Pathos

No dimly lit corridors here. Not in this place, where God himself had blown clean the walls and floors and minds of the wholly, holy place. Shadows seemed not to exist, and night and day slid by over the slippery whiteness that consumed the sharp edges of all that was. I remember being blinded by such purity upon my entrance through the pearly gates. Yet at the time I was sure I was entering hell. For where else could a jury of black robes and red hate send a man just short of death? Asylum is solace. A mirage. But one we all choose to partake in. If we chose to look beyond the desk of glowing Saint Peter in white with his white clipboard and white hair, to look past those softened cream mantles, to look further than the blank white faces of the nurses and angels… we would disturb the image in the lake.
But Asylum worked. I am Cured. Healed. Washed-Out. Rinsed and scrubbed dry and after thirty eight years I am Born again, ready to reenter the Filth. I am Pure. But I must have the courage to be Pure and Impure. “Moderation, Samson, is the scale by which the universe is balanced.” Saint Peter told me that in a session. When I first arrived, his name badge read “St. Peter” yet as I became Cleaner the S boxed itself next to the lopsided T, and I was left only with “Dr. Peter.” But he will always be a holy man to me. “You must remember that the bad you did put you here, so we could realign your scales with some good.” His halo flashed in the light.
Four sessions more and I saw a color. The red “Rehabilitated” stamp branded my white sheet on the white table in the white room. “Samson,” he said blankly. “I am required to warn you of the drastic changes you may notice from the last time you were Out. A moral compass will guide you nowhere but trouble now.”
My thirty eight year old blue jeans were painfully garish against the Asylum. Once I was outside the pearly gates, the nurse removed the white cap that had covered my hair, the white contacts that had erased my eyes, and the white bracelet that had read SAMSON, ELIOT for my stay in the mirage. The road slid out in liquid rolls, further and further from heaven. Shades seeped slowly through the pavement and grass and trees as I moved. The colors of the town astounded me. Green like the worn wallpaper, orange like his shirt discarded on the floor, purple like his tongue, yellow like his skin, blue like the siren lights, and red. Red like all the rest in that basement. I knew what I was doing as I did it. As much as the doctors want me to tell them how good it felt, or how bad, how horrifying or how erotic, in truth I felt nothing. No elevated heart rate. No racing breath. No sweating or crying or cackling. Simple, tepid, median.
But shocks and jackets and padded white rooms have given me empathy, sympathy. The colors of crime that dripped over the city before me only gave me a sense of righteousness. I can feel sad and melancholy, remorseful and guilty. New tools at my disposal. I am no longer a manipulator.
While standing in a river, one seems not to notice any change in the way the water flows over rocks and bounces on twigs. But step out of that river for a short time and it becomes unrecognizable upon return. Return after thirty eight years has made this river an entirely new beast. The people I passed all wore faces as child-blank as the nurses in Asylum. I held in my hand the address of the small apartment I was assigned, but took the long route to examine the house I had left so long ago.
It had not been sold. Overgrown bramble clawed its way along the crooked and spiked iron teeth guarding the yard of twisted, fallen shingles. The door remained intact, as did the decades-old police tape. I pushed past both and was swept up by my new emotions. I missed this place, something I had not experienced. I recognized and remembered it as Home. I would have headed further into the place, taken my pictures and seen my basement, but a dark orange voice behind me called out. Police uniforms had changed. I could only assume that’s what he was, because he was clothed all in light brown and had a belt full of contraptions I imagined were weapons. He held one now, a Y-shaped device with the prongs extended towards me in a menacing but professional manner. “State your name, ordus, and business.”
“Eliot Samson, sir.” I put my hands above my head, leaving my bag by my feet. The officer held the contraption higher.
“Get your hands down from there and do not call me sir. Again, state your ordus and business.” I lowered my arms uncomfortably, feeling as though anything I did was suspect.
