Kelly's Eye

[R. Broath]

Two things.
I am not sorry for myself, and I realise exactly where I am. Got that? Good.
You see it's important that you know. It has been mentioned to me that it was feeling sorry for myself that got me in here. Bollix.

Ofcourse I regret the way things have turned out. Who wouldn't? But who's to say that some other stroke of misfortune would not have seen me slink through these sombre portals anyway. Listen. I could take you on a tour of this place and show you some poor souls whose stories are so pathetic you'd swear it was all in their heads. No, I regret nothing.
As for knowledge of my whereabouts. Well, places like this were once referred to as asylums. Talk about the evolution of language; according to my old Oxford the first definition of asylum is; A safe and inviolable place of refuge. Ha! My associates within this refuge are variously alluded to, by staff and others, as nutters, spacemen, crackpots, and a chip short of a fish supper. While the institute itself, as far as I know, luxuriates under the formal tiltle of, Screwloose Hall for Marble Searchers. I think.
We, the confined, are grateful, though, for the small measure of tranquillity which day by day enters our befuddled brains.
So. Now that you have the general picture I shall proceed.


Stark facts. Unadorned reality. Naked truth.
Doctor Brian Withers punctuates our sessions with these epithets in the fond hope that their constant repitition will somehow undo my past. But you know, and I definitely know, that there are versions of reality and there is the real thing.
Fact. The National Lottery was two years into its' life as the nation's favourite fantasy. I, and millions who have yet to encounter Dr Withers, were regularly contributing to the good cause of making ourselves filthy rich. I had decided that the first six numbers I had chosen, by a complicated system of life anniversaries( Ah, forty-nine, the bus on which I'd groped my first girlfriend), were to remain with me until I won, or death claimed me. I would cease gambling when one of the above came to pass.
Week on barren week I derived painful pleasure from the knowledge that poor bastards were morphing into rich bastards, and believing that one day I might aspire to category two. By the way, Dr Withers used an interesting phrase the other day. He called this dogged quest of mine, "The myopia of the culturally barren". I told him to tell it to the numerous millionaires who spent the equivalent of his salary on a collection of jukeboxes to play Glamrock smashes.
About week one hundred and ten into the Lottery, in fact I know it was week one hundred and ten, that number is also seared into the chewed carrion that was my soul, well, in that week up come my numbers. For reasons which would require me to seriously increase the amount and frequency of my medication I will not detain you with the minutiae of why I failed to buy my ticket that week. But one large Welshman found himself over twelve million pounds richer by the time Aunty had wrapped up her excrutiating coverage of the weekly avarice fest. Do I need to explain that the six numbers on which I had thus far invested two hundred and twenty pounds seeking to join the ranks of Lucky Bastard, were those chosen by Medusa, or whichever silly name they apply to the tatty machinery of ill luck.
Something snapped.


At first I said nothing. What could I say?
"Just missed out on six million quid at the weekend."
"Yeah? You'll have to put in a bit of overtime to make that up."
I couldn't get it out of my head. Sleep went first. I'd lie staring at the orange curtains, hearing my six numbers recited like a mantra, over and over.
Then I stopped washing. I stank, so my clothes stank. I'd try to disguise the odour with copious oversprays of Hai Karate. The ozone depletion, I'm convinced, is down to unlucky sods.
Then comes the morning when I can't get out of bed. Everything closes in. Even the cat has long gone. I drag myself to the doctor's. He says I'm a bit depressed. I mean to say. I could have told him that. So by now I'm six weeks off work. The boss calls me in and says that's OK, take as long as you need. Two weeks later I get the sack.
Lucky Bastard.


Did I tell you I'm married. Before I didn't win the money things were terrible. After I didn't win the money things were...terribler.
Withers recently informed me that in his opinion people like me lack some of the basic personality traits essential to those who wish to remain married.
"Like?"
"Affection, empathy, sensitivty, openess, imagination, courtesy, sympathy, consideration."
"Oh, those."
Well, maybe we weren't the perfect combination, but we had weathered the stormy sea of marriage for a creditable fifteen years. There were no kids. I let smug Withers know that the lack of progeny had been her decision. After professional consideration Withers had suggested that I had probably smothered her maternal instinct by my own childish behaviour. Crap, I told him, she wasn't much for the old how's your father, that's all.
She has stopped coming to see me. Can't say that I miss our weekly bouts of strained silence. Makes it sound as though Withers has me pretty well taped, eh? But who's on her case?
I've told them to put more Bromide, or whatever the modern equivalent is, in my Bovril. I really don't want my libido to resurrect itself in here. Though I have had offers. Gender not a problem.
Withers smiled as he noted that request. Says I'm paranoid. Moi?


