Failsafe

Tim Solomon awoke to the first alarm, rising at the thirteenth. This was precisely thirty-nine minutes, during which time he engaged in a ritual of picking up the phone, checking the time, counting off the minutes, and closing his eyes. The count off, beginning at 6:22am and ending at 7:01, wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could do. Time was limited, and concessions had to be made. But it was hard to know which misses would cost too much—the worst ones that never got fixed. So hard to know.

There was more difficulty with the morning measurements. He always prepared all ingredients for the day, placed properly in their awaiting containers to avoid later stress. And then he would make breakfast with the remainder.

Today there was a double three in the protein measure, despite his strict text instructions to the delivery drone. This, he didn’t care for. Then he discovered he was missing the number eight altogether, which was outright upsetting. He needed a treat to feel better. That was the only way.

Ordinarily, he measured half a tablespoon of sugar out, mostly for morning: a quarter for the coffee, a quarter for the grapefruit, and the rest transferred to storage. That was the system. But in an effort to round the numbers right, he added a bit of sweet to the coffee plan, but it wasn’t so simple.

He added six sixths of a teaspoon to his coffee over the course of the eight part sugar savethrough, but that didn’t do it. He’d done the math a few times, trying to keep things close while adding the eight, but there was just no easy way. His heart sank.

But the coffee trick did him out of the house on time.

‘Jesus, Tim, are you ever going to switch to metric?’ he muttered to himself throughout his forty-nine paces down the driveway. ‘Do yourself a favor, will you? This can’t go on.’

He was, as he often reassured himself, only moderately OCD, and fully functional at that. This, from a medical professional—it wasn’t his own accounting, or surely he’d have underplayed it. He would have preferred ‘mildly’, but moderate would do.

Sure he had to wash his hands sixteen times after meals, twenty-seven after less savory activities. And sure he couldn’t come straight into the driveway, but had to make a series of concentric sweeps around the neighborhood in order to slide in just right. And there was the alarms and measurements, but they were minor inconveniences. Manageable. The few times he’d had troubles weren’t so bad. Who didn’t enjoy going back to bed and lying stiff all day once in a while, right?

He never missed work, not in the normal run of things, so they could live without him for a day or two now and again. Three days once, but that was an odd coincidence.

Beyond missing work, the only problem with the self-adjustment was the dehydration. Again, a blue-moon issue—the one time he went too far they had him up and running in the ambulance, before they’d even reached the ER.

Nobody would ever love him. He knew that. That was hard, when he was younger. But time blunted the pain, helped him resolve it and make peace. ‘There are worse things than being alone’, he reasoned. He could’ve been born in Nazi Germany, or been a starving child in the deserts of Africa. His mother always said such things, how he should mind his good fortune and be grateful.

‘This isn’t so bad.’

And he did have friends. Online, mostly, but by choice. Face to face meetings were anxious affairs, and the phone was all but impossible. Text messaging was clean and easy. Almost fun, when he was on a roll. He could almost be smooth and charming, on paper. Almost.

Beyond his unfortunate wiring, which was lifelong, Tim Solomon was also in the middle of a mid-life crisis. Losing that stubborn twenty pounds had been a goal for several months. He’d made progress for a few weeks, plateaued for a couple, despite keeping the same exacting regimen, then given up in despair, eating an entire pizza in front of the television. This was followed by thirty days of self-loathing, after which he’d been right back where he started, trying again.

Funny how the OCD didn’t work when you need it to. He knew one person who’d lost a hundred pounds in nine months. This came down to obsessive calorie-counting and timed exercise six times weekly. The man lost 2.2 pounds every 8 days, like clockwork. Admirable, Tim thought.

*

Then there were Tim’s memoirs, which he’d been attempting to write years, but which he promised himself he’d finish before summer. Such boring tales, he was confident they’d never sell—not in a million years—but the point was completion, not publication.

Even that simple goal eluded him, becoming harder the more effort he put in. The resistance was irresistible, like synergy in reverse. The harder he tried, the stronger the internal refusal became.

Forcing himself into a thousand-words-a-day habit had been fruitless. Much like the weight loss, the obsessive nature was of no help. Quite the contrary, every time he got stuck, he’d have to go through that self-imposed rigamarole in order to get unstuck.

Save all docs—re-save just in case—notate the word counts—cross-check punctuation and grammar rules—do spell-checks—save again—backup all docs to disc and cloud—open saved folder of youtube tabs and view curated clips on how to do all of the above more efficiently…

And only then could he maybe sit back down and write a paragraph. If he hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion in the process. Or lost touch with reality altogether.

