Join My Cult - Original Falcon Press

“Don’t thank me yet. Stillness here is a denial of patterning. …Of the
lukewarm order of coffee in your mouth. Jumping straight onto the desk
to start. Flesh, you see? I chose to ignore Ian-Joyce Vivian. He is not
me.” Pause. He shifts, glacially. Affective cues are subtle, languorous as
tectonic plates. But present. When he shifts ever minutely to attention I
speak.
“Who were you when you were admitted?”
“Jesus,” he sighs. This is noted, I wait. Ping the Gender Identity
Disorder? Yes. “But even then, you were someone else, weren’t you,
Jesus.”
“Meredith.” With the name, Ian perks up. He is now a perky catatonic.
Don’t laugh. Started doing low doses of estrogen internally—a constant,
low-grade E buzz—was gonna go through with the whole thing…saw
three random meteors tonight…one was pretty bright for a random bit of
space junk.
“Thank you. Are you still Jesus?”
Ian snaps to his feet. I saw it coming and remain warmly patient.
Him again, him of the cage. He came again. Locked her away entirely.
You see, it’s really a question of solipsism. Copernicus rolls both
ways in a dusty little pocket of a grave. Locked away, or spread apart? I
burrow into my flesh and reproduce.
“We’ll show you a trick if you can learn it, Doctor. You don’t have to
play along. You don’t have to be Doctor Fein, or Meredith, or even a
primate. Just choose.” He stiffens slowly. Affect drains from his eyes,
face, he is still. “You gotta get out more, Doc.” Then he is still as stone.
I record our brief exchange in my notes, lean back, and stare at his
forgotten body. Jesus has left the building.
Eventually the orderlies take him away. I don’t notice until minutes
have passed. I am staring at where his eyes used to be.
Her time is up, for now. He slides open the cell. She offers no resistance
as he cuffs her and leads down a dark hallway to a cell, also sealed
from all light. He hears some soft, muted screams, and his grin widens.
He thinks he has won. Back in the cell, she cries herself to sleep…
Static. Unchanging, day after day. Just sitting, waiting for the sun to
rise in my cell, and never seeing it come. She sits on the cold concrete,
crying now. Softly. Because she knows that there is no more. The story is
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