Entry #6: The Wife From Another Life
The ongoing serial follows Duke, a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood, who does the unthinkable to see his name in lights...
“I was never married,” I told the woman, and she stared back at me.
It was true. I’d never put a ring on anyone’s finger, except for a ring pop on Zoe Wilson’s in 4th grade. There was this one girl, years ago, that I could’ve seen myself doing the white picket fence dance with. But she was long gone now. Odds are, she shat out a couple of little rascals by now. I wondered if they were all boys; I imagined that’s what she would’ve wanted.
Snap out of it.
“I don’t have a wife,” I told her with certainty this time.
But still, the angel hovering above me persisted. She asked me to think harder. I couldn’t deny, the way she said “Duke” — it made me feel we had met before. Met recently even. So, I searched the recesses of my mind, hoping I’d remember what she clearly knew. But she was mistaken.
Or I had forgotten marrying an angel from up above.
The woman turned back to the glass, disappointed, and a man came in next, and introduced himself as Doctor James Baskin. He had a grey beard and sideburns from a bygone era. He had ‘The Society’ written all over his demeanor, and he was able to dodge the questions I asked with a calm precision.
When will you release me?
Soon.
Why is Didi here?
Who’s Didi?
The unconscious man in the corner.
I don’t see anyone in the corner.
I craned my head, and Didi had been removed from the room. He must’ve left when the angel did. I’ll admit, I wasn’t thinking all that clearly. It was likely residual effects from the sedatives they gave me. Shady bastards.
Are you a real doctor?
Of course I am, Duke. I was hired by your wife to intervene.
“I don’t have a wife!” I shouted at him this time. He bit his lip and asked me if I was always this difficult. “I’m not difficult; I’m being set up.”
Doctor Baskin proceeded to tell me that I had developed delusions of grandeur, and in these delusions, I had concocted an entire fantasy about a cult of Hollywood writers who made human sacrifices for success, and that this all started after getting into a fender bender in the parking lot behind a coffee shop in Venice.
I corrected him, and said it was hardly a fender bender. I had loved tapped a BMW that belonged to the man who you kidnapped. The same way you kidnapped me.
Doctor Baskin shook his head, and extracted a file from a binder on one of the sterile counters. He told me he was sorry he had to show me this, but that he needed to get through to me somehow. I was starting to get frustrated by his tactics, so I grabbed the file and looked through it, ready to prove him wrong.
It was a police report, from seven months ago. I must admit I was unable to focus very well after coming across the word: TOTALED, 2005 Ford Mustang.
And there it was — a picture of my yellow Ford Mustang, with the front smashed in. Who had done that? Not me. No… I had only knocked off my left mirror. Or was it the right? My head started to pound, and I looked to Doctor Baskin.
“You don’t remember anything from the accident?” He asked, with that gentle voice of his.
I didn’t, and it made me sick to my stomach, because between him and the angel, I had the horrible feeling they were in the light, and I was in the dark.
“I want to go home,” I said.
“I’m afraid this is your home until we’ve finished our work here.”
“You can’t do that.”
My adrenaline was spiking and I needed to get out of this chair, out of these chains.
“I can when it’s court ordered.”
“Court ordered?”
“Let’s just say there’s an investigation, Duke. One that’s relying on you to remember what happened…”