Leaving Clues

I think I’ve found someone who will help me, be it through persuading him through somewhat personal means. If you’re reading this Peter, you need to log into my files, I left you a clue on the OISD site, use the journal I mailed you.

The Blade of a Knife

Someone broke into my home while I was at work. Suddenly, the weight of the situation has become much more urgent. Whatever this is, the information I’ve collected must be protected. It must not be allowed to be tucked away and discarded. I fear that the life of this boy, the sanctity of our dreams, and the balance of our reality walks cautiously on the blade of a knife.

Too Careless

My insatiable curiosity has done me in, I fear I have been too careless and suspicions are beginning to rise concerning my late stays. In order to curb any odd impression, I’ve taken to relying on what I’ve collected so far. Each night I spend hours drawing the connections, trying to uncover Corrigan’s motives, trying to unearth this hidden room where little Christian lies locked, a lost boy, in a land of dreaming.

Save Him.

The urgency and the weight of my search, of my work, pressed me to continue, despite my initial shock. I returned to Corrigan’s office and the locked drawer looking for more puzzle pieces tonight. I followed a trail of defeat, tracing Corrigan’s failures along a series of patients until I found him. A name, a letter, a drawing, it’s all beginning to show itself to me. I now have a name to the face: Christian. Corrigan has him and Corrigan is using him, just like Jeih.

I need to find this boy. I need to save him.

The weight of Reality

I sit, methodical, with time turning in on itself, everything crashing and burning at once, viewing both the end and the beginning. The crushing weight of reality was enough to knock the initial excitement of my entry completely from my mind. I now know what must be done.

The lock picking kit came early in the mail yesterday and like a child waiting for recess I fidgeted anxiously all day. The clicking pen, the tapping foot, the lost trains of wondering thought, all tell-tale signs pointing to me, the future culprit of the night. I didn’t care; I was uncovering the drawer’s sacred contents that night.

Although Corrigan had long returned from his previous trip, despite the potential danger of repeating past mistakes, I made my move. I waited for the departure of the last of my co-workers, I double-bolted the clinic door and then scooted the couch an in or so, just enough to make entering difficult and buy me enough time to escape, if needed. My nimble fingers raking and pushing, it took about an hour and then, click, the final pin released itself; the drawer was mine. Moving slowly and holding my breath, I slid open the drawer. Immediately the numbers, “5836,” jumped to meet my eye. Dropping the rake and tension tool with a silver clink on the linoleum, I seized the orange-marbled colored folder.

Pouring out came Jeih, locked behind the doors of Byberry, forgotten psycho-path, Corrigan’s first subject. Memorized with unblinking eye, I read the preliminary testing results. The Byberry rumors were true and Corrigan played part, slowly driving this man further and further into insanity. Hunted and haunting his dreams and drawings struck me, hollowing out in the pit of my stomach, expanding like empty corridors and deserted minds. All the while my disbelief faded with each echo: “he sacrificed this man for the sake of his machine.”

I dreamt of caterpillars eating my face that night.

No Children

Corrigan returned today, on time. I saw him writing in his journal and made a mental note to check it later. When I did I found proof that he’s testing. Wherever he is going, he is testing on someone. Is the boy in the picture the same one he mentions?

As I was leaving, I noticed something odd tacked up on Corrigan’s cork board: children’s drawings. It never caught my eye before but than I remembered: Corrigan has no children, no siblings, no family. Why would a 58 year old man have a child’s drawings up on his wall at work?

Back to Byberry

The conspiracy theorist in me begins to wane with each passing day of unanswered questions. To pass the time between now and when the lock picking kit arrives, I’ve begun painfully over-analyzing all that I’ve collected so far trying to find any semblance of a connection, trying to find any inkling that will ultimately lead me to the answers.

Something inside me keeps bringing me back to Byberry. We all know of the horrors that happened there. Is this boy related? I’m praying that I won’t have to make the five hour drive to Philly to hunt through the ruins of the past.

5836

Stupid me.

The excitement of my dream clouded the rationality of my thievery schemes. Fashioning a lock pick out of two papers clips is not as easy as the internet made it seem (nor as glamorous as the movies made it seem). I spent the better part of two hours jiggling and raking those damn wires to no avail. The optimist in me begs to look at this as a small obstacle and persuaded my little pessimist into going online and buying one of a lock picking kit. Two weeks for shipping; whatever is in that drawer better be worth the wait.

