Chapter One: Martin
(Draft)
Martin stood abruptly from his chair and jammed both hands into the pockets of his bright yellow rain slicker. Studying the room with a full three-sixty, his brows cut deeper with every degree. He squinted down to twenty-twenty vision, clenched his jaw and stepped into the middle. The walls were a calming shade of bubblegum pink.
“This corporate gig must be top secret,” he said to Sandra, his longtime caretaker. “There aren’t even any sponsor ads. Where’s the backstage food and booze?”
“Martin, we’re at your doctor’s office for a follow-up. It won’t take more than thirty minutes,” Sandra said as reassuringly as possible.
“Doctor? I don’t like the sounds of that one bit.” Martin began wringing out his hands.
“Don’t be nervous; we come here twice a year. Dr. Fabian is a real peach.”
“Is it a government thing? They want me to run a kamikaze mission, don’t they?” Martin asked. The furrow of his brow carved deeper into his textured forehead as he returned to the chair and sat down. He ran both hands up and down the length of his thighs, smoothing out the houndstooth printed pants.
“Don’t worry, Martin. You’ll just answer some questions and let the doctor have a look at you. Then we’ll be able to go home. Are you hot?” Sandra asked, peeling her eyes from the tablet in her hands. “Let’s take off your rain slicker.”
“What if they don’t like my hat?” Martin asked, reaching for his head. “They’ve killed people for less.”
“No one is going to hurt you, darling.”
Martin’s face registered understanding. He leaned back and began humming and tapping his thumbs off the domed face of his belt buckle, causing a harmonizing rattle. After about three minutes, the humming stopped and his knee began to bounce.
“Martin,” Sandra started.
“Where are my guitars?” He pulled at his cheek, an action that told Sandra he was almost at his wits end. Without looking away from her screen, she reached into her purse and pulled out a jumbled Rubik’s cube.
“Martin, I promised my son I’d bring it home with all the colours true. But I haven’t had a chance to look at it. Do you think you could help me?”
“You bet!”
Fifteen years ago when Sandra and Martin first met, he was able to solve the puzzle in under a minute. As his condition progressed, the time to completion increased until he was no longer able to complete it.
With the puzzle pieces clicking between Martin’s fingertips, he seemed to be concentrating without breaking thought. It was difficult to say what was going on in that head though. He almost had an entire line of orange when the medical assistant called for him.
“Hi Martin, nice to see you again. My name is Rachael. Dr. Fabian is running a little late this morning, but you can wait in one of the examining rooms.”
“You know my name?” Martin looked up. “Dr. Fabian? Who’s that?”
Sandra took the cube from his hand, jumbled it up and put it back in her purse. They were moved from one stale room to another. Like a curious child, Martin began fiddling with the tools, starting with the ear scope.
“Is this for my nose?” He flipped the scope’s light off and on. “Am I getting a physical so I can go on that mars mission?”
“Why don’t you have a seat here, Martin,” Sandra suggested, motioning to the chair beside her.
“I want to stand.”
“Hey, did you see this? Tom Waits is putting out a new boxset of previously unreleased material.”
“Tom Waits?” he shuffled to the chair, sat down and nosed up real close to Sandra’s screen.
“Why don’t we put on some Tom and let that broken voice of his fill our ears?”
“You can listen to music on that thing?” he asked.
“Yep,” she responded, selecting a playlist called Martin’s Anxious Tracks.
As soon as Reservoir Dogs began, Martin leaned up against her.
“I love this song.” He closed his eyes and sat motionless for the entire three minutes. Once it was over, he began shuffling his feet again.
Sandra reached into her purse, “Martin, I promised my son that I’d bring this home with all the colours true. But I haven’t had a chance to look at it. Do you think you could help me?”
“You bet!” he said, grasping the Rubik’s cube.
Chapter Two: Charlie
(Draft)
Charlie took the next left hoping to avoid the morning stack up of cars along Broadway. But it didn’t matter which direction she turned – the dusty streets were piled high with red brake lights. She was tempted to ditch her vehicle and sprint the short distance to the hospital to prevent rescheduling the appointment. As always, the days leading to these follow-ups were fraught with restless nights and anxiety, an experience she didn’t want to relive simply due to trickling traffic.
I should’ve walked! She agonized, while bumping up another meter. The clock in the dash was blaring five minutes late and counting! She took a deep breath, sighed and tapped the steering wheel with her knuckles before attempting to break her train of thought with some good old talk radio. But the DJs were between bits, and instead of chatter from her favourite morning duo, it was John Prine and that song about the mistress and the foreboding aftereffects. She smacked the power button as if a pesky mosquito had landed on it.