Because one side-effect of his condition was a kind of failsafe. Another one of those pre-installed quirks. It went back as far as he could recall. When he was a kid, the main effect was a complete shutting out of the world. An emotional cocoon, inside which he could feel safe, though he continued to interact with the outside world after a fashion. Like a plane on autopilot, he could engage in simple interactions, keep eyes open in class and food going down at lunch, and otherwise convince the world that the lights were still on. But inwardly, his brain was a blank canvas. Peaceful, almost deathlike, the world disappearing at will, and more importantly, his sense of self disappearing along with everything else. The OCD was gone, and in its place was a complete lack of caring for anything and everything, for weeks on end.

His parents were in favor of this withdrawal, as he became easier to manage in this state. Teacher complaints about lack of engagement were nothing, compared to the tiresome task of waiting on a boy wracked with compulsions all day long. They took the trade-off with gratitude, never asking why. Which was for the best, as far as he was concerned, since he wouldn’t have been able to answer.

Now, as an adult, he could probably explain it in limited fashion, assuming he wasn’t checked out when the question was posed. It was like a constant state of meditation, that’s how he saw it. And once there, he could maintain that state even amid the interruptions of the outside world, coming to the surface just long enough to do the expected, sinking back down into empty bliss the moment he was able.

Unfortunately, this state left no room for additional activities of any kind, which meant the writing suffered mightily. Although he attempted from time to time to integrate it, the way he integrated other interruptions, the fact that it was voluntary made such efforts impossible. He simply could not write a word, nor edit, nor even format the text. All other considerations aside, that alone was enough of a concern for him to seek treatment, for the first time in his adult life.

He’d seen plenty of headshrinks as a child. An endless parade of professionals came and went at the behest of his desperate parents, not to mention school officials and other concerned authority figures. Some kind, some severe, all with opinions on what must be done, how he must change himself to adapt and fit in. None who’d posed any long-term solutions that made sense to him.

This was different, though, in that he’d initiated the encounter himself. In fact, he gave himself enough leeway to consult with several highly recommended experts, in order to find the best possible fit. He even informed them of his tendency to withdraw. He went into great detail about the process, his impressions of it from within, and how he generally presented according to others. All in writing for them to look over. Should such an event occur prior to or during their session, they’d know what signs to look for. He included several up-to-date articles on similar phenomenon in relevant medical journals, along with a timeline of assumed events from childhood until the present month.

He wasn’t surprised that two of the psychiatrists declined the encounter after receiving their packet. He was aware of what a high-maintenance patient he’d be, and didn’t blame some of them for rejecting the added workload. Of the group who agreed to keep their appointment, he arranged to meet with each of them in turn, once per week, at precisely ten o’clock on a Monday. The day of the week was arbitrary, only kept the same for the sake of consistency in evaluation, but the timing was a test. He made sure to reiterate ‘precisely’ several times, by phone and in writing, and he was prepared to walk out of a meeting that didn’t begin on time, or one that was initiated early.

The first of them almost blew it straight away, emerging from her office at 10:00:53, just as Tim was about to stand up.

“Mr. Solomon? Hi, I’m Janet Ricky. Come on in.” She punctuated the invitation with a hand wave and a little head gesture that put Tim immediately at ease. He put aside the close call and stepped past her into the office.

It was a comfortable space. Lots of light, and two kinds of chairs to choose from. He’d not have been happy with just one, but he didn’t like to feel tested, either, so two was good. He took a seat and remembered to breahe. He hadn’t withdrawn yet this morning, nor had he felt the stirrings that normally preceded the compulsion. So far so good.

As she settled into the couch across from him, he experienced a surge of panic, prompting him to close his eyes and take another breath to give himself time, and gauge how much of a problem it was going to be. Thankfully, the woman remained quiet. If she’d broken the silence at that moment, he might’ve chosen to flee, but in the quiet of the room, he felt the emotion subside somewhat, and noticed the gentle ticking of a wall clock that soothed him further.

When he opened his eyes, she hadn’t moved. She was sitting with a relaxed expression, slightly bad posture but it wasn’t too troublesome. He watched her eyes land on a notepad off to one side, and wondered if he’d have to invite her to use it, or whether she’d just help herself.

She nodded at it and said, “Do you mind?”

As a matter of fact, he did mind, although he’d already considered the possibility that this might happen. And she had asked, which was better than nothing.

Tim breathed in once more and said, “Please don’t.”

She looked taken aback for one split second, then relaxed again and said, “Alright.”

