Friday 1 February 2019

Intelligence Gained


© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2016

I seem to play my best chess at around 1 am, after I have given up on the prospect of sleep, again, for the night. After turning and tossing around for about two hours I get up around midnight and have a shower, after a cup of coffee. Whilst I’m dressing I feel enthused, looking forward to a night of playing chess on my phone, and to a day of reading nineteenth century fiction. I have schizophrenia and thus am unable to work (despite my best efforts), receiving a federal disability pension from the generous government of Aus, allowing me to spend my time howsoever I choose. The chess games are usually short and the checkmates I win are always something that’ll make me smile in recalling them months later. These checkmates never involve using the queen, which I have swapped off earlier in the game. Instead they are a graceful, yet ruthless, combination of two or three pieces. Using only two rooks for the mate is by far my most favourite checkmate.
     A few months ago, during another sleepless night, though, my chess app, rated to be the best, began making illegal moves. This was just after it had been updated. I kept playing it though, hoping that it was just a temporary error (or rather errors.) But every game I played, it kept moving illegally, and nothing I tried to fix it worked. Forcing the app to take back a move just resulted in an illegal move elsewhere and rebooting my phone, thrice, had no impact whatsoever. So, with really no choice, I got another chess app and deleted the alleged best one on the Net.
     This chess app, rated very highly, was by far a lot dumber than its predecessor. I was playing it solidly for two hours, to give it a good work out and to gauge its character, and it only won once. It won that game only because of an error on my part. Thus, having thoroughly explored this stupid app, I was sufficiently tired out, or more to the point, disappointed, that I got back in my pyjamas and returned to bed. I fell asleep eventually, disappointed, and convinced that my sleepless wee hours of the morning would be so excruciatingly boring from now on.

*

After a week of playing this very tedious chess app, and winning practically every game, I decided to return to the old one. Perhaps they’d stopped its illegal moving. They had indeed updated it and the very first game with it was a thorough, resounding joy; it beat me very quickly and had not made any illegal moves. I played it several more times (the app winning every game) and not a single move was out of order. Thank God! I now had something to look forward to during my sleepless nights.
     But the app kept winning. I am an above average chess player but this obviously updated app was a thorough genius. I tried every trick that I had previously learned to beat it but still it kept winning. Maybe because I was playing it during the day and not at 1 am, my usual best time to play. Accordingly I spent about a week staying up all night, drinking far too much coffee, and took up the challenge around 1 am. But it still kept winning. Every game. Quickly.
     It was after exactly a week of putting up with this, playing at my peak time, I doubtlessly began to suspect that this updated app had some sort of bug in it. There was outrightly no way that it could keep winning; its series of wins must be a digital fluke, or an aberrant use of its algorithms. Certainly you may say, ‘Denis, haven’t you a bit high estimate of your chess abilities? Maybe just perhaps the updated app is obviously better than this estimate of your vaunted prowess.’ I don’t think so. I have friends here in Granville, western Sydney, who now will only play me if I start with a handicap - that is, by removing a pawn or a piece before the commencement of play. But even with this handicap, and sometimes with the handicap of a piece rather than a pawn, I win about ninety-five percent of the time.
     Obviously then, since I am such a good player, this app must somehow be malfunctioning. The obvious thing to do then would be to email the developer and alert them to the problem. But wording the email seemed difficult, very difficult, without appearing to them as a very sore loser who just wanted to have a good and annoying long whinge. After all, so would say the developers, just because I am repeatedly losing is obvious proof that the app is in fine working order. It is not making illegal moves and so the improved engine is having the desired result.
     After drafting a few emails to the developer, that all sounded petulant, I decided to play a few more games against the app. There was no doubt though; it won the five games in row, and, indeed, almost had me in Fool’s Mate during the fifth game. Which is why I stopped the test at five. Now, so absolutely clearly, the app was clearly cheating in a way that had gone undetected. Maybe others had experienced this phenomenon?
     This question gave me the tack to approach the developers in a sane, rational, and reasonable manner, and not as someone who can’t take losing. It was then simplicity to write to them, explaining clearly my own situation and asking them if others had written in with similar experiences to mine regarding their app. I think I did a good job. I don’t think I spent too long on the email and I don’t think it was too short either. I also most certainly expected that they will believe my assertion that I am an above average chess player and consequently quite good against even their top rated chess engine. Admittedly, I don’t have an official chess ranking, but doing so would only formalise things. In short, I expected them to seriously question whether or not an insidious bug had infected their otherwise brilliant chess app, taking my own experiences into consideration.
     Welcomingly, I received an email from the developer the following morning telling me that others had indeed written in with ‘observations’ similar to my own, and the fact of the app always winning was indeed an error. The app had, or so they explained it as simply as they could, had two of its algorithms crossed over, resulting in behaviour that had not been planned. They, the developers, had now resolved the issue and it is part of the next update.
     Naturally, I was stoked with this missive and after checking for available updates on my phone the chess app was on the list. A brief check showed that they had taken the problem in hand which made the engine ‘less unpredictable.’ I made a coffee after downloading the update, deciding to spend the next twenty-four hours in playing chess.
     It lasted for four hours though. The app was even smarter and, whilst never moving illegally, seemed to get its mates more quickly. I played for two hours straight, taking a break for a coffee for a small bit, and it seemed to always win almost as soon as I’d made a move. Not only were its mates quicker but it had done so whilst only losing pawns. One time it got checkmate without losing a piece or a pawn. I hadn’t even time to swap off my queen.
     After a further two hours I gave in and realised that the app must have only had its algorithms crossed the more. Exhausted and nigh to despair I wondered if this crossing, this bug, could spread outwards. Could it infect other apps? Could it somehow infect my whole phone? The Net? Was this app, basically, an unseen Armageddon? I turned off the phone for a while, hoping the problem would solve itself.
     Idly checking my emails later that evening, and deliberately ignoring the app, I received another email from the developer telling me to entirely delete their chess app. The original oversight in its encoding had led to it becoming structurally unsound and was no longer fit for commercial use. They offered a full refund after the app was deleted.
     Did I want to delete the app though? Sure, it had proved very problematic, but imagine what I could learn from it. Perhaps with sufficient, in-depth study I could learn countless sets of original chess combinations. Maybe in losing to the app I was in fact gaining fundamental insights, insights that would play me well in similar circumstances.
     Well, I did in fact end up deleting the app. After all it was corrupt and its marvellous winning streak was the result of error, of coding that had been unintended. Anyway, and who knows, maybe its super smart artificial intelligence would have ‘crossed algorithms’ with one of my other apps, leading to a whole lot of digital confusion. I really don’t want to go down in history as the madman who enslaved humanity to machines.
     That all being fine and dandy, I was left without a good chess app. I had briefly tried most of the others on offer and so I knew from experience that they were none too smart. Most of them were actually very dumb. But what choice did I have? I have all of this free time and chess is the only thing, apart from reading, that makes life seem liveable. But seeing that it’s chess that takes up most of my time I once again explored the chess apps offered from my phone.
     I have since tried all of the other chess apps available and they are all, mostly, easy to beat. The other ones just take a bit of effort to conquer. Now what was I going to do?
     I answered myself almost instantly: I should join a chess academy, with a view to compete. Joyfully, almost feeling resurrected, I searched the Net for chess academies in Sydney. There is one in Surrey Hills, The Sydney Chess Academy, which has received a four stars out of five rating from fifty-two reviews. Their own website is well put together, with a brief resume of their official grandmasters. It looks ideal. I’ll email them now, and I’ll be back after my first club win.

