“Why is that the consensus—It just started out of nowhere. Why won’t you believe me?!”

I couldn’t help my training. Garth was a walk-in at first, seeing my door during his lunch hour, and then came back an hour later after I got an end-of-the-day cancellation. He called his sudden ailment just shy of an emergency room event. The full nights of sleep he was accustomed to hadn’t changed; however, he exclaimed that it was now becoming part of the problem. Also, he tried St. Elizabeth’s ER first and was quickly turned away as they disagreed. I was inclined to agree with them; he didn’t seem the dramatic type to fabricate trauma for attention. Like all my patients, I made him start from the beginning.

According to Garth, it started after a shift at the dairy factory as a quality assurance manager, boring to a fault, but it leaves his mind free for whatever new task, skill, or journey he sought. How he saw his isolative state was impeccably charming with his views on the connectivity of the human consciousness; no room is full of strangers forever, no matter the room. Not much for close intimacy but a genuine man of curiosity. From there, I felt the session had enough time for the introductions. I thought he spoke fast to get right into his issue on the follow-up. Maina came to mind, except he remained on point, willing to suffocate until I let him walk me through the collection of nightmares that brought him here. He started with the first one.

“I don’t know how I entered the room, standing in the corner. A dim light with no source matched that of a silver-lit night sky shining through open blinds. There were none. It’s how I spotted the T.V. set on four milk crates stacked two high. There’s a window space, boarded so heavily it belongs on a Barbie dream house. Maybe someone was trying to keep the zombies out, triple-boarded to take on low-velocity rounds. No cord, but it cut itself on. Standard dream stuff, right? Rug is about to be pulled in a minute; standby. I had to turn the single armchair around to face it, but even then, the no-exit issue remained a distracting principle that caused me to miss the introduction of the QVC-style program. The frame cut off the presenter’s head in favor of the display area where the products and a pair of man’s hands filled the area. Phone number, call codes, all where it should be like they used to be when I was sneaking up past bedtime. Once again, the volume increased without my input. Reacting to me looking at the ceiling for gaps in the pale cement feeling walls.’

“The first product displayed I recognized as a dog choke chain, although they never said as such, only describing their purposes. They talked up the demonstrator to their right, ready to explain the Instant Hanger. The demonstrator stood before a mock balcony that hung impossibly over her head. A VHS scramble-static interruption ended with her standing awkwardly behind the steel railing at the top awkwardly bent over the side. Her massive mass of red hair hid what her hands were doing, but as the description claimed, she was attaching something. From the dead plants and custom blinds, I recognized it to be my upstairs neighbor’s place. She popped up a little to smile at the camera to make her fastening technique visible. With a single wave and zero fucking hesitation, she front-flipped over the side. The sound cranked up again for the metal ring’s slide to the bottom with that abrupt snap feeding into the limp slam against the ceiling, swinging and twitching back and forth. I could not wake myself. Her eye popped out from her relentless crunch. I could not wake up. The camera would move—it’s like I spent eight hours of slumber watching a woman hang with the occasional slow replay to demonstrate the viability of this option. Why couldn’t I wake up?”

I’m not a Jungian, so I could only feel useful in coping strategies and good sleep hygiene. Other than that, he was terrified to sleep again, as many suffering from parasomnia. He was on day twelve when his dread of violent acts drove him to state he had never considered himself capable of suicide and felt the adversity wasn’t worth losing his time-tested routines if he could stop it. My independent research couldn’t take me anywhere near a condition with these traits precisely, and his medical history was spotless besides appendectomy. I was scratching my head at the speculative nature of daily triggers, falling short since no nap or micro nap was safe. He pushed me to see him four days earlier, motivating me to broaden my search for other cases at a bare minimum. Apparently, there is no rabbit hole deep enough that didn’t leave me falling back to suggesting MRIs or CT Scans when he arrived at that recent cancellation. There wasn’t enough of him not overwhelmed to allow for small talk; his taking an extra second to compliment my new scarf was the last dart thrown before his balloon burst.

