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All children know where spiders come from. Chapter one: Programming Av LarsCarlberg :: Sunday, September 24, 2006 :: Läst 357 ggr :: 2 kommentarer :: :: Genre: Rysare, Drama Långt och konstigt, och på engelska av någon anledning. Om någon orkar läsa eländet och kommentera det så lovar jag att göra nån god gärning i gengäld... kanske kan det vara just Din förtjänst att en gammal dam blir hjälpt över gatan om några dagar! All children know where spiders come from Chapter one: Programming [all names edited out of terapeutic session- and interrogation transcripts for legal and privacy reasons] One by one they enter that empty, barren room with it’s uncomfortable chairs and a table in the middle. It is a featureless room, it’s windows opening only to other buildings, grey walls, and to a parking lot devoid of almost any traffic at this hour. In the corner there’s an old overhead projector that doesn’t work and maybe never had worked, it’s screen taken away a long time ago for other purposes, to other rooms much like this. They sit down around the table, the chairs making odd sounds against the dull plastic floor as they try their best to get comfortable.     The man in the brown suit talk first. The lawyer.     ”You know each others by now.” He has a calm and reassuring voice, like an actor trained for romantic scenes shot in warm mountain cabins, all soft-lense. ”And you all know why we are here.”     The others nod in approval. He opens his suitcase and places an old Hitatchi tape recorder on the table in front of them. It looks as if it had been used for this kind of evidence playback for many long years, it’s corners broken off and the rewind button worn and used.     ”This is evidence exhibit 19:7.” He also takes some tape cassettes out of his suitcase and shows to them. ”These are the actual recordings of the sessions the terapist undertook with her client during nine different times between August the first and 25:th September last year. What we have to do tonight, is to decide whether the metods the terapist are using are misguiding. We wan’t to know if she’s asking leading questions, if the use of hypnosis as a means to recall any hidden memories are actually placing false memories in the client.”     He pauses.     ”We must also try to decide upon the mental state of the client at the time of these sessions.” The tape starts with a low hiss, the hum and the white noise of another room more than a year ago, the sound of breathing and the creaking of a chair. Then there’s the therapist’s voice, telling the date and the time to the microphone. It’s a professional voice, void of much feeling, but still somewhat friendly and soothing. It’s a womans voice. The other person, the client, mutters something. It’s a tiny, fragile voice, maybe a girl’s or a young boy’s. Therapist: ”Are you feeling comfortable? Are you okay?” Client: ”Do you think I look comfortable? I’m fucking tired.” T: ”I’m sorry. I just want you to feel safe, and feel sure that I’m here to help you.” C: ”Yeah, help me… like anybody could fucking do that.” T: ”Right now, I just want you to lay back and focus on what I’m saying. You see, I’ve been doing this many times. You may not believe it right now, but my treatments have helped a lot of people in your situation.” C: [Silence] T: ”Soooo… What we’re going to do now, is that I’m going to put you in a different state of mind. This will help you to keep focus on what we’re experiencing, and it will also help you remember things that you think you might have forgot. It’s a kind of hypnosis.” C: ”Yeah… whatever.” T: ”All you have to do is lay back and listen to my voice. I will guide you. Now, first, I’m gonna count to five. For each number, you’re gonna feel more and more dizzy, and when I reach five you will be asleep, but you will still be able to talk and hear me.” C: ”Fuck it. I’m not sure I wanna do this.” T: ”[Client’s name], we’ve been through this before. You must remember that I am here to help you. There are people that care for you. You know that. You must let us help you.” C: ”Yeah… guess so…” T: ”I will start counting. One. Listen to my voice and close your eyes. Two. You’re beginning to breathe slower. As if you’re very tired. Three. Your limbs are heavy. They feel like they are made of lead. Four. Just listen to my voice and feel how you are floating away, slowly. And… five. You are asleep, but you can still hear me.” C: ”…yes.” [There’s a slight gasp from the client, like a shudder] T: [Client’s Name]? Do you feel that you’re floating, like in a dream? You can hear me, and you can answer me?” C: ”…yeah…” T: ”Good. Now I want you to imagine that you are standing in a field, in a glade, a green field in midday…” C: ”Yeah right… if I saw… green fields in the sun when I closed my eyes then… I wouldn’t have to be here at all… fuck it…” T: ”Listen, I want you to imagine that green field, cause here’s where our journey to healing starts…” C: ”I see no green fields. I can’t remember green. I don’t like the