*

Like I said, here I am again, after my first club win. Or rather, wins. It’s been fourteen months since I signed up with The Sydney Chess Academy and I won three out of five of my first pro games, all played on the same night. I was expecting to win them all, being graded highly at the Academy, but first night nerves eventually took their toll. Still, I’m glad I have now found where I can really play chess. If life were only that simple for everybody.

~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at  http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick has also had a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing, available on Amazon.

THIS STORY WILL BE DENIS' LAST FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. IF YOU HAVE ENJOYED HIS TALES HERE HE HAS SEVERAL BOOKS AVAILABLE ONLINE.
    
    

    

Tuesday 1 January 2019

A Steady Interest


© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2016

‘. . . people who love downy peaches are apt not to think of the stone and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it.’ George Eliot, Adam Bede

Jake Fleming, ever since his twentieth birthday a few years ago, had always been very clear to himself and others why he chose to be homeless. So he could read. All day, and most of the night. Jake had become a serious bibliophile from the age of eight, after his father had given him Crime and Punishment to read. Jake’s father gave his only child the book when he appeared to be bored, sitting on the couch after dinner and just staring into space. Mr Fleming, Tony, had finished the book recently and it was still close to hand.
      ‘Here you go, Jake,’ said Tony, dropping a book in Jake’s lab. ‘You should read that. It’s a great book.’
     Jake picked up the book and quickly leafed through it.
     ‘But, Dad,’ said Jake. ‘It’s got no pictures!’
     Tony replied with a small, unexpected, chuckle, and then said,
     ‘Don’t worry, Jake, when you’re older you’ll be reading heaps of books with no pictures.’
     Jake was impressed with the wisdom of this last, and then naturally set about reading ‘heaps of books.’ The resultant addiction became more concerning to his parents when he chose books over rent. His parents found out accidentally that he was squatting, from a neighbour who’d seen him routinely enter a large, old, abandoned house, in Redferne, in dusty inner city Sydney. His father came to visit him, but Jake couldn’t be budged. Spending the money he saved on rent mostly on books, giving up work to read, was entirely rational in his own, Jake’s, particular case. He had, he said, discovered the only thing that made him truly content, happy, and isn’t the purpose of life to be happy? Tony left after a fruitless hour, but with also a good amount of unadmitted respect for his son. When it really comes down it, Jake had a good point; to be happy really is the meaning of life.
     Sure, though, no-one could ever read voraciously all the time, day and night, and Jake did take the odd day and night off, where he drew, or wrote. For the past few months, though, since the start of a warm 2016 spring, he had been doing so, instead of reading, in the large, bare living room of his squat in Standmore, inner city Sydney. Instead of reading he daydreamed smugly and idly filled his journal or sketchbook, looking the while at all the busy bees heading off to the office. Or from the office. Or back to the shop. Sometimes he was so content with his lot that he seriously wondered if he was in fact God. After all, only God could have such perfect inner peace.
     But one day his Paradise was invaded. It was still late spring, 2016, and Jake had just come home for the evening from buying his daily meat from the deli at Jewell supermarket in nearby Newtown. Along with his second bottle of vege juice and a raw carrot that was his dinner for the day. He actually managed his food well (his only bill) buying from the supermarket and greengrocers instead of buying takeaway. So, he was still feeling well fed and marvellous when he arrived home and was surprised by the front door to his squat being open. He was sure he closed it, he always made sure.
     Entering the large living room at the front he instantly noticed his sketchbook and his journal were missing. So too the handheld CD player with its attached speakers. Upstairs in his bedroom he was also cleaned out, except for the books. Probably too many to carry away, and anyway, they were mostly second hand. But his clothes, filthy as they were, were stolen, his sleeping bag, his candles, CDs, incense, everything that made his rough way of living bearable, and with a purpose, was stolen. But the worst loss of all was the loss of his food store. His two shopping bags full of tinned meats, tinned veges, and other long life food staples were gone. That was the worst theft because he often reminisced about that store, or stared at it fondly from his mattress on the floor, a guarantee that he would never be completely hungry, that he could weather all calamities with those bags of treasure. But now it was completely obliviated.
     He re-entered the living room, feeling exposed and vulnerable.
     After a few minutes of blankly sitting in his armchair he realised that he would have to replace his food store quickly. He now fully realised he was completely on his own in the urban wilds so he’d better rebuild his defences quickly. He would just have to go without buying his daily books for a few days or so.
     Unless he stole the books? After all, they’d stolen from him, a thoroughly helpless and poor fellow citizen. And it would only be for a few days, until he received his next unemployment welfare, so the chances of getting caught would be very small. That realisation decided him and he set about taking a shower (Jake’s euphemism for washing himself from a bucket of cold water) to be as clean and inconspicuous as possible in his thieving.