“I’m sorry, I was just released from the asylum north of here, what’s an ordus and what should I call you instead?” The cop blinked at me, then refocused and tightened his grip on his weapon. I slowly reached down for my bag and the Y followed me. I pulled out the certificate of rehabilitation and extended my arm so he could see it.
He squinted and read aloud, “‘Jason Ness Asylum for the Criminally Insane.’ How long you been in?” He showed no reaction to my answer, and instead said simply: “Twenty or so years ago, Paedegogue Linsburough passed an act assigning different ordi to everyone. One’s ordus decrees their privileges and lifestyle based on their results on a pathogram test. When you go to renew your ID, you will be required to take one. Now you still have yet to state your business here.”
While still wrapping my mind around the new words I managed to stutter out: “I’m just visiting my old home.” The emotionless officer lowered his weapon and indulged only in a few more brief words. “You will do terribly on that test if you’re this sentimental. Now get out of this zone, it’s off limits to anyone near what your ordus will be.”
Not allowed to see my own house? I would visit the library, if there still was one, and try to see what I needed to do to pass whatever a pathogram test was. Asylum would not be for nothing.
         _______________________________________          
The library also asked me for my ordus, but the woman behind the desk told me that she too had a low score and would let me in for free. There were no books. Instead, small cell-like rooms lined the walls. The woman let me into one with a swipe of her palm against the glass. “Sit in the chair and ask the wall what you want to know.”
“What is this?” I directed it towards the librarian, but she had gone and instead the wall blossomed into life, and colorful displays and words flew at me. The room answered: “This is a Datapod. Please ask a question.”
After my initial shock, I decided to start with the one that had bugged me since the police officer. “Who is Paedegogue Linsburough?” The Datapod whirred and images of a woman in a stern black suit appeared on the wall.
“Paedegogue Janet Linsburough earned her position on July 2, 2023.” More information in text appeared on the wall with picture of an election, but the words were too small and I did not know how to enlarge them. I asked, “How is a Paedegogue elected?”
“A Paedegogue is not elected. The Paedegogue replaced the president thirty four years ago, and the Paedegogue is whoever has the highest pathogram score. Paedegogue Linsburough broke the record twenty nine years ago with a score of 217. The previous record was 186, held by Paedegogue Verger.”
I bit my lip in frustration. “What is a pathogram test?” Images of blindingly white rooms with odd contraptions and electrodes flew to the wall, and the Datapod explained that “the pathogram test is set up much like the IQ test, and the point range is the same. However, it measures emotional capabilities instead.” I grinned with glee. Asylum had prepared me well. “The higher the score, the lower the emotional capability or volatility. When the test was developed, the government decided that the psychopaths, in their truest form as not raving lunatics but as social manipulators, are the key to the future. Psychopaths by nature do not sympathize, and once everyone realized how much more powerful a nation we would be with them as our elite, the social quotas changed. The pathogram test exposes subjects to increasingly emotionally stimulating images, videos, and scenarios, and measures the emotional output through electrodes. The results of the test designate the subject to an ordus, or social class. Everyone retakes the pathogram test once every five years.”
         No. I had been locked up for thirty eight years for being a psychopath. Asylum hadn’t cured me, it had ruined me. Without them I probably would be the next Paedegogue! Saint Peter had cheated me, had cheated all of us. I fumed, realizing how poor my situation was. I had been conditioned for years now to feel emotion and remorse and empathy, how could I swallow that now and retrain myself into apathy? Maybe I was still on record though, for my crimes. Several articles and reports had called me a psychopath of extraordinary proportions. Perhaps that could help either boost my ordus or support me in raising a case against the asylum.
         “Datapod? What information is out there about a local Eliot Samson?”
         “I’m sorry, there is no record of any Eliot Samson within a 200 mile radius. Would you like to search further?”
