Altered States (25 page)

‘I know you, Conner. You may be able to take off your uniform at the end of the day, but you will always be wearing that badge.’ She reached out and tapped his chest. ‘Twenty-four-seven.’

Inside Conner sighed deeply. He didn’t argue, but he hoped with all his soul that it wasn’t true.

Telling Eyes

Karla and I sat on her sofa and I tried to put into words what I never had before. It was three in the morning by this point but I was wide awake. In the end, the statement was quite straightforward.

‘The thing is,’ I offered gingerly, ‘I’ve ... never experienced happiness.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t mean like I’m constantly sad. Though I am at times of course. I mean, I’m just not capable of that emotion. I can comprehend it; but I can’t feel it. I’ve been on theme park rides and I feel the adrenaline, and it’s exciting and fun and a smile appears on my face. And I know that happiness is kind of a subdued but more permanent version of that feeling. But I’ve never had it. I’ve never been in that place.’

I paused for a moment, looked away as I dredged up memories from the depths of my past. Then I continued.

‘I recognised this at a very early age. I knew when I got a new shiny bike at Christmas I should feel more than a dull, perfunctory satisfaction. But when I didn’t, I knew enough to smile at all the right times. And so it continued. It was not until college that I finally decided to see a professional about it. Three in the end, as it happens. But none of them ‘got’ me. They kept trying to analyse my life and figure out what I needed to change about it to be happy. But there was nothing wrong with my life. I had a stable upbringing, a loving family, a good education, and lots of friends. There was nothing I particularly longed for. It wasn’t my
life
that was lacking; it was my
mind
. And none of them understood that. So I had to learn to fix myself. But...’

‘Because that’s how it works when I
cure
people – for want of a better word – of their addiction or depression or insomnia or lack of self-confidence. I don’t administer any drug. Nor do I give them a soothing neck rub or acupuncture or any kind of physical therapy. There is no actual medicine. I just talk to them. By definition it is a placebo affect – without even the placebo. And because of that, I obviously can’t treat myself. It’s like I’m the only dentist in town, so I’m the only one with toothache.’

I fell silent and Karla dropped a question into the void.

‘How do you describe what you had with Gemma?’

‘With Gemma, I found a place I wanted to stay. I cared for her deeply and I
enjoyed
lots of what we shared. But enjoyment is like the excitement on the rollercoaster. It’s of-the-moment. It’s ascribed to a specific event. It’s not an underlying baseline emotion.’

‘True. Do you have any idea why that might be?’ I was surprised that it had taken me so long to ask this question. I’d known Karla for a couple of weeks by this point. Maybe I was giving myself time to analyse her before I asked. Or maybe I was just enjoying the thrill of her company.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I had no idea I was any different from anyone else. I think I’m only different to you.’

‘I think so too.’ If I had been in a suspicious state of mind I would have considered this a remarkable coincidence. But I was too tired to be suspicious.

‘It must be a burden. Seeing people the way you do.’

‘I guess. I don’t really think of it that way. It’s just part of me. It’s like saying it must be a burden having to breath in and out all of the time.’

‘Hmm.’ She didn’t seem convinced. Rightly so, I guess.

The evening was winding down nicely and I felt more relaxed than I had done for some time. And, as such, I wasn’t expecting any considerable bombshells to come whistling in through the window and explode at my feet. Metaphorically or otherwise.

I was, of course, wrong.

I was wrong because then Karla said something that turned my world upside-down. Something that, in a single moment, changed everything...

‘No,’ I cut her off impatiently. ‘I heard what you said. But...’ I was going to ask what she meant. But it was obvious. Now. It should have been obvious for so long. I stood up and began to pace. ‘Why didn’t I see it that way before?’ I was talking to myself. ‘Because it makes no sense. But then, it didn’t make sense anyway.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Karla was standing too now.

I stopped jabbering and turned to face Karla. My mind did some super fast processing; realigned certain segments of my brain to the newly-understood facts. And out popped a new plan.

‘She had my eyes, Karla.
Pearle
had my eyes. She could
see
like me.’

Faltering

Conner flicked the TV on to the news as background noise for his morning routine. He was not surprised to be greeted by the faces of super-couple Rubeck and Winters, who had seemingly grown omnipresent in his town over recent weeks – especially since the announcement of their involvement in some massive upcoming event sponsored by the Igneous clothing corporation.