*

Jake was able to buy books again, and completely refill his bags of treasure, four days later when he received his unemployment welfare. The money he had had left before payday went to replenishing, in part, his food bank. The daily books he needed were surprisingly easy to steal, the bookseller not really expecting to be robbed while he, Jake, simultaneously, with three books down his jeans front, bought one or two cheap books. Mind you, Jake could have saved all of this hassle and drama simply by joining Newtown Library, but he wanted to keep as many of his books with him for as long as possible. He also soon made sure to be clean and cleanly dressed, looking somewhat like an earnest artist. Stealing was in fact so easy for him that he decided to continue stealing his books every day, and maybe put aside the large money so saved in an interest bearing bank account. It would indeed be certainly fantastic if he had this second pile of treasure, living life as a very God.
     Stealing was in fact too easy, choosing secondhand bookshops around Sydney’s inner city, to the point where he became sloppy, almost blasé and unconcerned whilst thieving, and was thus caught in the act, three months into his new career. He had three books piled down the front of his jeans but they tumbled out while he accepted change from a two dollar purchase. There was no way he could reasonably explain himself so he instantly offered to pay for the books and nevermore return to darken the bookshop’s step. The bookseller was dubious, especially since Jake claimed to have lost his ATM card and had to go to the bank to get out the money, but Jake gave him his bare wallet with only his welfare ID and pleaded for just thirty minutes to pay, and then everyone would be happy. The seller eventually agreed, with Jake’s ID as surety. But it would be a strict thirty minutes of grace.
     He had the money for the books, $48.50, but it really did seem a shame to dip into his savings account for something that really could be had for free. He already had a good several hundred, almost a thousand, in his dedicated bank account, the monies saved in not needing to buy books any more, but reducing it by any amount almost viscerally hurt him. He still had fifteen minutes of grace left, was there any way to not spend his money and not potentially be criminally charged? Not very likely, especially since the shop had his name and address details.
     He could always leave his squat, move to another suburb? He would be virtually untraceable if he spent his welfare in cash and kept more on the move. That might mean he’d occasionally have to sleep in a park. Getting another ID may prove difficult too but apart from that he should be able to continue on as before. In fact, he had everything to gain and nothing to lose, considering the remote chances of being picked up again elsewhere. Also, if he were to invest in some disguises he was bound to be unidentifiable, and thus untraceable.
     He had no trouble in finding another squat in close by Camperdown and after several weeks of safety was not at all expecting to be pulled over by the police. They said he had the same thin, blonde dreadlocks of someone they were looking for and asked to see his ID. He really should have bought those disguises. He told them he had no ID, and felt his stomach sink when they asked for his wallet. He briefly considered saying he had no wallet, but that would probably just give them an excuse to search him, making the situation more hostile. His wallet had some of his government ID. He had only replaced it so he could get concession travel. He handed it over and was almost resigned to now being a criminal when they eventually charged him and led him away.
     His trial came up quickly and he was given a six month good behaviour bond, considering that this was his first offence. The magistrate, though, was clear in telling Jake that this was his only chance, and that good behaviour meant finding stable housing and using his welfare monies for what they were intended, in finding a job and being a productive, healthy citizen. Jake accordingly promised to get his act together, pointing out that he was grateful for the chance he’d been given. He was not going to waste it. He was going to grow up and act more rational from now on.
     Accordingly, it still being morning, he headed into Kings Cross, in the heart of Sydney, to book a bed for the week at Ulysses House, a homeless shelter for men. He got one of the last beds and by the sixth day of his stay he had found a place in a boarding house in Redferne. The rent took up most of his welfare but at least he was secured from incarceration.
     Six months later he’d had had enough. He’d had enough of never having anything, having to eat thanks largely to charity, and never having enough books, of most of his cash going on the rent. No, now that his six months were up, he was going to go back to his squats and save most of his money, while he helped himself to free books all over Sydney. He would be much smarter this time, obviously needing some sort of disguise while he went on his thieving rounds. And if he was caught again he’d pull that line once more about paying for the books and never returning. The seller would be sure to accept the deal, being a capitalist at heart, only interested in the money. He would also be sure to pay this time around.
     He left his boarding house exactly at midnight the day his good behaviour bond expired. He had his books with him, some clothes, and three wigs that he’d bought earlier in the day. Doubtlessly he would need to refresh his disguise every so often but if he also stole his food he could afford to maintain the different outfits. On the train away from Redferne, to get off somewhere that seemed right, he wondered if he could use the money he was sure to accumulate from saving most of his welfare in buying some rare books. They’d be a real thrill to read. Something to think about.
    