After becoming aware of the tension strapped between her shoulder blades, causing her head to hang low, she sighed again and attempted to relax into a recline. The arrowhead-shaped building about a stone’s throw away filled the windshield. No matter the season or time of day, the hospital always gave off an ominous vibe, like it had been plucked from the streets of Gotham City and dropped like a lawn dart into the neighbourhood. Her office window was easily detectable – it was the one littered with post-its clinging to the inside, partially blocking her view of the mountains. One of those notes was a reminder about the appointment she was currently late for.
Charlie tried to quiet her hands but they were too restless. She gave in, wrenching the rearview mirror sideway and then shifting just enough so the length of her face was visible. A toothy grin filled the slat of glass, allowing her to find the piece of breakfast she’d nervously been tonguing at for the last half hour.
The glint of the morning sun ricocheted off the mirror and poured over every nook and cranny on her face, revealing the true depth of the crow’s feet that splayed from the corners of her eyes. Thumbing at the creases, she pulled the skin taught. Depending on the humidity, the wrinkles could easily transform into trenches large enough to bury an army of ants.
“Maybe it’s time for some Botox?” she asked the reflection, then laughed at the absurdity of a sixty something year old caring enough to stick needles in their face. “The older I get, the less chance there is of him recognizing me,” she reassured. Feeling flustered, Charlie opened the sunroof and instantly felt her wispy greys being pushed around by the gentle breeze.
She folded her hands in her lap, thinking they would keep each other company and one would prevent the other from straying. But she was getting closer to the parking lot and decided now was as good a time as any to retrieve The Kit. She opened the glovebox and spilled the contents onto the passenger seat. With loose and crooked arms, the dummy glasses were really showing their wear. And they were filthy, smudged with oily prints and splotched with a film. After about a decade of use, Charlie had meant to replace them, but then again, she’d also meant to find a way out of these follow-ups. She still felt a dulling of regret for past actions every time she considered giving up this specific patient.
She slipped the spectacles over her ears then whisked a tuft of hair from between the lens and her eye, prompting her to clip it back into the fold. The greys had really taken over within the last couple of years with a relentless march to ensure the chestnut browns were permanently abolished.
Beep! The car on her tail blurted, triggering her to bump up another meter. Another couple of minutes and she would be able to turn into the parking lot.
“Oh, do I know you?” Charlie asked herself. “You look familiar, have we met before?” She used a low tone attempting to sound like a man.
“We are familiar strangers,” she answered back in her own voice, performing solo role play.
She scrunched up her face causing the T-zone between her brows to crease. “Familiar strangers? I don’t know about that. I think I know you!”
“What if I told you we knew each other in another life?” Charlie smoothed the lapels of her navy-blue, white dotted collar and did up another button to cover any exposed skin.
“Ha-ha! What a hoot you are, Honeycomb! Can I call you Honeycomb?” her baritone boomed off the dash as she began removing her necklace and earrings. Once settled in the parking spot, she hesitated before exiting the vehicle. Better safe than sorry, she whispered, removing the elastic from her wrist and fastening a bun to the top of her head. One more glance in the rearview and she was out of the vehicle thinking about those damn grey eyes and how it would be nice to give some coloured contacts a whirl, but of course, she probably never would. She made a ten second stop at her office, then gulped in a deep breath of air and pushed open the door to the examining room.
“Hello, you must be Martin,” she said with a genuine smile. Charlie settled onto a rolling stool and swiveled so she was facing Martin and his caretaker. The room was artificially lit with an LED bulb that emitted a cold blue tone, instead of the warm orange glow of a tungsten filament.
“Oh, do I know you?” Martin asked, with soft-spoken speculation. “You look familiar. Have we met before?” Sandra sat off to the side, browsing her phone but listening. As usual, she let him go on chatting without interjection.
“We are familiar strangers,” Charlie replied without a quiver.
Martin stood and took a couple of short steps, spanning the small, windowless examining room. He looked deep into the crevices of her face; it was as if he was trying to dig out the past and place her somewhere in the time reel of his life, except the ribbon was no longer sequential. It was strewn in piles all over the floor. Charlie could see from his expression that he wasn’t able to establish a connection. For patients like him, those with dementia, she imagined most moments of his life were like trying to hold onto a fistful of sand. But the harder he concentrated and constricted his hand, the more grains he lost between his fingers and the ends of his palm.
“Familiar strangers? I don’t know about that. I think I know you!!” Martin assured.
“What if I told you we knew each other in another life?” Charlie played along because it was easier that way.