Giving up on the lock, I decided to revisit the other filing cabinets. In the bottom drawer of the dusty green cabinet my eyes caught sight of a folder different from the rest. Big and marbled-orange in color, the folder, labeled Byberry, jutted out above a sea of manila. I knew that Corrigan had worked there in the early 80’s many years before it was shut down. In all honesty, I was surprised he kept the files after all these years. I pulled it from its home and out fell several newspaper clippings, a couple pages from an old patient of his named, Alyssa, and a scrap of paper with the number, “5836,” written on it. I took the most interesting clippings and a few dreams of the little girl and stuffed them into my journal.

Why would he keep these? Who is Alyssa? What is 5836?

Pick the Lock

Everyday I examine the dreaming habits of other people so one could assume that I’m very in touch with my own dreaming life. A few months ago, I would argue against that logic. In fact, I hardly dream at all and when I do it’s far from anything memorable. For this reason alone, when I awoke suddenly to the phrase, “pick the lock” I ran to my computer to search for instructions.

Pick the lock, of course. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?

Another attempt

Corrigan left Tuesday giving me a week of late night access to his office (given the assumption that my colleagues have gone home for the evening). The bastard locked his door this time, but I managed to find an extra key hidden in Mack’s desk drawer. I carefully snuck into Corrigan’s office, my ears painfully alert to each crack and thud of the world outside the clinic. I tip-toed over documents and files sporadically arranged across his floor and desk, cautiously avoiding imaginary cracks to not disturb any semblance of order his office might possess.

I first tried conquering the locked drawer. Sliding my fingers delicately across the filing cabinet, I felt for a place one might hide a key. No luck.

Turning to his desk I found, to my surprise, a newly started notebook. I read first few lines and debated pocketing the whole thing. Instead, I photocopied the five or so entries and saved them for later use. The pages don’t reveal much information now, but I know in a month or so, providing he leaves it again, this journal can potentially become a good resource to explain what’s been going on.

I scanned through his planner and ripped a page from his calendar. There’s a bunch of suspicious “important meetings” on dates. Some of the days are ones on which I know he will be in town but aren’t OISD meetings. Where is he sneaking off to?

Returning to the filing cabinet, I searched his old clinical trial files for any trace of the boy or room. I almost began half wishing that there was some mysterious and forgotten room in the clinic that isn’t used anymore, one unknown to me. Maybe this is just an old patient. Maybe this is all a misunderstanding. As my fingers crawled like spiders over each labeled folder, I counted the maybes. Maybe I should just keep looking.

Getting into that locked drawer is the key. I know it.

Excuses to snoop

It’s only been a handful of days since Corrigan’s return but to my reeling suspicions it seems like forever. My intuition’s has me itchy and listless. Deep in the back of my mind, always nagging, that boy, that room; I hardly know how I concentrate on my own patients.

I’m finding excuses to snoop everyday: checking the scheduling book when Sarah’s at lunch to see when Corrigan will be out of the office next; carefully questioning the other doctor’s about the patients they’ve picked up; I even stooped to “accidentally” dropping something in the trash so I could pick up something that Corrigan dropped in there (it was a receipt).

I find myself wishing for his next scheduled departure. I know my mind will not rest until I find the answers for which I am searching.

So close!

The pounding of my beating heart is almost enough to drown out the noise of this evening. As planned, I decided to stay late tonight in hopes of breaking into Corrigan’s office. My hand was turning the door handle to his office when I heard the lock click on the outside door of the clinic. I bolted towards the kitchen, grabbing a random folder off of the receptionist’s desk. Unbeknownst to me, Corrigan’s trip was cut short; he came storming into the office a little after 10 o’clock talking loudly on his cell phone.

I managed to catch the first few sentences that drug up from his mouth as he stepped over the office threshold:

“ … decide up or down? More like across. You don’t understand, he’s not behaving in the normal patterns. I can’t control Chr…”

His eye caught sight of me and I quickly feigned an oblivious surprise before burying my face in the file as if I was more interested in my work and my coffee making than his conversation. Tipping his head in acknowledgement, he entered his office and shut the door without a word to me or to his guest on the other end of the phone line.

As I walked back past his office towards mine, I fruitlessly strained to hear any ounce of conversation. I stayed for another hour or so until I was convinced that Corrigan would be in the office all night.

Dammit.

More sleuthing

I’ve been using the author as an excuse to be in Corrigan’s office. I just pretend that I need some of her files so that gets some limited access to his patient files. Of course, being as inconspicuous as possible, I only have enough time to scan the names on files. I haven’t found anything concrete yet but there’s a drawer that’s locked labeled with a number sequence.