~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at  http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick has also had a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing, available on Amazon.

Saturday 1 December 2018

Farewell


© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2016

‘“Those who are reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so for their friends.’” Charlotte Bronte, The Professor

Cassidy was for the first time in his life thoroughly disgusted with himself. He had just finished off a bottle of Jamison’s whiskey and he was still unwittingly sober. He was also angry. Very angry, maybe being so angry that it absorbed the alcohol. He was angry because he had been humiliatingly sacked from the local Jewell supermarket, Newtown, inner city Sydney, that day, an otherwise ordinary, but an unusually cold, early spring day, 2016. Mind you he deserved to be sacked, having turned up over an hour late for the past tenth straight day, the result of getting into the phase of partying harder than usual. But he did not deserve to be verballed by the assistant manager, in front of the customers, and summarily sacked. It really was no wonder that he couldn’t help going over and over such trauma. But what was the worst thing was that his work colleagues, his ‘friends’, just stood by and watched, not even looking like they wanted to intervene to stop the brutal scene. Typical. They deserved to be taught a lesson for that. Yes, indeed, they richly deserved to be taught a lesson. One or two of them could have easily stepped in to say the manager was out of order. Especially in front of the customers.
     The planning started instantly, Cassidy staring at the blank television screen, imagining how he could greatly hurt his so-called friends. And since all of his imaginings involved all the Jewell mates gathered together somehow under his dominion he soon decided to invite them all over for a party, a ‘Farewell Party.’ The irony was delicious when he saw how he would make them bid adieu to their their self-respect.
    Having bought another whiskey, it was starting to have a small part of its intended effect around midnight, making Cassidy feel that his vengeance was more assured. After turning on the television and flicking across the pointless channels, he decided it was probably best to get into his pyjamas and go to sleep. When he did quickly fall asleep it was to the sound of derisive laughter from an approaching dream, laughing over the pictured horrible fate of his fickle friends. Yes, indeed, they so much deserved the humiliation.

*

Cassidy’s ‘Farewell Party’ was reasonably well attended by six people and his plan for their shaming was proving easy of fruition. He had bought a few bottles of cheap whiskey for the celebration, lacing two of the bottles with crushed Rohipnol tablets, a strong sedative, well before his guests arrived. He had no problems getting the prescription drug. The party continued in full swing while they all gradually passed out. He continued drinking from the unspiked bottle, gleefully imagining the next step in the plan. He was going to undress them all and drop them off naked in the local park, Camperdown Park, Newtown. He’d probably have to do the job in two runs but the bastards were worth the price of their deserved humiliation. Let’s see how they liked being cowed now. The cold spring was a bit of a conundrum, not wanting to cause hypothermia in his victims. So he chose a forecasted warm night and hoped for the best. Naturally they would all know it was him who had victimised them but they’d all awake sooner or later and eventually get their clothes back. And what could they do when they did find out? He wasn’t pummelling them after all or making an attempt on their lives. If they did decide to involve the police those officers would probably think it was just a practical joke. No harm done. Case closed. Hopefully.
     It came time to test this hypothesis when he saw a police car slowly driving past the park whilst he was offloading the second load of bodies. Could they see him discarding his vile, spineless colleagues? It was quite possible, the area being well lit. But there were trees obstructing the police’s view. He could only trust to that.
     Yes, they must have seen him. The police car stopped. Cassidy watched them. Two officers stepped out.
     Thinking quickly Cassidy took two of the remaining three Rohipnol tablets he had on him (in case he had to knock out any of his bastard friends that came to early) and then partially undressed, laying down and waiting for the drugs to take effect. He hoped that the police would think they had disturbed the real culprit, who had run off before being able to fully undress Cassidy. The fact that all of the others clothes were nowhere near available was a bit of a problem but Cassidy would find some way around that.
     The two officers approached with one of them requesting three ambulances. Cassidy found it easy to drift away while the two police discussed why he was the only one dressed. They felt his pulse and Cassidy successfully managed to convince each of them that he was passed out like the rest. He eventually really did pass out on the Rohipnol and alcohol when the ambulances carted them all away to hospital. He felt safe.