“Thank you,” he said. Then, feeling as though there should be more, he started to elaborate. “It’s just that I’d feel uncomfortable with wondering what you might be saying about me. I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s your decision, Mr. Solomon. I do keep records on patient treatment, though, so if we decide to go forward, I’ll need your permission to write notes on our sessions afterwards. Would that be acceptable?”

Tim realized that he hadn’t processed the whole of what she said. Something of a white noise had crept in while she was in the middle of it. But he felt as though he caught the gist.

“Can I decide about that later?”

“If it’s before our next meeting, sure.”

“In writing?”

She paused, removed a shoe, and tucked her nyloned foot under her backside. He didn’t care for such casual indifference, particularly not with someone he’d just met.

“Alright if we talk about that later?” she asked.

Tim nodded, thinking for the first time about cutting the encounter short. He decided to give her one more shot.

“So what brings you here today, Mr. Solomon?”

That was the last he remembered of the session. Normally the withdrawals came with some sort of a warning, but not this time. The next thing he knew, he was sitting in his garage, the car idling dangerously within the closed space.

He shook himself awake and killed the engine, then shot out of the vehicle and stumbled outside, breathing deeply into the crisp air.

*

It wasn’t easy to write the explanatory letter, but Tim finally worked up the courage to handle it on Thursday, and got it in the mail the next morning. He’d not be returning to that one anyway, so the timing didn’t matter, but he knew if he didn’t fully resolve the first encounter, he wouldn’t be able to move on to the next. These things spiraled, they always did.

In the end, it was the feet that did it. Not that he wasn’t embarrassed about turning inward in the middle of the session, that played a part, but for her to remove an article of clothing in front of him disgusted him so much that he knew he could never deal with her on a professional basis. Not that he’d have been able to be friends, either, but there were lines that professionals just should not cross. Casual or otherwise, it was highly inappropriate. He wasn’t so disturbed by it in the moment, though perhaps subconsciously he was, but looking back he realized how very inappropriate it had been. Whether it had served as a trigger for his disconnection or not, and he doubted it had, honestly, it was something he just could not cope with.

The weekend crept by more slowly than usual. In selecting his appointment schedule with these shrinks, he’d been careful to line up the scheduling so that no long weekends would come into play. He loathed long weekends. They threw everything off horribly, requiring weeks of careful resettings to get back to normal. And he’d hardly be in the frame of mind to deal with that in the middle of all these psychiatric dealings, so it was a factor he preferred to eliminate altogether. Still, this one felt long, and he knew it was because he was in the midst of this grueling selection process.

Monday found him in a fair bit of agitation that wouldn’t easily go away, and so he wound up leaving for the appointment nearly a full minute late. Over a minute, and he’d have cancelled without hesitation. Just under a minute was a borderline crisis, and he was waiting for just one more shoe to drop so that he could put a stop to it. The negativity surrounding the day could not be easily ignored, and he had little confidence in his ability to keep it together once the session began.

The waiting room eased his anxiety slightly, which was an impressive accomplishment on the part of this headshrinker. Or his decorator, perhaps. If Tim were to let his thoughts drift toward the conspiratorial, he might’ve thought they designed the place to appeal to the mentally disturbed. He tried examining in further detail, to see if anything along those lines sprang out at him, but before he got too far he heard his name being called.

He had to shake his head to clear it, realizing as he did so that he’d been a second or two away from withdrawal. He allowed himself to ignore the summons while he recovered his bearings, engaging in deep breath exercises for a full two minutes before he felt confident enough to rise. Slightly dizzy, he nonetheless attempted to enter the doctor’s inner office, but crossing the threshold caused an unpleasant wave of nausea that stopped him cold. Putting a hand to the door jamb to steady himself, he looked up at the blurry figure and attempted to apologize.

The figure stepped forward and spoke, the voice coming through as if it were spoken through a thick medium. An underwater conversation. Like that. Tim strained to make it out, but he only caught a word or two. ‘Alright? and ‘Easy’, maybe. Possibly ‘Ambulance’ as well, though at that he shook his head vehemently. More attention at this point would only make things worse, he was aware of that much.

Much to his astonishment, the figure managed to lead him into the room, preventing him from fleeing with a gentle but firm hand, and guided him into a chair, all without evoking a complete panic attack. As he sat recovering, the figure took a seat opposite him, folded his arms, and waited patiently. Slowly, painfully, reminiscent of a Bruce Banner-esque reverse transition, he found himself relaxing into normalcy. The figure came into sharp relief as he sat staring straight ahead, the face of a kind, elongated, wizard of a character with pointy white whiskers and eyes that seemed to smile.