I don't know if you've ever been in one of these institutions. They are not the dark, forbidding cathedrals of disquiet of popular imagination. At least of mine, when I had an imagination.
Couldn't resist that description. Withers used it in one of his outbursts of verbal diarrhoea to which he is a martyr.
Years ago persons like me could expect to spend years fraternising with the yellow faced denizens of these "theatres of bewildered reality".(Yep. The fool doctor, again.) Nowadays, he says, I can look forward to full absorbtion into the open arms of enlightened humanity, so long as I "co-operate."

Getting back to these numbers.
I remember when I first spoke to the ever-loving on the subject of luck. She opined that as the method I had hit upon to determine the numbers was not dissimilar to the dumb luck of the draw, that I should change the numbers weekly, like the draw. (I think she was miffed that I had not included our wedding anniversary as one of my "life anniversaries.")
I believed that if I remained rock steady with the first six, then the ship of luck would one day strike the rock of my fortitude and spill the cargo of treasure into my waiting lap. (I have been encouraged during the compilation of this chronicle of events to "cut loose the chains of mundane verbiage which tether the minds of some of our guests," Withers) So if my metaphors are mixed, blame him. I'm paranoid.
Anyway, I said to her,
"Our fate, our destiny, lies in the hands of Lady Luck, into whose sweaty palm I entrust these six, significant numbers."
It has just occurred to me that I uttered the above BEFORE my sojourn here. I am bloody paranoid now.
She said,"Bollix."


As this is an honest account I have to tell you that this is not the first encounter I have had with a member of Withers' profession.
Many years ago I came across a monosyllabic brain explorer by the name of Schitz.
Funnily enough that meeting was number based as well.
I was born into a family dominated by it's distaff side. Many's the night I'd lie quaking under thin blankets trying to ignore the ambiguous sounds emanating from my parents' room as my mother beat my father up. As my sisters grew they would emulate my muscled Mum by visiting sibling violence on me with equal gusto, but minus most of the scatalogical accompaniment.
The misdemeanour for which I was summoned into the presence of Schitz was stealing the brass number plate from the door of two, elderly spinster ladies, the Misses Moore.
Admittedly, I was a recidivist. When my room was searched I was found to be in possession of a large quantity of numbers 4 and 7.
Why did I do it?
Schitz concluded that I had a number fixation. And for several weeks I attended his murky consulting rooms while he made me draw little doors with little numbers, all the while,"Actively resisting zi oorge to obliterate ze numbers on ze doors."
Quite why I had to be bounced on his knee during this aversion therapy I was never able to figure.


The smell of the place will, I think, always remain with me. That, and the verbose analyses offered by Withers. Just over an hour ago I had what is, hopefully, my last session with him. I asked if I had been cured. I thought he wouldn't answer. For a while he concentrated on some distant spot behind me. Then he spoke.
"Cure, by definition, implies disease, does it not? What afflicts you, Mr Kelly, me, all of us, is that we view the world in the wrong light. We live in it, by it, but sometimes it encroaches too much. It enters too much into us, causing a malady almost like a allergy. We scratch at the itch and find that the relief is but a temporary abatement of the symptoms."
"Christ," I thought, "Here I am in the company of a bunch of loonies, when all I needed was a dermatologist."
He spread his arms, palms upward. I took this to be his attempt at a significant gesture.
"Places like this are the world's scratching posts. Our aim is to slough from you, our guests, the skin of anxiety which you acquire out there." He flicked his head back, pointing his imposing chin at the window.
"You are no better than when you came to me. All I can hope to achieve is that you identify more clearly the itch which troubles you, and to give you an adequate stick with which you may, from time to time, alleviate the discomfort."
I think he was astute enough to catch the worried frown which darkened my previously optimistic features.
He smiled," I doubt if we will see you here again my friend."
"So. Am I cured."
"You will fit in. You are lucky."
He rose from behind the desk and proffered his large, soft hand.
Outside his office two, large unsmiling nurse grunted as they restrained a red-faced guest. I wondered what itch troubled him.

Any minute now I will be taken from here and deposited out there. I suppose Withers has done the best he can. I think he believes his own claptrap. I want to return to some sort of normality.

And as the Doctor said - I'm lucky.

[Ros]

Jimmy, this has a great tone to it and is very compelling. The character is very convincing, and I like your description of the world encroaching too much. Good stuff.

Ros

[BenJohnson]

Sorry I have been reading this a few times, but just realised I hadn't commented. Much enjoyed as always, look forward to the next offering.

[mesmie]

I am having a wonderful time!

thanks

[Holly_Golightly]

I like the style of your writing. I kind of write like this in my diary but with less dialogue

[dogofdiogenes]

Hi there,

I enjoyed this character and his disjointed view of the world. There are a few bits which would improve with some revision, but mainly, yes.

jacq

[Terreson]

Good writing, actually. Good captioning. Bedlam is such a storehouse of experience.

Tere