*

Cassidy tossed around a bit before he awoke, and then was instantly alert. He asked the police officer watching over him,
     ‘Where am I?’
     ‘Royal Prince Alfred Hospital,’ replied the officer. ‘You fully awake now?’
     ‘Yeah. What happened?’
     ‘You know what happened, mate. Care to make a confession?’
     ‘What do you mean?’
     ‘We found the Rowie on you, mate. It’s pretty clear you drugged and stripped your pals. Why?’
     Cassidy decided to make the best of it; obviously his ruse had not at all worked. They’d probably go easy on him if he confessed.
     ‘Those bastards aren’t my friends,’ he said. ‘I thought they were. Maybe I got carried away though.’
     ‘What do you mean?’
     ‘They all just watched me being verbally abused when I was sacked from work. It was so embarrassing. But I suppose I just got too caught up in the anger they caused me. Are they all right?’
     ‘Yeah. I’ll have to charge you, mate. Recklessly endangering life. I’d have you charged with assault too but your pals talked me out of it.’
      He was formally charged and appeared in court two days later, the day after he was discharged from the hospital. He represented himself and humbly begged the court’s pardon, freely admitting that he had completely overreacted to a trying situation. The magistrate was not to be impressed though with his remorse, saying he would like to give him a custodial sentence for Cassidy’s sheer bloody minded behaviour to his friends, irrespective of the cause. But seeing that New South Wales jails were too overcrowded presently he gave Cassidy a two year good behaviour bond. Cassidy thanked the magistrate for his leniency and thanked his lucky stars on the way home from court.
     When he was at home he headed straight to his laptop to email invitations to the friends he’d wronged, to another ‘Farewell Party’. He explained the reason for his crime and told them that he obviously overreacted to what was really not such a big deal. He was going to move to Western Aus and wanted to leave his friends on a positive note, making up in any way for his unwarranted hostility.
     Funnily enough most of them accepted the second invitation, four of them, but all declared they would have no alcohol. They were willing to attend his party and to forgive him, especially since they really should have stepped up to defend him while he was being roundly abused so publicly. Both sides had made mistakes, so they may as well get together one last time to deeply bury the sordid hatchet. Cassidy was viciously pleased.
     Cassidy had no intention of leaving his bastard friends without completing his vengeance and was even more determined to somehow ruin as much of them as he could before he fled to Western Aus. And this time he would put more thought into his revenge. The party was planned for three days’ time, a Saturday, and by the Saturday early morning he had what looked like a foolproof plan.
     The four friends arrived together and thankfully two of them brought handbags. He was easily able to drop almost a full packet of Rohipnol, missing four tablets, into one of them unobserved, and in such a way, from within his right shirt sleeve, that left none of his fingerprints on the packet. While he was making everyone a coffee he downed four Rohipnol himself, and once the coffees had been served brought out a fresh bottle of Jamison’s, not expecting the more dire results that eventually ensued. He told them he was drinking to sins forgiven and helped himself to large gulps of it while they all sat around drinking their libations, recalling the good times they’d had at Jewell. They would even be sad to see Cassidy go after all; he was always friendly to everyone and was good for any party. But maybe if he hadn’t liked partying so much he wouldn’t have kept arriving late to work, and so not started a whole vicious cycle of events. Ah well, it was just one of those things, best forgotten entirely.
     When Cassidy slumped to the floor, his guests thought he was making some sort of joke. But they promptly enough saw that he wasn’t joking and that he’d inexplicably fainted. They called an ambulance and the police, the police being called in a bit of a blind panic. Cassidy was soon taken back to Royal Prince Alfred and the police asked questions, conducting a brief search for any drugs, taking the almost full Rohipnol. Cassidy entered a coma when the ambulance arrived at the hospital and could not be revived. He died a day and a half later and the hapless Tina, into whose handbag he had dropped the fatal drugs, was eventually tried for murder. The evidence was damning against her, too damning. She received seven years imprisonment and Cassidy was buried by his family. They would ever after think of him as a needless victim, far more sinned against than sinning. He was only twenty-three years of age.
    
~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at  http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick has also had a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing, available on Amazon.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Seeking Delusions


© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2016

When Toby’s voices suddenly stopped - the voices that only he could hear - he was miserable. He now no longer had friends in his head, always engaging him in a friendly badinage, and generally making him - honest and plain (except for a predilection for hallucinogens) - Toby Maddox, the centre of their attentions. It was simply divine always hearing one well-spoken of, even by imagined voices.
     Toby had been hearing these voices from the age of twenty-two, three years ago, and had quickly been diagnosed as being schizophrenic, having a few other of the other symptoms as well, and a family history of it, which he only learned of on his twenty-first birthday. He was prescribed an antipsychotic, Fluanxol, 20mg, injected into a muscle, but the medication only turned the volume down on the voices, never banishing them. Toby, of course, knew he wasn’t crazy, that the voices were real, and only took the so called medication because it would obviously have no effect upon him. He wasn’t crazy. He had also been told that if he didn’t take the injection he would be forced to do so in a psychiatric facility, and was monitored accordingly by being placed on a Community Treatment Order, where if he did not take his dose he would be involuntarily committed to said psychiatric facility in order to do so.
     He realised he had not awoken to the voices, on a nice, hot, early summer day, 2015, a few years after his diagnosis, in Surrey Hills, inner city Sydney. Their departure was sudden and unexpected. The bastard medication must obviously have been at fault. When he realised what was off-kilter he instinctively and desperately hoped he could get the voices back, whilst also feeling that no-one could ever be that fortunate. It would take something extraordinary, as well as ordinary, to get them back. Maybe a unique, perfect thought would serve the purpose, providing something to which the voices would readily respond? But that just raised more questions; what’s the perfect thought? Does it have to be completely perfect to attract back the voices?
     He, however, already knew the answer, or at least was fairly sure he knew how to get back with the voices. Just take LSD for a few weeks. It was the quickest, and perhaps the surest, way to invite the voices back, but he was loath to use the method. True, he’d had a lot of acid over the past three or so years and was always fine with it, but he was presently on an indefinite break for a while. He had become more aware recently that it only takes one bad trip to fell you, leaving you a wreck of what you could have been. So while Toby felt fairly confident that he could take the acid safely, based on previous occasions, he wasn’t completely certain that he’d always be okay on it. But, yet again, it really was the surest way to allure back the voices.
     He considered how to get some trips, finishing his coffee.
    