His expression changed to surprise, “Ha-ha! What a hoot you are, Honeycomb! Can I call you Honeycomb?”
“You can call me Dr. Fabian,” she replied lightly.
“Dr. Fabian? Well, I don’t know anyone with that name. What do your friends call you?”
“Charlie.”
“Oh, I like that, is it short for anything? I once had a fiancée named Charlotte.”
Standing within arm’s reach of each other, Charlie could see that he had aged well, and was still handsome in a quirky sort of way, even after time had added heavy jowls and fastened some bristles to his earlobes. After everything he’d lost, he was able to keep a unique sense of style, with his receding hair pulled back and over, an untucked shirt, houndstooth printed slacks and a pair of ankle high rain boots, because this was Vancouver, and somedays it rained buckets.
“Can you hold both arms out straight like you are reaching for me, please?” She pushed down on the tops of his wrists, hoping to find some resistance and get a good measure of what was left of his strength.
“Now take a seat here,” she motioned to the benchtop. “Is it okay if I remove your boots and socks for a moment?”
“Oh sure,” Martin replied seemingly confused. “What am I here for anyways? You wanted to run some tests on me? I heard I’m being considered for the mars mission.”
“That could very well be.” Charlie dragged a toothpick lightly along the bottom arch of his foot. His big toe curled. Reflexes didn’t seem to be deteriorating. Before Martin could get too deep into conspiracy theories, she took his lefthand and inspected the callouses on the fingertips. They were pronounced, which meant he was still playing guitar, an excellent sign that his dexterity was intact.
“Are you still playing guitar, Martin?”
“You know I play guitar? Have you been to one of my shows? My band is doing a show tomorrow night at The Railway Club – you should come! I’ll leave you some tickets at the door.” Charlie assumed that Martin was suddenly living in the past again, and that there was no show. Not these days anyhow.
“Alright, I’ll come to your show,” she helped him with his boots before beginning with the aptitude questions. “What does the clock on the wall say?” Charlie asked.
“Oh that’s midnight.”
“Okay. Here is a pen and pad of paper. Can you draw an analogue clock that says it’s a quarter of two?” Martin scribbled incorrectly.
“Interesting. Thank you, Martin. Now, look at me. I’m going to say four words that I want you to remember – steeple, train, hat and meow. Hold those in your mind for me until the end of the appointment.”
Martin looked her in the eye and agreed. “Your eyes are…blue? Green? I can’t seem to tell…move into the light,” he pulled her by the hand, hoping for a better look. “Damn, they are grey.”
She ignored the sidetrack and continued with the exam.
“I used to have a fiancee, she had eyes just like yours. Nobody could ever pinpoint the colour; they seemed to change depending on the light.”
After the appointment Dr. Fabian signaled to the caretaker to move into her office so they could speak privately for a moment.
“How did he do?” Sandra asked.
“His condition seems to have stabilized for now. I do want to send him for another MRI just to get a better idea – I suspect his brain is continuing to shrink but I’d like to know for sure. Do you think he can handle it, the closed quarters of the machine? Or should I do up an order for sedation? I recall last time –”
“He’ll need a sedation or at least an Ativan.”
“In your point of view, how has he been? Does he seem to be more disconnected?”
“The medication he’s on seems to have slowed the dementia. He’s been doing quite well. But he still has episodes a couple of times per week,” the caretaker said. “It’s not unusual for him to dip into the past and flounder there for a while.”
“Okay. The episodes will continue forever. Let’s not make any changes for now.” Charlie snuck a peek through the crack in the door and saw Martin disassembling the scaled down model of the brain.
“You’re such a doll for continuing to see him – thank you so much!” Sandra gushed.
“I just want to ensure he gets the right care. See my assistant on the way out and she’ll schedule Martin’s follow-up.”
Charlie pressed her back to the office door once it was closed and breathed a sigh of relief. No tears this time. She was too far past that point. But like all the appointments with Martin, this would hang over her for days.
Chapter Three: The Ghost
(Draft)
By the time Martin got back to his care home suite, the moon had a firm grip on the city. Autumn in Vancouver meant the skyline darkened early. Sandra unlocked the door and entered first. She turned on the lights and had a split-second look around ensuring the space was in a familiar way.
“Come on in Martin,” Sandra welcomed him. “What do you think?” That was her way of asking if he recognized his surroundings. Martin took off his electric-blue, flat brimmed hat and placed it on the wall hook. “It’s fine,” he said. Martin headed for the fridge and grabbed a can of sparkling water.
“That’s great,” Sandra said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Rest up! You’ve got a big show tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow? What day is tomorrow?”
“It’s Friday!”