I ended up on The Revision of Curses: Then and What They Would Be Now, from a Buzz Feed-type article, but let me tell you how I got there before other mainstream theories. Warning: it started with his nightmare. He started saying that was not the most recent nor necessarily the worst. The first thing he noticed was the continuation of the surreal setting in his overgrown bend. Dinggy under shirts were a peeve he refused to accept, even in his dream. However, he found that the pile of dirty clothes grew with every night, giving him the same conclusion. In the absence of his waking consciousness, the walls were scrawled with obscenities and absurdities too dark to make out beyond the demand to be released. All this to put off sitting in the chair, ignoring the piss smell from a corner, and starting where they—it left off.

“ ’Tonight, friend, I’ve got the product for you. Don’t be alarmed; there is ample supply for your DYING DEMANDS. You need this—’ Then, with both hands, they dragged into frame my unopened pack of glowsticks from a rave three months ago in a bowl with my laundry detergent pods. You know, the pods? His hand wavium distracted from nothing about where they were about to pan the camera. Instead, just a brutal cut to the demonstrator pumping her fist with glowing gums chewing on a pod, keeping the smile the best she can. The Colorful Sundae, the presenter called it. Every two pods, she cracked to life the glow, then snapped it open for a drink. No car wreck has caught my attention, like the visceral scream she let out as I imagined her stomach was falling apart into an acid bath for her internal organs. Still, she smiled. I still couldn’t leave, wake up, destroy the television. Then, the puking started. The lack of choice put it everywhere, luminescent goo splattered across the counter to the floors, down her grey vest and dress shirt. Recovering to their feet, I screamed that she stopped this. I beat on the screen. Another one burst in the teeth of her unflinching, quivering smile. The presenter chimes from out of frame, ‘Don’t be spooked by the speed—we’re only here for the night. Wow, it’s intoxicating to behold. Booze makes a great chaser, you tee-tootler—or better yet, as she’s demonstrating, you can wait for stomach acid to burst them. Even as her knees buckle, appreciate the challenge of sheer endurance. This is meant to give you a sense of accomplishment.’ I couldn’t tell whether she was crying neon or gone red eye from splashback. The camera dropped with her collapse to the ground, zooming in on the final gargles with intermittent coughs until nothing. The pan back to the presenter was the eerily slow reveal of my coffee maker and an entire gallon of bleach. Then I finally woke the hell up.”

It’s horrifyingly detailed. I felt his need to speak it, word for word in cases, was part of the psychosis, not that I had proof. It must be said that after leaving the dream aspect of the conversation, he seemed determined to tell me another from the QVC lineup. I teared up during his frantic telling, which I think is what allowed our session to move toward how this was affecting him during the day. Going back to work, I didn’t recommend. However, if he felt safe enough to handle the daily stresses as a way to visually load his mind with reality to combat the intensity just behind his eyelids, I suggested writing the dreams with new endings in a journal or to himself.

He worked at a dairy plant, spotting violations on milk lines and maintaining a zero-accident quota for the quarter. The first day of the nightmares, he watched a pre-molded half-gallon nearly get by him while an employee was being manhandled by security. Garth focused on whether the man’s outburst would lead to him halting the line. The man’s rant eventually caught his attention after the bit about losing his substantial severance package.

It was, ‘they want me dead,’ and ‘they’re drugging me—they want me to end it ALLLL’ while being carried legs up off the grounds. His investigation shared very dim clues that showed a slowly dissenting Larry reaching the depths of his newly found instability. To avoid being accused of stealing from the former employee, Garth packed up his locker to take to the man’s car. The revving engine in park showed his impatience was more than what was necessary since he slapped the box out of my hand then pointed to the chain. The dog choke chain was all he wanted and refused to get out to the car to get it. Recognizing the chain made things very difficult for Garth from there on. The next day, they found him dead in a shallow bathtub with an electric blanket plugged in and halfway down his throat. It brought him back to the first night. When he revealed that this was the closest thing to the origin of Garth’s first dream, I found myself switching curses dos and don’ts to police reports.