*

Toby had been on his acid regime for three weeks, taking a four of five tabs spaced over a week. Having recently acquired a casual job at Flemington Markets, twenty minutes from the centre of Sydney, five nights a week that paid cash in hand, as well as receiving unemployment welfare, and sharing a rent controlled apartment with a friend, it was no problem financing the extra outlay for the trips. He was also easily able to get it thanks to a friend’s housemate, and it was an absolutely fantastic three weeks on the renewed acid. When it came time to attend his job at night the trip had largely worn off, enough so that he could attend to his duties well enough. But the acid had unintended consequences. Instead of regaining the voices, he had, three weeks after the treatment began, become always followed by three small faeries. He could almost always feel, at an icy centre between his shoulder blades, when the faeries were following him, sometimes turning around to watch them, hovering in mid-air, regarding him with much apparent concentration. The faeries were dressed as they are usually portrayed, except each little lady had a diaphanous crown, and each had purple shoes, flats.
     The faeries, though, soon stopped watching him mutely and attentively, and instead (but without speaking, and appearing clearly in his mind’s eye, instead of following him, out in the ‘real world’) urged him to commit suicide. The voices weren’t coming back so he may as well give up the search, and then instantly end a life that would be meaningless without them. In fact, the only way he could be happy, the faeries implied, was if he suicided. He was going to die anyway, right? No-one really wanted him either, they also somehow made him feel. They told him all this in pantomime and liked to dumb show various ways of ending one’s life. One of the little vixens could even manage to turn a faint purple in the face while clearly being barbarously hanged. Another one showed him how to properly cut his wrists, by cutting up vertically. She always mimed laughter while she pretended to open her veins with a knife. And then suddenly ceasing mirth and wiping the imagined bloodied arm until it was clean again. Ready for more suicide.
     By a few days of this gruesomeness, he had had enough. He had no intention of committing suicide, and became very worried when he briefly mused over giving in to the faeries. Just end his life and the horrors filling his days and nights, for whatever reasons the wee ladies had. He called in sick to work and rang for an ambulance, pleading psychosis, and flushed the three remaining acid tabs down the toilet while he waited to be rescued. The faeries had been scared off, thankfully.
     The ambulance arrived quickly and the paramedics were rapidly able to see that Toby, when he explained his situation, was in the grip of psychosis. They took him to the nearest psychiatric hospital, Rozella, but they had no room for him there. They tried a few others and he was eventually able to be taken in at Cumberland Hospital, a half hour’s drive west from Surrey Hills, in Westmead. Even then Toby had to wait two hours before he could be formally admitted. The faeries appeared to him constantly while he waited, in probably all possible attitudes of self-destruction. Closing his eyes didn’t help, he just saw the same violent images in negative. It really is a wonder that Toby was not by now weeping from sheer despair.
     Toby had been in a psychiatric facility only once in his life, about two years before. He had been taken there against his will when a police officer saw him sitting in the lotus position in the middle of a footpath in Surrey Hills, apparently meditating. When she asked him what he was doing there he couldn’t very well say he was so very high on some really good acid and was thus now engaged in giving thanks to the Supreme Beings whom were showing him such utter ecstasy. Instead he replied,
      ‘Being a calm beacon of hope to everyone rushin’ around here. Chillin’ by example, givin’ other choices.’
     ‘Do you have any drugs on you?’ asked the officer.
     ‘No.’
     ‘You know some people would say it’s very strange to be meditating in the middle of the street, especially in this heat.’
     ‘Nature is as nature does.’
     ‘Have you ever been to a psychiatric hospital?’
     ‘No way, man, I’m way too chill for that.’
     ‘Well, it seems to me, sir, that you’ll have to go there with me now.’
     Toby hung his head, still in the lotus position, and asked,
     ‘Do I have a choice?’
     ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’
     He was only six nights in the psychiatric hospital that time, in the Missenden Unit, the psychiatric wing of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, in Camperdown, the nearest psychiatric hospital to Surrey Hills. The hospital didn’t do much, except to increase his Fluanxol to 30mg. He was surprised to find that the loony bin wasn’t at all loony, the patients all appearing more or less stable. True, they all had their idiosyncrasies, but the place was generally pleasant and welcoming. In fact, a very ‘chillin’’ place. Thus, he was expecting Cumberland Hospital to be similarly pleasant and welcoming when he eventually arrived there in the ambulance.
     The hospital was indeed pleasant, and when they found out upon his admission that Toby was on an antipsychotic, and a CTO, but still having hallucinations, they automatically increased the dose of his injection, to 40mg, and generally left him alone after that, letting the new dose take effect. After all, the Fluanxol was very effective at controlling such symptoms and a higher dose was certain to solve the conundrum. So, Cumberland kept him only for five weeks and prescribed him Risperdal as well. Toby was always compliant with his medication (since he really had no choice, the medicine being useless anyway), and he was also compliant with taking the new Risperdal, always one of the first to line up when then medicines cart came out of an evening. He was prescribed five milligrams per night, but was initially still taunted by the faerie hallucinations. Their jeering, mocking faces though began to lose outline after a week, and after a further week they had completely vanished. He awoke soon after the start of this second week, feeling something was not right while he had his morning coffee. Taking the last sip of the brew, he knew what it was: he could no longer see those murderous vixens with his mind’s eye. He was discharged from Cumberland three weeks later, still free of the horrors. He had, though, lost his job.
     He was at peace now, only vaguely hoping his happy voices would still return, a calmness and serenity that lasted all too inconsequentially. His voices did eventually return, one week into only intermittently using the Risperdal at home (it made him very, very drowsy. He was aware that he really should be more compliant but felt sure he could safely risk the irregular use of the Risperdal, since he was also on the Fluanxol.), but they were not happy to be with him again. They were now hostile to him, making derogatory comments on his person, his clothes, his hygiene, anything to make him feel small and worthless. He initially tried to argue with the voices, to show them that they were patently wrong, were in fact being needlessly spiteful. But the voices didn’t listen, calling him a coward for not seeing how vile he really was.
     Unlike the positive voices, these nasty ones were not with him all day. They were with him when he awoke late each morning and gradually insulted him in decreasing waves until they disappeared in the early evening. This lack of constancy was even worse as Toby spent the entire night dreading the abuse he was to face the next day. He felt that at least if they were going all the time he could put them to the back of his head, becoming just background static. But their brief appearance tended to highlight their vile abuse, made him feel it the more in contrasting it against the calmness of his evenings.
     It was in feeling like this - that his life was now to be an endless round of abuse - that he slashed his left wrist. He slashed up vertically, not horizontally, as the faerie had shown him, but his primal, animal brain couldn’t bring him to slash all the way up. After a two inch gash, he stopped. And almost viscerally felt the voices laughing at his weakness, shaming him as a hopeless coward.
     So, whilst bandaging his wrist as best he could, the voices became louder, as if they fed on his blood, and their derision was even more caustic. They filled his head and Toby could see no escape, not even death. Was he, he thought, tying off the clean dishcloth he used as a bandage, really in a living Hell?
     He took a Risperdal and went to the local doctors’ for some stitches. He would tell the doctor that it was an accident, a knife that had got away in cutting up some vegetables. The voices laughed at him all the way there.
*