         My eyes bulged and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I had been erased. Sweating and dizzy, I prompted the room a few more times, asking about the murder of Saul Kint, the address of the crime scene, the press fiasco that was the trial. Nothing. No wonder I hadn’t been drowned in questions and cameras while leaving the asylum. For the first time, I pulled out my slip of paper confirming me for a new ID. Leonard Cassidy. My heart seemed to pump ice and stopped with a painful, frozen twinge. Cold set into my bones and scuttled up my neck and I looked down the page, terrified, and saw the signature at the bottom of the page. My lungs emptied themselves and did not refill. Black spots appeared over my vision and raced to claim my vision. I dropped the slip and it landed as I did. The last thing I saw before my eyes closed was the name on the line next to the X and the seal.
                   P. Janet Linsburough
         _______________________________________          

         “Mr. Cassidy?” One bleary eye opened. I saw bars. The eye closed. “Mr. Cassidy wake up you lazy piece of—”
         “Shut up in there!” shouted a male voice. The sound of metal hitting metal.
         “Mr. Cassidy.” The female voice hissed again. My eyes opened again and I saw the librarian, giving me a murderous look from the next cell. “What the hell Mr. Cassidy.” My confused look irked her more. “I trusted you and let you in for free, we connected over low ordi, and your searches in the Datapod set off government alarms and you got me landed here too! You lied to me, I did a search, there is no Eliot Samson. They came in with their katras and got me. I took them to your Datapod and you were on the floor, they assumed you were faking something to get them closer so they stunned your hands.” I tried to touch my face but hands were unable to move beyond an invisible circle in front of me. “The paper you had had your real name, Mr. Cassidy. All I thought I was doing was helping a nice guy who seemed lost and now I’m jobless and incarcerated. Thanks to you. So I want some answers. What the hell did you search.”
         My tongue rolled thickly around my mouth. “I… was there another piece of paper?”
         “What? Answer my question.”
         “The other paper… was in my bag. It had my name on it. Eliot Samson. From the asylum.” She cocked her head, puzzled and intrigued, but still irate. I continued: “I was there for nearly forty years. Just discharged today. Was doing searches to learn about pathograms and orduses or ordi or whatever. And Paedegogues and then I searched myself and I didn’t show up.”
         She sat down close to the bars, but not touching them. “The asylum? Criminally insane, right? What were you there for?”
         “You’re probably too young to remember. Thirty eight years ago, the murder in the house on South Cherry Street?” Looking at the young woman, I reminded myself that I was now almost sixty one, and had missed out on my life. The generation below me was already of age and employed.
         “I remember my mum talking about it,” she said slowly, not looking directly at me. “the one with the… slow melting wax?” I nodded and she shuddered. “I saw a story about that in the old fashion newspaper back then, before they all transferred it electronically. Maybe for some reason none of those articles made it into the Datapods.”
         “That can’t be right.” I decided. “The Datapod recognized the names as something the government didn’t want people searching.”
         “It could just be our ordus.” She suggested. I raised an eyebrow. “Different ordi have different privileges. We can’t search certain things.” She fixed her concerned eyes on me. “So you… killed someone.”
         I summarized the rough outline of what happened with the trial and the asylum, excluding the murder itself. She seemed thoroughly confused. “You were an elite psychopath, but they took that away? Why?”
         “It was bad at the time. Everyone thought psychopaths were just the wild-eyed slobbering slashers from the movies. Guess I didn’t help that reputation. The asylum helped me feel emotion and become empathetic. But now…”
         She sighed. “I’d love to see a movie. Wish I had had that chance.” I stared at her. She explained. “More and more studies came out with evidence that movies, telly-vision, and video games influenced young minds and created killers, so they became more and more censored. They were all screened and finally everything became either offensive to someone or cause for someone to be insane, so they were all banned.”
         “Television.” I breathed as a correction, while briefly mourning the loss of an art-form. She looked at me. “So your name really is Eliot Samson?” I nodded. “I’m Renata.”
         There was a long uncomfortable silence. She suddenly furrowed her brow. “So wait, why were you on the floor when we came in?”
