Method 15 33 Read Free Page A

Your daughter, well, she’s harnessed something. Whether this is blessed news or a curse, I do not know.” They didn’t know I was listening through the crack in his office door. I recorded every word to the hard drive in my mind.
    The bit about the switch was mostly true. I might have simplified things. It’s more a choice, but since mental choices are difficult to explain, I said switch. In the very least, I was lucky to have such a good doctor. He listened, without judgment. He believed, without skepticism. He had a true faith in medical mysteries. The day I left his care, I flipped a switch and hugged him.
    They studied me a few weeks, wrote some papers, and my parents yanked me back into a somewhat normal world: I returned to first grade and built a lab in the basement.

    Upon Day 3 in captivity—first day out of the van—we began the process of setting up a pattern. Three meals a day, served byhim, on that stupid china plate, milk in a white mug, small cup of water, followed by a larger, lukewarm cup of water. After each meal, he would retrieve the tray with the empty plate, mug, and cups and remind me to knock only when I needed the bathroom. If I did not get a response in time, “use the bucket.” I never used the bucket. I never used the bucket for relieving myself, that is.
    From there, our developing process-setting was punctuated by a couple of visitors. Yes, I was blindfolded correctly for visits, so I did not then ascertain their full identities. But after what happened on Day 17, I set out to catalog all of the particulars so as to later exact revenge, not only on my captor, but also on my jail cell visitors. What to do with the people in the kitchen below, however, I did not know. But let me not get ahead of myself just yet.
    My first visitor came on Day 3. Certainly medical, he had cold fingers. I labeled him “The Doctor.” My second visitor came on Day 4, accompanied by The Doctor, who announced, “She is doing well, considering.” In a hushed tone, the second visitor said, “So this is her?” I labeled him “Mr. Obvious.”
    When The Doctor and Mr. Obvious left, The Doctor advised my jailer to keep me calm and to allow me tranquility. But nothing changed to afford me calm or tranquility until the end of Day 4 when I asked for Assets #14, 15, and 16.
    And so, as the light began to fade on my fourth day in captivity, the floorboards again rattled. Through Asset #8, the keyhole, I noted the time,
dinner
. He opened the door and handed me the tray with the nonsensically-patterned plate, mug of milk, and cup of water.
Quiche and bread again
.
    “Here.”
    “Thank you.”
    “More water?”
    “Yes, please.”
    Locks door, pipes clang, water runs, he returns: more water.
Why, why, why does he do this?
    He turned to leave.
    With head to chest and in the most submissive, insipidvoice I could tolerate, I said, “Excuse me. I can’t really sleep and I wonder if this hurts…anyway, maybe if I watched TV, or listened to a radio, or read, or even drew, a pencil with some paper, would maybe…help?”
    I braced myself for a brutal, verbal tirade and even physical violence for my insolence.
    He stared me down, grunted, and left without acknowledging my request.
    About forty-five minutes later, I heard the now familiar floorboards rattle. I figured he was back, as was the established routine, to collect my plate, mug, and cups. However, when he opened the door, resting on his wide chest, he carried an old nineteen-inch television, a yard-sale radio about twelve inches long, a pad of paper tucked under his left arm, and a rather long, plastic school-kid case. The case, pink with two horses on the side, was the kind you buy for the first day of school and lose in a week. I wondered if I was in a schoolhouse.
Must be abandoned if I am
.
    “Don’t ask for any more shit,” he said, yanking my tray from the bed and causing the empty plate and cups to topple and clatter. On his departure, he slammed the