He noticed immediately when he awoke, two weeks after slashing up, that the voices weren’t berating him. He knew instantly because he had been dreaming of them the entire previous night. With sure dream like ability he had tamed them. How he had managed this he did not know. He suspected it was taking the Risperdal regularly, and its mixing with the Fluanxol, a potent combination that was bound to end the torture, given time. His local doctor agreed with him when he mentioned it at his next Fluanxol injection appointment, the day following having awoken to silence.
     But his mornings still made him nervous for a while, expecting the worst to suddenly explode in his head. He was all the time on the lookout for them, even being somewhat jumpy when he was out and about. He had also by this stage given up all desire to regain the friends he used to have in his head, and was more than pleased to have them gone. Nothing, nothing at all, was worth having to put up with that depressing, internal, inescapable tirade that his search for those friendly voices had led to, albeit indirectly. No, he had lost the good voices permanently and they could only be recalled in a bloodied guise, intent now only on debasing him.
     The night of his first full day freed from the internal abuse he had another powerful dream, dreaming he was filled with great magicks and shaping great, vague, moments of history. Such dreams then continued every night, to the point where he now often goes to bed early, just to return to a Universe where he is so very important. He continues to awake late each morning with neither hallucinatory voices nor hallucinatory visions, and instead feeling great, motivated, that the world has a special place for him alone. He remains to this day enclosed by his dreamtime powers, even when he is working at his new cash-in-hand casual job, as a kitchen hand, and is determined to take his boon medications properly, and on time. He owed Reality that much.

~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at  http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick has also had a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing, available on Amazon.

Monday 1 October 2018

Seeking Paradise

© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2016

“‘I could not wish for that which I have not yet experienced,” he said.’ Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov

It was, and still is, quite understandable that when June came back from death, and the ensuing Paradise, she should have a dominating fervour to return to this Paradise she had so lightly touched. After coming back from this death, and Paradise, she slowly blinked a few times and shook her head.
     ‘It’s okay, miss,’ said a young and pleasant female. ‘You’re in an ambulance. We’re going to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. You were hit by a car.’
     June closed her eyes, and remembered the accident.
     The accident, unexpectedly, though, had led to the entrance into Heaven for her, and this was the only thing she could focus on, feeling blessed. She thus soon came to view each day as a possible path back to this Paradise, Its actual presence being the justification for her sentience. She could, of course, suicide, and attempt Heaven that way, but her instincts told her she would just return forever to the moment of her suicide.
     Then she began to consider living rough, just leaving everything, all the modern clutter, to better find some semblance of Heaven here on Earth, hidden somewhere in the wild, or to enter It once more. The prospect seemed exciting. She could have a real adventure where she would both be on Earth, and either close to Heaven in the urban wilderness, or once more having found her way back There. She also jokingly considered taking up some illicit drugs while she was on the streets, and so making her search for Paradise even easier. And when she arrived There she’d be able to celebrate in such sweet, fine style, hopefully with enough drugs to share. Indeed, maybe actually something seriously to consider.
     When she did decide to ‘go homeless’, three weeks after dying, she also decided she must do so instantly. She also had to literally burn all of her bridges behind her; she had to enter the jungle virtually naked, the more ready to robe herself in the vestments of Heaven.
     So she burned her house down. The one that she had inherited from her mother. The one where she had lived very quietly and very well, without needing to work for all of her twenty-one years, another legacy of her mother’s.
     She left her old life, to seek an eternal life, when all of the curtains in the front living room were ablaze. She was not there when a crowd began to form and she was not there when the fire brigade eventually arrived. And none could ever trace her.