Sometime this week, I’m going to have to find an excuse to “stay late.” I will get to the bottom of this.

Other clinics?

Corrigan’s absence this week inspired me to do some sleuthing.

I wanted to address where this room was located so today I asked Mack if she knew if Corrigan was planning on opening other sleep clinics. I figured that with all the funding that he’s been trying to get, maybe he was opening up trial clinics in other locations. Mack said she hadn’t heard anything of the sort but would let me know.

I keep running through all the clinics that we’ve ever done any trials in but none match. I’m going to check the database to see if maybe the image is from an old study that was done before I came here.

Daydreaming

With Corrigan gone, the clinic’s been surprisingly busy. Mack’s stepped up into a more administrative position, so her patients have been shuffled around between the rest of us. I feel like I’m taking on at least two additional patients each week.

Even with all the extra work, I can’t keep my mind off of that damned picture. I catch myself daydreaming about where it was taken, what it is, and why the Corrigan could have it. I even had a dream about it last night; maybe I should check myself in.

A photograph

A photograph fell out of a file folder that Corrigan was carrying today. He didn’t notice; he hardly notices what’s going on these days. Before I was able to return it to him, I saw what it was a photograph of and quickly tucked it into my journal. Let me re-phrase, it wasn’t a photograph, it looked more like a…. still from a surveillance camera. It was a boy, a boy whom I’ve never seen before, hooked up to the machine. We’ve stopped doing the sleep studies with the Dream Chaser weeks ago and I don’t understand from where this image could have come. I took the image back to my desk to try to reference it with other files, but nothing looks familiar, not the boy, not the room, nothing. I almost want to question Corrigan about it but, I don’t know, something’s not right. Between his current disposition and just the atmosphere of this place, I don’t know to whom I can turn to tell me what’s happening.

Taken Away

Corrigan is hardly ever in the office these days. When he is, he’s agitated and temperamental, constantly storming around with his head in the thunder clouds. We all just assume that the funding isn’t going well but, really, all we can do is guess.

We’ve stopped doing sleep surveys with the machine. Corrigan says he wants to do some testing and would like to perfect it before we start using it for dream therapy again. Part of me is sad. Sometimes when I look in on others’ dreams, others’ personal worlds, I feel almost like God. Maybe that’s why Corrigan invented the damn thing. Maybe that’s why he’s taken it away.

The Author

Corrigan’s recent travels have finally spilled onto the rest of us. We’ve all taken up his patients while he tries to procure more funding for his research. I almost envy him in way. He’s jet-setting around the world speaking at all the illustrious universities and research labs while we’re here listening to sleep apnea issues and night terrors.

One of his patients I’ve picked up, the author, is surely something. This poor woman blames her recent writer’s block on some re-occurring nightmares that she’s been having. While I need to have a few more sessions with her, some of the things she tells me are truly bizarre. I don’t know why she just doesn’t write a novel about that instead of vampires and ghouls and all that other mindlessness she fantasizes about. It would definitely be much more interesting!

Granted, the written dream accounts of hers are fabulous. I’m really interested in two of the characters that seem to keep appearing, a boy and a… a…I guess hunter is the best term for him. When Corrigan returns, I might see if she’ll consider a go at the machine. I would love to see what’s going on in her head (literally).

Amiss

There’s a strangeness looming in the air, thick and icy and unsettling. It started two weeks ago when Corrigan returned from D.C. This apprehension is a thousand caterpillars crawling inside of me—their fuzzy bodies trying to escape through every pore, up and out, eating, and freeing themselves. They’re crawling through my veins, into my fingertips, out of my belly button; thousands come pouring out. I can feel their little leg prints crawling through my nostrils, down to the back of my of my throat, flooding my mouth with little hairs. And I’m choking on it; I’m choking on all the unease.

I know something’s gone wrong.

Re-evaluation

After months of working with Corrigan and his software, I’m beginning to re-evaluate how I think about dreams. Dreams are not merely an id unleashed. Nor are they the hidden worries of our ho-hum existence. They are so much more than reality; they are a hyper-reality. I almost dare to say a form of other reality.

I feel as if they are a language, a rubric of sorts, to another state of being. Another world, perhaps: an amorphous world of conscious matter, fluctuating and oscillating constantly, projecting bits of our world onto itself and stirring them up in between these golden particles of thought.