Tim wondered if he were dead. This seemed like what the afterlife might be like, after a great tribulation and a guiding light, that sort of thing. Which would make this wizard-man a Christ figure? Didn’t look it. Nor much of a St. Peter, though he might serve as a George Burns-ish sort of a god.

“Welcome back,” he said, with the hint of an ironic smile that, somehow, didn’t upset Tim.

*

It would be a month before he could confirm the new relationship, a fact he regretted wholeheartedly, but he’d set it all up beforehand—there was no changing things now. First, he had to meet with the other three doctors, though he was all but certain he’d made his choice already. After that, he’d given himself a week to debate, also unnecessary, but it was scheduled, thus written in stone. He was comfortable enough with Dr. Lewis—who’d offered to go by “James” but Tim didn’t hold it against him—to explain the scheduling concerns to him. He was noncommittal about the matter, which suited Tim just fine, saying that Tim could take all the time he needed, and that they need not set something up right away. This was good, since Tim couldn’t have done so if he wanted to. Now his only concern was whether Dr. Lewis might book up before he got a chance to reserve his slot, but the doctor assured him that his schedule was light at the moment, and that he would contact Tim if there were any major changes that might influence his decision.

That had to be that, although Tim fervently wished he’d allowed for the possibility of follow-up sessions. His fear was based on the notion that things might go wrong with one of the three upcoming situations, and that he’d need to consult with Dr. Lewis about it, but there was no fixing the situation. He’d just have to get through it.

The next two appointments passed by with no major complications, though he did regress at the end of the second one but not in a disturbing way. Not like the day he’d almost wound up dead in his garage, at any rate. He didn’t care for either of them, but felt no particular emotion about it either, given the fact that he’d be able to choose otherwise when the time came.

The final appointment got off to a decent enough start. The doctor appeared in his doorway at the proper time, right in mid-minute in fact, just the way Tim liked it. He introduced himself and showed Tim in, and they had an awkward bit of chat for the first twenty minutes or so. Then Tim made the mistake of opening up slightly, informing the man that he’d be making his decision shortly, but that it might possibly be someone else.

“Might possibly? How many other doctors have you consulted with, Tim?”

*Tim?* He resisted the urge to ask the man to address him properly, instead telling the blunt truth like he always did. “Four others, though it was the second doctor I saw that struck me as the best fit.”

At this, the psychiatrist actually reddened and looked put out, much to Tim’s shock. He’d never considered the idea that he wasn’t entitled to shop around, but this man seemed quite upset by it.

He had to be sure. “I’m sorry, is something wrong?”

“Well, yes, to be honest. I mean, I’m a busy man, and if you’ve settled on another psychiatrist you might’ve let me know. I could’ve used this time to meet with someone else.”

At least Tim thought that was what he said. As the words spilled out, a familiar ringing in the ears began to drown them out, and time slowed to a crawl. He withdrew severely, such that he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d maintained any semblance of normalcy, or had simply fled the office without a word. He remained cocooned for somewhere close to forty-eight hours, though he might’ve snapped out a time or two in the middle, which he only knew because he wasn’t severely dehydrated when he was at last able to collect himself.

This horrid man had created a terrible dilemma for Tim, as it was now past the point where he’d been planning to debate the issue, and with an entirely unacceptable candidate in the mix. What a nightmare.

He thought about cancelling everything. Starting from scratch. Forgetting the whole stupid idea and going back to the silent, half-dead life he'd always known. That would be easier. Safer.

But even the thought of unraveling the fragile architecture he’d built—the careful vetting, the precision-timed appointments—made him physically sick.

In the end, he’d have to find a solution that he could live with, without taking it all back. Like he always did.

He took a deep breath, feeling like it was the first one all month. This was followed by a yawn. The collapse wasn’t far behind, now that he knew what he had to do.

*

It took a great deal of creative thinking to work out a solution. The end result was absurdly intricate, he knew that even as the pieces clicked into place. Though far from ideal, it allowed Tim to keep his schedule for the month and still get what he needed. What he had to do was, he hired the bad doctor. More to it, contract him to be his supplier while his GP was on vacation.

This stroke of luck meant that he’d be able to request a reference, get what he needed from the charlatan, avoid impugning the man, and ensure the quid-pro-quo settled all debts.

The alternative, having his general practitioner supply a different amount of medication, to be carried in a differently sized container, felt like the end of the world. Like grim death. Like the impossibility of a carefully orchestrated system being torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. Tim would rather die.