*

June didn’t know it at the time but she had terrific luck in finding squats around the inner city suburbs of Sydney. Counterpoint to that luck, however, was the fact that the squats always had tenants already, which tenants would not let her move in. They, without differing, all said that she ‘looked like a cop.’
     In fact, her ill luck became so bad that she soon had no choice but to sleep in parks. She tried a few, and had bought a sleeping bag for the occasion. She was looking for a park that seemed to have the quickest path back to Paradise. She eventually came to choose Royal Prince Alfred Park, Redferne, to sleep in. The park had a massive fig tree at the entrance, an obvious, massive hint for the searching June.
     Sleeping in the park was initially the great adventure that it promised to be to June. It was a month or so after the start of a very hot spring, 2015, and she went to sleep each night easily, after staring at the stars for a little while, wondering which of them held Paradise. She was warm atop her sleeping bag every night, and seeing that her only expense was food, she was saving most of her trust monies.
     Sleeping in the park, however, also soon became unbearable. It was the rain. She had been camping there a week or so, contentedly, very contentedly, feeling Paradise’s sure pull, when suddenly the heavens heavily rained upon her sleep. She was drenched, awaking in a panic, feeling attacked and abandoned.
     The shock also made her realise that there was one squat that she could live in: the burned wreck of her home. She didn’t know how badly her former home was burned but it seemed a surer thing than remaining here to get thoroughly more drenched and maybe catch pneumonia.
     Luckily she was within walking distance of her former abode and soon enough returned. It was not too bad. For a squat. The roof had partially caved in and the place was now basically just a charred box, littered with ashes.
     She moved under the safety tape fence and entered her childhood home.
     A lot of the things survived the fire, a clear call that they expected her to return. There was one sofa that was usable, all of the plates were fine, blackened, but washable, the large, glass and metal dining table was similarly blackened but washable. There were also a lot of other useable things. All a clear sign that her journey must begin here.
     She was so comfortable in her home that she was not surprised when she was gently shaken awake on the first morning after her return. She awoke expecting an angel.
     ‘Hey,’ said a gruff, bearded, and unkempt man with a gruff voice, ‘who are you?’
     ‘June.’
     ‘June what?’
     ‘Spalding.’
     ‘What are you doing here?’
     ‘This is my home.’
     ‘No, it’s not. Me and Stewey live here. You’re pretty obviously a cop.’
     ‘I’m not a cop. I get that a lot.’
     ‘Well, cop or not, you’re leaving. Now. Cop.’
     ‘Look, this is really my home. And I’m really not a cop.’
     ‘Then why do you want to find out where Stewey and I get our heroin?’
     ‘Can I somehow prove I’m not a cop?’
     ‘By getting out. Especially since Stewey’s less mild tempered than me.’
     She really had no choice. She quickly packed and left, rudderless.
     While she continued idly wandering though laneways and streets in Redferne she was thinking of heroin, prompted by the squatter who had evicted her. Maybe it was time to try some drugs to better reach Nirvana? Indeed, they seemed like the only answer left that would fulfil her desire. Going back to Royal Prince Alfred Park with a very nice friend in her system, and taking the chance of being awoken again by the rain, seemed to her like a sure way to attain Paradise. Indeed, the only way.
     She didn’t know where to get any heroin but she did know that one could get marijuana, maybe, from a pub. Pot may be the only drug she could get, at least for now. She was willing to try as many pubs as it took, also asking if she could get maybe some heroin whilst also getting the pot. She had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
     She got her pot at the first pub she tried, and with the first guy she asked. He had long blond hair and a fulsome, waxed, and curled moustache, a dark leather jacket and dark jeans, altogether of the bohemian set, nursing a schooner of dark ale. She had no idea how to smoke it and, after handing over the requested twenty dollars, explained her situation to the guy, the fact that she was trying pot for the first time. He was obliging, telling her to get a hash pipe from a tobacconist and then to chop up the pot finely into a bowl. He recommended she only have a third of a pipe to begin with.
     So she went back to the park, after buying scissors, a small bowl, and a hash pipe, and followed his instructions. It was the worst experience that she’d ever had. The pot came on soon after she drew it in, and she felt nothing but anxiety. The pot made her feel horrible, fleeing Paradise and its fundamental meaning instead of reaching It.
     She felt so terrible that she had to be taken to Rozella Psychiatric Hospital. She rang an ambulance, after throwing the pot away, explaining what she had just done. The Hospital discharged her after the second day, the hospital not realising the address she had given as her residence was a husk.
     She didn’t leave the hospital altogether though for she saw potential in the many nooks and crannies of the hospital’s extensive, natural grounds. She could live easily in one of those crannies, sheltered from the inevitable rain.
     She had spent six weeks there, never once discovered, and eventually met a patient that could introduce her to someone who sold heroin. She still felt that drugs could easily take her back to Paradise, or very close. She easily learned to inject herself, after the patient was paid with a shot to show her how, and never had any problems with getting clean needles from chemists. The heroin was the closest she ever did get back to Paradise and she was eventually found overdosed, the needle sticking out of her left arm, by a hospital domestic. She was located by the stink of her decay.


~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at  http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick has also had a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing, available on Amazon.