         “I… Well I was shocked and confused. My confirmation for a new ID had a different name, and instead of being signed by a regular notary line the line said, it was authorized by the Paedegogue.” She was so surprised that she reached her hand out to the bars. They sent a violent, sudden shock through her body, clearly very painful, and she grabbed and nursed her hand while looking at me with awe and fear.
         “Paedegogue Linsburough? Not possible. Why would she be so interested in you?” I shrugged.
         “What did you say their weapons were called? Started with a K?”
         “Katras?”
         “Yeah those. Are they the Y-shaped ones?”
         “Mhm. It’s kind of like a taser in that it immobilizes you, but it’s less painful and they allow you to select what or how much is frozen. It’s better than handcuffs ’cause you can’t pick the lock. That’s what they did to your hands.”
         I wiggled my fingers in their stale air. The guard I had heard earlier came back around the corner, emotionlessly looking at both of us. Renata looked down and away from him, and seemed to become smaller. He snorted derisively, and turned to me. He pulled an official-looking piece of paper from his belt, brandished it, and unrolled it with a flicked flourish of the wrist.
         “Leonard Cassidy, you are now summoned to a council with Paedegogue Janet Linsburough to explain your reason for searching the public database for information outside of your ordus.” He turned to Renata, pulling out a new memo. “Renata Keaton, you are summoned to a council with Paedegogue Janet Linsburough to explain your reason for searching the public database for information outside of your ordus.” She looked shocked and indignant, so he continued: “You both asked questions about one Eliot Samson, who, as far as you are concerned, never existed.” He looked expressionlessly between our faces, yet seemed somehow to exult in them. “Hearing will be in four hours, when the Paedegogue arrives. She seems to have taken special interest in this case.”
         He turned to leave, but I called after him, “Well no shit she’s interested, I am Eliot Samson!” Renata looked as though she would vomit or faint or both. The guard moved impossibly fast and was back at my cell instantly. His gloves must have protected him from the electricity in the bars, because he grabbed one in one hand and my shirt in the other. He yanked me in so I was almost touching the metal. He leaned in with his eerily doll-blank face and stated: “I could put you away for years for just saying that word. I could put you away for more for bad attitude towards an officer of the law. I could put you away for even more for challenging the Paedegogue. Here’s something to remind you.” He pulled my shirt harder so my face and chest were pressed against the bars.
         I tried to scream but couldn’t, as my jaw muscles all tensed and the searing, jolting pain radiated through my head and torso. He let go and my legs collapsed under me, twitching, my chest spasming uneasily as I tried to breathe. My lungs managed a slight moan. The guard was still looking down at me.
         “Be ready in four hours,” he said, and left.
         The second he was around the corner Renata rushed to the bars separating our cells. “How could you think you could swear in front of a guard? You really are insane!” I was still out of breath when I vomited. My hair stood on end and my skin buzzed painfully. She looked on as I dragged myself into the corner and curled into a fetal position. I slept.
         _______________________________________          
         The water hit me and as I jolted awake I realized I had not eaten since my dinner the previous night in the asylum.
         “Get up,” ordered the guard’s voice. I rolled myself groggily to face him. The bars were open and Renata was already out of her cell with her hands invisibly bound like mine. I struggled clumsily to my feet and tried to wipe my mouth of the old vomit, but my orb manacles got in the way. The officer grabbed my elbow and shoved me down the hall with Renata.
         He pushed us through a doorway and closed the door behind us. We were alone in a black, blank, cavernous maw of a room. We were standing on a flat surface, but it felt egg-shaped around us. An image appeared on a huge, flat rectangle in the middle of space, facing us. Renata muffled a terrified shriek.
         It was a photograph of a twisted contraption and a person in it. A man was hanging dressed only in his underwear, his hands bound to his feet like a hunter’s kill behind his back. He wasn’t hanging by his neck, but was instead suspended by a rope from the hands and feet all bound together. Another rope led across his chest and pulled him upright by the underarms. The two ropes connected and were wound up and concealed in a block of wax with a rope wick. The man was blindfolded and gagged, and hung so that his upright torso was poised directly over a vertical spear barely touching his navel. The wick was lit, and as the wax melted hot onto his face, it slowly unwound the rope, lowering him onto the spear.