sun. I’m pale. I kinda like the dark, but it’s scary, too.” T: ”Yeah, okay… umm, what DO you see right now, as you’re floating?” C: [silence] T: ”Honey, I want you to tell me. If you can’t imagine the green field, then what do you see? Where are you now?” C: ”I’m in the desert. In the dark desert.” T: ”I don’t want you to be in the dark desert. Now, focus on my voice. The sun is rising in the desert, can you see that? There’s a bright sunrise, and it’s been raining, so it isn’t a desert anymore. You see flowers and all kinds of…” C: ”No flowers here.” T: ”You must concentrate…” C: ”Yeah, I hear what you say. But there are no flowers in the dark desert. That is what the dark desert is all about.” T: ”Okay… can you tell me more about the dark desert?” C: ”You wanna hear more about it?” T: ”Umm… [clients name], I want you to tell me about it. Where is this desert?” C: ”It’s everywhere.” T: ”What do you mean… everywhere?” C: ”It’s behind my eyelids. It’s in my head. But it’s not. It’s growing out of the nights. It’s all around me.” T: ”Okay, now…” C: ”And you. It’s here. It’s around you, too. When I walk, the dust rises from my footprints. There’s no wind here. I seldom hear anything. I try to walk, but I never seem to get anywhere.” T: ”This desert… you have been here before?” C: ”It’s where I fucking live. I came here a long time ago.” T: ”You can tell me all about it. Don’t be afraid.” C: ”I’m afraid. That’s all there is to be in the dark desert. Beeing afraid. There’s nothing else to be here. In the beginning I could be hungry. Or thirsty. But these feelings grow numb over time. You don’t feel them.” T: ”Yes…?” [sound of pencil writing something down] ”You don’t feel hunger? Has this something to do with the problems you experience with other people? Like, in school?” C: ”I said I don’t ever feel hungry here in the dark desert. Not anymore. It’s a place where most human emotions disappeared long ago.” T: ”You know that this is because you don’t want these feelings to be there? Because you’ve shut them out yourself?” C: ”Go fuck yourself. I’ve been here for so long. I know this place. It was here before me, and it doesn’t care what you think.” T: ”Soo… okay. You don’t feel hungry in the dark desert. You come here often. Why is it so?” C: ”Why I come here? I thought maybe you could tell me. I don’t know. It just grew upon me.” T: ”When was the first time you saw the dark desert?” C: ”I don’t really know… I think… when I was in second grade, I used to go up to the third floor in my school. To see my teacher. To talk to her. When I was waiting for her, I could look out through a window. There used to be a parking lot down below. And basketball court, where some kids always played. But sometimes it was darker out there, and the houses were kinda unreal, kinda transparent, so you could see all the way to the dark valley.” T: ”What was your relation to this teacher?” C. ”The teacher? I don’t even remember her name. She wasn’t very important to me. But she often wanted to talk to me because I’ve just moved into town.” T: ”Okay, so you first saw the desert in connection to this teacher?” C: ”Nah… I don’t think so, really. I also remember… I was sitting in the backseat of our car. My dad was driving. We drove across a bridge, and when I looked out there was no water there. Just the vast plains. The dull grey glow at the horizon.” T: ”You saw that from the car?” C: ”Yes.” T: ”What did you say to your parents at that time? Did you feel scared?” C: ”Yeah… I think I cried. But I couldn’t explain to them about the desert. They told me it was just bad dreams. Can’t blame them, really.” T: ”Your mom and dad, did you try to explain to them many times?” C: ”No…” T: ”In this dark desert… are you all alone there? Is there any other people around? Like… your dad or someone?” C: ”For a long time I was alone. Just wandering in the dark. In the higher plains above the valley. Then came the caravan. They came through the smoke.”     All through the tape from the first session they sit concentrated, listening to the voices, as it goes on for a little more than an hour. Then there’s silence. The lawyer ejects the tape and says:     ”I think it’s time for a little break. There’s coffee in the machine outside the door if you want to stretch your legs. I would very much like to hear your comments on this first part.”     One of them, a social worker chosen for this task because of his long line of work with school children and runaway teenagers, comes back to the room first, with a cup of coffee and a chocolate bar from the vending machine.     ”I’ve been working in some really shitty places, you know.” he says. ”I’ve seen a lot of wrecked up kids. I’ve known kids who were molested, who saw their mothers shot and things like that. There’s something I’ve learned though.”     The lawyer and the others, who are now returning to the room, listens.     ”Sometimes you hear a kind of coolness in the kids voices. Like they already have decided upon something. Like, ’I’ll live through this whatever it takes – it can’t touch me anymore’. You see it, it’s like something in their eyes. Some of them have turned to stone, and you can’t reach them at all. Others, they’re just… they don’t care. They’ve settled for the future. They don’t give shit about what’s happened to them in the past. When you try this theraphy shit on them they just laugh. It’s not like they’ve surpressed it or anything. It just doesn’t matter that much to them.”     ”I know what you mean.” says the frontier child psychiatrist next to the social worker. ”In fact we even have a name for it, and a theory about this. We call it ’resilience’. You know, it’s estimated that about half of the children that suffer heavy traumas develop some kind of psychological disorder. My point is, the rest of them don’t.”     They ponder this fact for a moment. Then the social worker says:     ”Yeah. And a lot of kids that seem to get on really well suddenly breaks apart. Just like that. And you try to look for reasons.” The medical supervisor cuts in:     ”And we often find something. But not always. And often not the traumas that other kids experience. I recently studied a child who suffered from skeleton cancer and… no, I guess that’s not really what we’re talking about here. But what’s all this stuff about the ’dark desert’? To be honest it gives me the creeps.”     ”Yeah.” Says the social worker. ”It’s weird. What is it? Some kind of hallucination?”     ”I would say that this girl is in a kind of psychotic state.” Says the child psychiatrist. ”She has a severe delusion. What appears strange to me is how vivid the image of this ’dark desert’ is. The hypnosis is only forcing the depth of the delusion.”     ”Sometimes it seems like she’s really there.” The social worker frowns.       ”Like it really is more real than the world around her.”     ”Now, what do you think about how the therapist is acting?” says the lawyer, as he’s taking notes in a leatherbound book. ”I’m not sure I’m getting the whole idea, but it seems to me that she is also pretty confused about what’s going on.”     ”She always hitting on the catchphrases.” Says the medical supervisor. ”It strikes me that anytime the girl mentions something about eating, or about her father or other male relatives, then she’s on the hook. She goes by the textbook.”     ”I noticed one thing.” The child psychiatrist looks in his own scribbled notes. ”The girl doesn’t really mention her father in any deeper connection with her ’dark desert’ dreams. Not until the end of the session. And that’s because the therapist has told her to look for her father a few times. There’s no word of the father until the therapist explicitly talks about going to find her father among… let’s see… ’the old, withered rocks that overlooks the dark valley’.”     ”I thought of that, too. There are no grown ups in the dark desert at all in the beginning.” Says the social worker. ”I’m not sure, but isn’t this exactly what planted memories are all about?”     The lawyer keeps writing, as he says:     ”That would be pretty much the definition, yes.”     ”The therapist keeps asking leading questions, there’s no doubt about that. She enforces the girl to pay high attention to anything that has anything to do with her father. And things that could connect to an eating disorder.” The child psychiatrist shrugs. ”According to the journals, there’s nothing that even suggests that the girl should have any eating disorder.” T: ”Do you like to write poetry?” C: ”I only write down what I see. The things I love. The things I hate.” T: ”Have you ever written about [father’s name]?” C: ”… no…” T: ”So what do you write about?” C: ”Just… stuff. I dunno. Boys.” T: ”The last session you told me about the dark desert. Do you write about that?” C: ”Nahh… well, sometimes.” T: ”I keep thinking about the caravan. The caravan of children. Are they still in the desert now?” C: ”The caravan of children? Yeah. I hear them in the distance. I hear their silence. How they breathe and never say a word.” T: ”Do you know any of these children? Are they kids from your school… like [name edited out] or [name edited out]?” C: ”No… I mean… I dunno. They are always far away. They’re in the dark valley. I follow the smoke, and the silence they’re emitting. It’s like a dark hole, I’m drawn to it.” T: ”Can you try to get closer? To the children? To see if you recognize anyone?” C: ”Will you come with me, like last time?” T: ”Of course. I’m here to help you.” C: ”Can you feel the taste of the air here in the dark desert? Like last time?” T: ”I want you to tell me what it tastes like.” C: ”It tastes like sorrow. Like the icecream I was eating when my dad came in the kitchen and told me my cat was run over by a truck. It smells like the surgeon who sat down with us and told us that grandma’s cancer could not be stopped this time.” T: ”Where you mad at your dad that day? Did you think it was his fault the cat died?” C: ”I… don’t think so. It was a stupid cat. I didn’t eat that icecream for a long time after that, anyway.” T: ”And your grandma… do you miss her?” C: ”No. She was an awful old fuck, really. But I thought it wasn’t really fair… she fought the cancer for like, ten years or something. Then, wham! And she was just a couple of sticks and skin under the sheet. Never waking up, except for crying from the pain.” T: ”Are you afraid of getting cancer yourself?” C: ”Who isn’t?” T: ”Soo… can you see the kids in the caravan now?” C: ”Yeah… there’s a lot of smoke. It’s hard to breathe…” T: ”Can you tell me what they look like? Is there anyone you know?” C: ”They’re still far away. They travel slowly. They’re looking for something far ahead. Their eyes are so… empty. So strange. It’s like they stare without ever blinking.” T: ”What are they looking at?” C: ”They ride on different things and creatures. Some have bicycles. On the hard rock surface they can ride them. But through the sand they have to lead the bikes. In the sand, it’s sometimes like wading through water. There’s rocking horses, dragged along. Big cuddly teddybears, eyes poked out and bellies wounded so that what’s inside them is left along their tracks. All grey and dusty and torn.” T: ”Are there any live animals? Like cats or something?” C: ”Nahh… ponnies… like, small horses… there’s a little kid thats always riding a big dog. Like an afghan. It’s head is twitching back and forth all the time. Like it’s got some kind of tics. It hasn’t got many teeth, though. I can imagine what it’s breath is like.” T: ”You ever wanted a dog of your own, [client’s name]?” C: ”Sometimes… when I was really a kid… before we moved to [location edited out].” T: ”But you were never allowed to have one?” C: ”Nahh… it was just an idea I had, I guess. I don’t think I really wanted one. I had my cat.” T: ”Look at the children in the caravan. Is there anyone you know?” C: ”No… they’re all strangers. Pale. Kinda… looking the same. Not really cloned, but… you know like when you look at chinese people and you know they must look different to each others, but you can’t tell them apart yourself. It’s a little like that.” T: ”You mean they’re asians?” C: ”No. I just mean… anyway, fuck it.” T: ”Do they have faces at all?” C: ”Yeah…” T: ”Describe them to me, specially the ones who may look familiar.” C: ”There’s one. I think. In the front. Maybe he looks a little like [name edited out].” T: ”Yes… he’s in your class, isn’t he?” C: ”He’s looking sleepy. Dreamy. He’s wearing some kind of uniform. All grey. Camouflage in the dark desert. You can’t see him in the smoke. Just a kid.” T: ”But if he’s in your class, then he must be a little bit older, isn’t he?” C: ”Yeah… guess so.” T: ”And he’s one of the kids who’s been harassing you?” C: ”He’s called me things, sometimes.” T: ”And now he’s in the dark desert. You have to talk to him there, to set things straight. Confront him. It’s the only way. The same way you confronted your dad. It’s your way to healing, you know.” C: ”You wan’t me to talk to him. In this silence? He’s far away, remote. Maybe I can never reach him.” T: ”It’s what you have to do. We have to know. We have to see it all, all the things that may have happened to you.” C: ”But… sometimes I’m not sure what have happened to me. I’m not even sure what is real and what isn’t.” T: ”I am here to help you find out.”

Kommentarer Av lookie Tuesday, September 26, 2006 kl 8:49 AM Något svåra ord men i huvudsak bra! Lätt hänt att gå in i handlingen även om den är på engelska! Trauman kan göra så med folk! tackar och hoppas du släpper fortsättningen! Av Fiyun Wednesday, September 27, 2006 kl 1:49 PM "It looks as if it had been used for this kind of evidence playback for many long years" Går att byta ut "evidence playback" mot "recordings" eller något liknande, eftersom att vi vet det är en advokat som har använt den många gånger förr. "during nine different times between August the first and 25:th September last year." "times" låter inte proffesionellt, fortsätt använd "sessions" istället. "The tape starts with a low hiss, the hum and the white noise of another room more than a year ago, " använd "different" istället för "another"(låter mer som en svensk skulle säga så. (^_^;) ) "Therapist: ”Are you feeling comfortable? Are you okay" Jag har det på tungan, men den där andra frågan låter inte så yrkesmässig tycker jag. Kan möjligtvis vara på ett psykologiskt plan för patientens skull. "have helped a lot of people in your situation.” Jag är lite tveksam, men "many" skulle kunna ersätta "a lot of". (Samma vibbar som föregående.) "name edited out", Låter lite skumt som engelska... "name is cut out" eller liknande skulle kunna användas. "C: ”You wan’t me to talk to him.", litet typfel där en apostrof sitter i ordet "want" Mitt omdöme: Jag hittade inga direkta stavfel i texten, även om det krävdes lite extra för att hänga med främmande språk på en svensk sida.(^_^;) Storyn hänger på med dom olika inblandades analyser, men mer grävande krävs i fortsättningen(jag antar att det här är första kapitlet då målet inte har uppnåtts än.) Mitt Betyg: 4.1 Du måste vara inloggad för att skriva en kommentar. Du kan logga in här