“What happens on Friday?”
“You put on a little concert for all your friends!” Sandra reminded him.
“Oh yeah…my guitar.” Martin raised his gazed and met with the instrument hanging on the far wall and smiled. He loved that piece of wood with every bit of his confused soul.
“Night!” Sandra closed the door behind her.
As he approached the handmade acoustic guitar, Martin flipped on the lights in the living room. Just as he traipsed the floor, he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye. Against the dark background of the outside night, a reflection appeared in the floor-to-ceiling window. Martin was not used to having any of the curtains open. He paused, checking to see who might be there. When a foreign face he didn’t recognize came into view, Martin screamed at the top of his vocal range, “Ahhhh! Som-some-somebody!” He flailed his arms and took a few brisk steps backward, dropping the can of sparkling water.
The figure in the window seemed to mimic his motions. But how? Martin suddenly became aware that it wasn’t an intruder he was witnessing – it was his reflection. A much older, wrinkled version of a man he didn’t quite recognize. He approached the mirror-like window and almost smudged his nose against the pane. The most telling sign it was him was the pair of hazel eyes staring back.
Martin got quiet and pressed a couple of fingers against his face, the wrinkles…how did they get so deep? My nose…so bulbous! And these ears…these aren’t my ears, the lobes are lower than my jaw! It’s like they’ve been growing for sixty years!
“What happened?!” Martin asked the image, as if he was demanding answers. He turned his hand sideways and measured the distance from his eyebrows to hairline by the thickness of his fingers. “Four fingers?!” he cried, “since when did my hairline recede to four fingers?! Someone has stolen my youth!”
The door to his suite burst open; it was Sandra. “It’s okay Martin, no one is here!” She drew the shade down tight.
“Who was that old man in the window?!” he demanded.
“That’s just a neighbour; I’ll make sure he keeps out,” she fibbed, hoping to keep him calm.
“Impossible, it was me! I must be sixty years old!” With his sense of bewilderment at an all-time high, Martin looked at Sandra. “And who are you?!”
“I’m an old friend, we’ve known each other for at least ten years. Here, let me show you to your favourite recliner. Shall I get you a cup of your favourite chamomile tea and some biscotti?”
“How do you know I like those things? Where’s my fiancée?”
“She’ll be here soon,” Sandra fibbed for a second time. During moments like these, it was best not to reveal any bombshells. She walked over to Martin’s vinyl collection and selected one called, Lost at Sea, an album that was dripping with nostalgia and sure to bring back good memories. Martin seemed to calm as soon as the needle found the groove of the first track.
The first thing one might notice about Martin’s suite was the lack of mirrors; there weren’t any, not even in the bathroom. The reason for this was to protect him on the worst of days, days when his condition was so poor he couldn’t even recognize himself. In his early sixties, he’d been living with Alzheimer’s for almost twenty years, which might have been some sort of record. Originally, doctors had called it early onset, when they diagnosed him. Martin’s rate of deterioration had been slow.
In the last ten years his face had taken on the features of an old man. Since his mind couldn’t attach itself to the receding, greying hairline and plethora of wrinkles, Martin had trouble recognizing himself and understanding who the man in the mirror was.
As Sandra added hot water and a teabag to a mug with a no spill lid, Martin sifted through the record collection and pulled out a couple of his favourites: John Prine, Blaze Folley and some vintage Neil Young.
“You have an eclectic range of records! Tom Waits, Gordon Lightfoot and Lou Reed in the same collection?! Hey! My band, The Basilar Occlusions is in here!” Martin announced joyfully, holding the record up so Sandra could see it. “If you have a marker, I’ll sign it for you.” To keep him comfortably living in the past, Martin’s suite was full of old timey gadgets and vintage fare. They had abstained from filling his space with updated technology.
“That would be grand, Martin,” she smiled.
Perhaps distracted by his wandering eyes, Martin put the album down and picked his guitar off the wall. He held it by the neck at an arm’s length and wondered, how did it get so beat up? Martin gave the instrument a couple of strums, followed by an intricate finger-picking lick that belonged to a song he’d written in his youth. Playing old songs on guitar was muscled memory, whereas attempting to solve a Rubik’s cube involved new patterns and critical thinking. Martin’s talents were still intact; almost every song he’d ever written was floating around in his mind. Martin smiled lightly, pleased with the sound of his aging acoustic.
Feeling mentally drained from all the confusion, he backed into his recliner and folded in for the night. Before bringing his snack, Sandra had slipped a sedative into his tea, something to wear the edges of his confusion. Within half an hour he was laid back, mouth agape, snoring himself into another stupor.