         “Does this photograph look familiar to you?” a female voice asked from everywhere.
         “Yes.” I heard myself say. “I took it.”
         Renata looked at me, horrified. “This was…?” She paled.
         The female voice continued. “What have you to say for its contents?”
         “I designed and executed them.” The picture came to life and the video I had also recorded began to play. The man, Saul Kint, cried out when the tip of the spear first pierced his belly, and again as the drops of wax landed on his face and ears.
         “Thank you for this,” came the voice. “My lack of reaction to it is what earned me my position today.”
         “Paedegogue Linsburough.” Renata realized. Low lights came on slowly and revealed my initial suspicion of the shape of the room to be correct. We were at a platform on one end, and a slim, flat bridge led to another platform seemingly hovering in the middle of the egg, directly below the screen. The Paedegogue stood there, unreadable. She made a motion with her hand and the film disappeared.
         “Yet you didn’t film it, did you?” she prompted. “That was Eliot Samson, the brilliant psychopathic killer. You are not Eliot Samson. You are the weak, emotionally volatile Leonard Cassidy.”
         “But I was sent to the asylum!” I protested vehemently. “They were supposed to make me like this!” Renata looked as though she would warn me against speaking so roughly to the Paedagogue, but was clearly still disgusted by my acts from a previous life.
         “Of course you were. They developed the pathogram test only a few years later. You don’t remember it, but they did test you.” Linsburough steepled her fingers. I held my breath. “You received a 435.” Renata gasped aloud.
         “Impossible.” The librarian took a step forward. “And if that’s true, then he should have been in your position this whole time!”
         The Paedegogue looked bored. “But we obviously couldn’t have such a twisted, sick individual leading our nation. They tampered with the score, blamed a faulty machine, and I became Paedegogue shortly afterwards, after I didn’t bat an eye through this video.”
         “But I didn’t react just now.” I pressed. “You can’t be the only one who sat through it.”
         “Naturally not,” Linsburough brushed this off. “But this video was gaged differently for me given Saul Kint was my father.”
         I froze. A cold tingling spidered up my back. I had killed her father. And even more petrifying was the fact that she hadn’t reacted at all to seeing it happen, watching her father die slowly, impaled through the bowels, alone and in terror. Her pulse had not risen, her eyes had not moved, her mouth had not twitched. I was in awe of the monster before me.
         “By then I was already politically influential.” She continued, unfazed. “I easily could have locked you up for life, or even sentenced you to die. Instead I sent you to empathy therapy at what is more a resort than a hospital.” I remembered the too clean white and the endless days.
         “Why.” I mumbled breathless. “Why?” I repeated louder, facing her.
         There was a cruel, cold chuckling beside me. I turned to see Renata, her hands free, exchanging a look with the Paedegogue. My gut dropped. “Imbecile.” She said in a chilling, ruthless tone. “Psychopaths are manipulators.” Renata stretched her fingers and continued. “She wanted to see you suffer. You wouldn’t have suffered in prison, you wouldn’t have suffered in death….”
         The Paedegogue picked up from there. “It’s simple really. I take away your one strength. Your therapy crippled you and being released into society, you would drown slowly, choking on your overwhelming emotions, in misery, longing after your lost perfection which would have gained you power. You are the wretch of every society you exist in, by my design. You will miss that which condemned you.”
I shook, looking between the two women and desperately wishing I could contain my terror. She stood up.
         “Now as entertaining as this is, I have real matters of state to attend to.” Linsburough turned to her henchwoman, the fake librarian, and motioned for her to follow. “I just came to tell you why, and to find out from Vice-Paedegogue Keaton here how weak you really were. Enjoy the plebian ordus life, Mr. Cassidy.” The guard who had materialized behind me swept a bag over my head and my world turned black and blank. It has remained thus since.