waiting behind the door to club me over the head with a bat. Then they dismember and possibly eat my corpse.

She says That will be 200 dollars when we're done, and since I don't have any money she calls someone over to beat me up.

The front door opened a crack, and the woman from the pictures waved me in. She was wearing a baggy t-shirt, hot pants, and her hair was up in a bun.

I stepped through the front door and peeked around the corner subtly to see if anyone was waiting to hit me over the head.

Do you party? the woman says.

I thought we were staying here?

Yeah. Do you do GHB?

I've never done that.

You don't have to, I just figured I'd offer.

The woman sat down on one end of a couch in the living room and motioned for me to sit down beside her.

So what do you do?

I didn't ever know how to answer that question. It begs to be answered with one word that is both impressive and requires further explanation.

Arbitrage, I said.

What's that?

I make money by buying things for less than they are worth, and then reselling them for what they are worth.

You're not a drug dealer, are you?

Somewhat.

I sold erotica. Word drugs.

I don't know any drug dealers that don't party.

Okay.

I wanted to talk this woman's ear off about how the world had changed. Smart drug dealers were invisible. They used the postal system and the internet now. Mailmen were the biggest drug dealer's around, except they didn't know it. I liked being invisible. It was safe.

What's your name, she asked.

Zach.

Let's see if that's what it says on your hospital wristband.

She lowered her face to my left wrist. I pulled it away. Fuck. I forgot to take it off.

Don't worry, Zach. she said. I won't reveal your identity.

What's your name?

Laura.

You seem more like a Britney, or a Desiree.

Laura gasped.

That was my daughter's name.

Was?

I miscarried.

Oh.

I could see Laura tearing up. She got off the couch and excused herself. When she walked out of the living room, I started to look around for shit I could steal.

It was all crap. An ashtray carved in Indonesia or something. It was a guy with a huge head, a small body, and a huge dick. A few paintings from Ikea. And some tupperware filled with cheap craft supplies. The smell of stale tobacco and vaped weed filled the house.

I heard Laura blow her nose, then she came back to the couch. She was really pretty. Probably prettier a few years ago, but still beautiful.

It's a shame when people can't deal with tragedy. Drugs really fuck you up, then they have to put you on worse drugs to fix you. I was in the same boat.

The doctor formally diagnosed me with schizophrenia, but said I probably had depression before I started self-medicating with weed. I had only smoked weed for a year, but I was smoking it all day everyday until I went full on insane. Howling at the moon. Lycanthropy.

I'm sorry for your loss, I said.

You're sweet, but it was a long time ago.

She wiped her brown hair from her face to behind her ear. I noticed her wedding ring but didn't say anything.

Have you ever done GHB? she asked, pouring a tiny bottle of the clear substance into the cap, and then downing it.

Nope, but I had friend's that did.

It's good. It's like alcohol sort of. You get drunk, but there isn't really a hangover. It makes sex amazing.

Awesome.

Do you want to try it?

Sort of, but I can't. Doctor's orders.

I didn't know what the contraindications of my meds were, and I'd rather not die in a strange house.

Laura poured another cap for herself, then leaned against me rubbing my thigh.

We kissed a bit. Talked a bit. Slowly the light from her eyes seemed to go out. Her responses became more and more strained, and her voice seemed like it was coming from further and further away.

You're kinda cute, she slurred.

Tha-

Fuck I think I'm gee holing.

Laura started to rub my leg as her head slowly lowered into unconsciousness. I got up and let her rest in the corner of the couch. I pulled a blanket over her and patted her head and went for a tour of her home.

There was a thin layer of dust over everything, it was like no one was actually living in the house. There were pictures of her and her boyfriend/husband all over the place. Holding up a big fish. Wedding photos. At a BBQ. Typical middle-class shit.

There was a room though. A room giving off a really weird vibe. The door was shut and light peered through the bottom of the door. I thought it could be the bathroom, and I wanted to see what they had anything good in their medicine cabinet I could sell. I opened the door.