Of course, he simply could have fired the one and gone with the other. Prescriptions written by another didn’t count. Not at all. That was a day one solution, and they always started easy. It was down the line that the routines emerged, along with the compulsion to keep them as-is no matter how convoluted.

Yes, a new doctor would have fixed everything. But he really liked Dr. Lewis, and this set of mental gymnastics was the only way—the only way—acceptable enough to his twisted brain to prevent him from scuttling all five of them and starting over.

He debated bringing Lewis into the loop, perhaps even asking for some advice on the matter, but decided it was peripheral to their main purpose. It would take ages to explain, and besides, he’d worked it out himself anyway, so why bother?

The bad doctor was clearly perplexed by the sudden request, but as he’d been hired for a generous sum, so he had little to complain about. The two never met again, not even for the consultation. Just the official note from the GP was enough to handle the script. Done and done, and Tim washed his hands of the whole sordid affair.

*

The day of his first session with Dr. Lewis, Tim Solomon worked through his thirteen alarms with a heady anticipation. Like Christmas almost, so powerful he wanted to get up prematurely. But there was no sense in starting the day on a disruption, he’d always have to pay for it later. So instead he lay there, twitching in anticipation. Maybe this would be the one to finally help get his words down without the lights going out. Maybe this one, he could finally trust.

His timing spot-on, he didn’t even need to bother with the coffee trick. For a weekday morning, that was a rare bit of good luck. He couldn’t remember the last time the numbers had lined up so nicely. He wasn’t a superstitious man by any stretch of the imagination, but he decided to take it as a good sign, in that he could look upon the day with optimism. For the pessimist, the normal ‘good’ outlook was more of a neutral, so to leap as far forward as optimism was quite a stretch.

The morning proceeded well enough, with few hiccups to set him back. He’d made a point of booking the appointment for late in the day, on the assumption that if he did withdraw, he wouldn’t have to worry about going back to work in that state. Granted, he wasn’t planning on it necessarily, but he was practical enough to know it was always a possibility.

Given how impressed he’d been with Dr. Lewis thus far, he was almost of a mind to want it to happen, just to see if he could be helpful with it. But that wasn’t likely, nor even the purpose of the therapy, so he pushed such hopeful expectations aside. The aim was in dealing with his resistance and procrastination problems, so that should be where his mind was at, particularly for the first few sessions.

He felt a surge of endorphins at the thought of doing the work. A fresh start, this one. Maybe this time he would do it right.

He looked at his phone, noting the first of the silent alarms set to buzz him when the session was thirteen alarms from drawing to a close. He put it in his pocket, smiling as he patted it and looked at the doctor. The man wasn’t paying attention yet, busy glancing at his notes. Tim almost patted his pocket again, just to make sure the doctor saw how well focused he was. Just as he was about to, the doctor got up and lifted the clock from the wall. This was such an odd move Tim didn’t think to feel anxious about it, but instead he simply watched as this mysterious guru placed it in the oddest place a clock might be found, behind the fish tank, the hands just out of sight.

“No need to keep track this time,” said the doctor. “You’re my last patient of the day, and I’d like to get to know you informally, if that’s alright.”

The urge to flee struck Tim in an instant. This changed everything.

The doctor seemed to realize it too, with a kind eye he put his hands up in a gesture of calm. “No worries if you’d like to keep track. You can just set an alarm or something. It’s your session. I’m here for you, however you need.”

Tim’s eyes flicked toward the empty space on the wall where the clock had hung, as if by sheer will he could bring it back into view. His breath caught in that instant of having to accept a void, where certainty had existed before. The empty hook gleamed faintly in the light. He felt the first shiver of panic swirl in his gut, and an old urge to stand, to leave before the imbalance became irreversible.

But then… the calming words, started to sink in. So unexpected, so amazing in that it gave him all the control he’d ever wanted. Unlike those thirteen messages, the ones he’d missed. The ones he had to listen to one by one, his compulsion not allowing him to turn it off or step away despite the horror. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” “This was so unexpected. “We loved your mother so much.” And on they went, none of the well-wishers realizing that Tim hadn’t known before. How could they? They had no idea of the dissociation he endured at times, the additional curse upon a curse called obsessive compulsive disorder.

The pause, so striking, was somehow less uncomfortable for either of them. It was as if the doctor knew, and was allowing. The lump formed. Tim swallowed. Glanced at the door once more. No, he thought. I don’t need to fix it. It can’t be fixed anyway.

“It’s okay, I like informal,” he said, pulling out his phone and powering it off.

His breath caught with anticipation as the doctor leaned forward and said, “Good deal. So tell me what brought you here today, Tim?”