The event was called
Fabrics of Life
, some fair-trade, super-ethical, pseudo-political affair. The hype made it sound like Igneous was promising to feed the hungry, cure the diseased and eradicate poverty across the globe. To save the world. But when a corporate giant was involved it was hard not to be cynical.

Conner headed into the kitchen to prepare his breakfast of black filter coffee and more black filter coffee. He was going to stop there, then remembered that there was no Mila at the office to take care of his mid-morning dietary requirements. That made him a little reminiscent as he threw two slices of half-stale bread into the toaster. He’d heard she was back in town. Back at work in a different department. He figured he should call her up sometime.

As the coffee maker hissed away he could only half hear the news report coming from the next room.

‘...There is growing concern over the upcoming event organised by the Igneous clothing company. It is understood that the New Meadows Police Department has received a number of serious threats, verified as genuine using recognised code-words. No official statement has been released as to which specific group is behind the threats, but it is considered most likely to be one of the increasingly militant anti-globalisation movements. Security for such an event is always high, but will be stepped up in light of these concerns. It is believed that the event organisers will be liaising closely with the police force and US secret services. Here now, to discuss the security issues faced by such a high-profile event is...’

Conner zapped the TV off agitatedly. Something about the day had set Conner’s mood spiralling off in the wrong direction.

His mood did not improve any on his walk to work as he received a call from Jaz, one of his more irritating informants. Conner was aware that this was not what he needed right now, but figured he had to answer.

His day on patrol passed by routinely. He spent most of it distant in his own thoughts. Over recent weeks he’d made a lot of discoveries about himself, come to a lot of conclusions. Ultimately, it meant he knew more now about what he wanted from life than he ever had before. This was a good thing – in general. But the one insight that goes hand-in-hand with realising what you want from life, is recognising that you don’t have it. Worse still, recognising that you’d spent a good deal of your life heading along the wrong path. With any luck your trodden path will not be in the opposite direction from where you now want to go. And with any luck there will be a little cut-through, to find your way from one to the other. But maybe not. In Conner’s case he wasn’t sure which was true.

When he got home, he took a shower and pulled on his civilian clothes. Then he stood in front of the full length mirror in his bedroom – another of those items that a man would never buy himself but quite appreciates when available for use. Lisa had insisted they needed this
particular
mirror. It was from the store she loves in town; the one that specialises in all the pretend old stuff. ‘Pretend Old Stuff’ did not feature in the store’s official marketing material. They preferred phrases like ‘classic time-honoured design’, which basically meant they could charge a thousand bucks for a wardrobe by calling it an armoire, or inflate the price of anything at all by adding the word apothecary to its title. Lisa had never got around to taking the mirror because it didn’t fit in her car, and plus her new place had one fitted already. So Conner found himself studying his reflection in a Rustic Elm Apothecary Floor Mirror.

No longer in uniform. No longer a cop.

He’d learned that lesson. Learned the importance of dissociation, of being able to detach. But as he stood there, his thoughts echoing in an empty room within an empty house, something became all too clear. He had learned the lesson too late. He had nothing to come home to, nothing for that other self to be a part of.

Suddenly, some visceral imperative took hold and Conner found himself leaving the house and heading for Lisa’s apartment with no clear objective. It was a Wednesday night and he knew that their son went swimming with a friend on Wednesday nights, so Lisa would be in on her own. It would give them an opportunity to talk, although he wasn’t sure what there was to say.

When he arrived he rang the doorbell, but there was no response. She was out. Of course she was out. This was the one night of the week when she could go out. He walked away, but he didn’t get very far. Across the street a few doors down there was a little coffee shop, which he decided to patronise. His actions and his thought processes were clipped. They didn’t seem his own. He seemed out of sorts. Maybe that was why he was lured into the café. Probably not.

He sat there and drank, and stared, and thought. And he knew why he was there. And the revelation was not welcome. He was spying. Stalking even. And the target was not some criminal, but his wife, the mother of his child. He knew he had crossed a line. But it had been right there to be crossed. And now the line was behind him he couldn’t see it anymore.

He didn’t know what he expected to see. But eventually, as if this was all part of some orchestrated plan by the man downstairs, he saw it. He saw Lisa return to her apartment and go inside ... with a man.

She had never mentioned a man; never told him that she was seeing someone. But did she have to? Was that his right? It was a grey area for sure. But he decided that their son swung it in his favour. He had a right to know if Lisa was planning to introduce a man into his son’s life.