It was magical. The room was an office, but it was covered floor to ceiling in unopened collectible figurines. A literal treasure trove. I wish I drove and had a truck. I could have made a fortune. Something caught my eye though, a huge posable figurine of an Ent from Lord of the Rings. I looked it up on eBay and saw them selling for thousands of dollars. I could pay my rent with it, if I didn't think it was so cool. It spoke to me. Me, a shaman released from the hospital. It, a literal talking tree. Perfect. I picked it up and exited the room. Then the house. Thanks Laura's husband/boyfriend.

I walked to the nearest gas station on google maps, got their address, then called my mom. She was worried about me, and I hadn't been answering her phone calls in the hospital. I just needed my space. More space than I had been getting.

2

It was laughable to think at one time people had souls. Something spiritual about themselves. Something esoteric or metaphysical. The continent was on the verge of merging with the machine. I had watched my friends grow up with technology. Now we were getting ready to grow into it. Heroism would be trying to stop what was happening. Lots of people protested trying to stop the advances. They accepted robotic hearts and lungs for their loves ones. Prosthetic arms and legs for children, but the progress became creepy. Inhuman.

---

I thought it was mildly amusing until I watched a guy kick a hole in a concrete wall after getting into a drunken fight with his girlfriend. Right through the wall.

3

It doesn't make sense? Does it?

My mom picked me up and drove us home. She didn't say much. It was always awkward after a hospitalization.

When I got home I opened up the windows to let a breeze in. Summer is an awful season, even on the island. The heat was too hot.

My laptop took a second to boot, and in that second I thought some more about suicide. Living dull left it's own mental bruises.

The browser opened my usual tabs and i started refreshing windows immediately. Checking on my social media. Checking on my sales reports at various distributors. It's a compulsion and I might bring it up with my doctor if he ever stops smirking when I talk.

Dating sites don't hold my attention usually, but I still check on them every once in a while. I rarely if ever get messages, but every time I do I get a brief dopamine rush. It's nice.

Refreshing the page gave me a message notification, I opened it and immediately started to feel bad.

Months ago, a girl I went on a few dates with started to get a little too crazy on me in an abusive way so I dropped her off my radar. Blocked and deleted. Our variations of crazy were not compatible, I decided.

This was her. She reached out asking what I was up to. Maybe it was a hidden loneliness that gave me shit foresight, but I responded. My softened heart.

She even mentioned how I blocked her and stopped responding to emails. If I was a smarter, wiser person I would have sensed this as more emotional manipulation, or a sign that she really hadn't changed at all, but I wasn't.

Maybe do you want to come on a camping adventure with my friends?

Sure, I said ((stupidly)).

I hoped it was a trick and that she'd poison my trail mix or something. Dying felt like a good idea.

4

There are levels of truth. Existential. Why are we here? Modern. What's going on? Metaphysical. Why is this happening to me?

---

I am insane insane insane insane insane insane. There was a bug flying outside my window. Casting a shadow.

---

Everything vibrates.

---

We are all snakes. And the music is there so we can coil and uncoil.

5

astorm would be cool sort of

feeling the electricity in the air build up

I went to the island last year and I stayed alone

for one of the nights. There were torrential

downpours and it was so cool

Awesome

have you been keeping up with your writing?

mmm not so good.

I've been ill

anemia i guess not eating led to bad things

:(

yea i'm on the upswing

that's good :)

i hope lol

are you well enough to spend a night on an island?

I wondered that before, and I might be a

bit sick, but if i am I can rest and detach myself

detach from what?

just if i'm sick I need to eliminate sources of stress.

So if the social situation is stressful I will just lie

down alone or something

alright. If that happens i'll bring a notepad

yea, also, if there are 4 of us, I don't expect

we will all be together all the time at the same time.

everyone can wander around

there are trails and beaches and lots to explore

okay

but i do want to spend time with you. it's unlikely I would need

to get away from you because you're pretty mellow in person.

More I'm thinking of Karen and Connor. They both are pretty

obnoxious lol.

i think we can just see how it goes

and everyone can do what they want on the island

okay :) i was just worried about bothering you somehow

I don't think you will.

Good

nature calms me. lol

how is your writing?

good. The last few weeks I've been doing a lot

i decided to stop worrying about writing stuff

I didn't really enjoy anymore (erotica)