The call came after our fourth session, a week before the fifth. It was the seventh-floor psych-ward of St. Elizabeth, one thirty in the morning. He claimed vehemently that he had an unyielding need for his primary psychologist. He committed himself after a committable act brought on by his attempt to refuse sleep altogether. At work, he passed out, woke up screaming in his hospital room, where they wheeled him handcuffed to the chair. Witnesses said he sleepwalked, but no one told me what exactly he did. He protested with the words I don’t want to die shouted in the day room, repeated it, only pausing to say that he needed to speak to me for continued treatment. He saw me when I arrived, locking eyes with me while they were guiding him to the visitor room as the parting exterior doors let me in. His irate jostling in the hands of the orderlies continued until he was out of sight. Strange sensations chilled me at that moment, and while I was removing anything that could be used against me, I was beside myself. Nurse Lenard introduced me to Dr. Thompson, who immediately asked me about the nightmares is having. He barely made it through the handshake and had dropped my pens and keys at the pace the staff adjusted me. I started with how non-violent, non-suicidal the man is despite these nightmares, and when I told him the origin I was given, all he could say was, ‘That’s it?’ Once my scarf was placed in the basket, I entered.

He was jolted awake once I shut the door. A little drool dripped on his lap, and he took a second to wipe his mouth on his sleeve and sat up straight. No professional positioning could remove the bags under his eyes, the over-compensating eye-widening, a slight slur he had to warm his mouth up to work out of. He told me he had been fighting the last four days, spending his time off to find out who the woman was or where he could’ve possibly seen them. It was the best clue he had, but came up on the possible impossibility that this person had never existed. Multiple times throughout his run-through, lions’ yawns interrupted his sentences and his train of thought. He talked around what the two debacles caused by the two-hour nap that led to his leave from work, centering his focus on what exactly was happening until he claimed that his persistence in trying to solve the enigma of this curse was why it was fighting harder to kill him. He apologized for needing me to hear the last dream. Some clue that I could derive, he thought. He believed he wouldn’t make it to solving this. Suddenly, he smacked himself. I held up a hand to warn staff off; he needed it to continue.

“I figured out my favorite store clerk keeps a .357 magnum behind the counter. Five-round cylinder, a scratch down the barrel because I dosed off with my head leaning against the freezer in front of the Monter energy drinks. I know exactly where he would pull it from if he gets the opportunity. The trick would be catching Vince so off guard he doesn’t take the time to know it’s just me. Anyway, I finally saw the face of the presenter. Here I was thinking it would be me, you know? Or my former college professor who had it out for me. Never noticed Larry had horns, but I was more confused by how clean-cut he looked with a black-dyed goatee. He looked at me like we had been friends all our lives, finally in on the joke. Happy.’

“They pulled out this stretch of fabric to sprawl across the screen. It was thin yet Larry promised the cotton/wool blend was the strongest for miles. A series of static-filled cuts later, the red-haired demonstrator had her own to cynically model. She tied one end around her neck, double knotted, and tied one of the washcloths of the ward—this ward to the end of that. Then three more after that until it reached the floor and then some. The wall around behind her rolled to the right. There was a stainless-steel toilet— like in all the rooms here. She double-checked her tie and started flushing the power flow. Smiled as she fought the rip. I still don’t get what the resistance was about at this point. At the end—I mean, her head couldn’t leave the bowl. She stopped flushing when the bowl could fill, then flopped until the bubbles. I think my brain is going to kill me.”

A swell of tears filled his bloodshot eyes. The fight for him was fading, and he felt it. He couldn’t muffle his whale in his cry as he let his head fall into his crossed arms on the conference table. The orderlies worried too much not to open the door when I walked over and hugged him and let him cry into my shoulder. I helped him to his feet, with Nurse Lenard watching as Garth’s warning became lively. “Please—it’s not a brain thing; it’s an infection that’s spreading. You have to find it, Dr. Fitzgerald. Please.” I stopped at the desk for my belongings, and at the sight of my things, he ramped up again. ‘The scarf—it’s that scarf. Shit, the clues! I never owned a dog—I don’t own a TV! Larry’s dog died—then the chain!” They were stuffing him in the isolation room. The last words I ever heard from him were, “Don’t sleep—IT WAS YOUR SCAAAAARF!”