Plato's Syndrome

I have come to hate him. You may say it is unreasonable, both, that I must hate him and that I must hate him.

I have hated others in the past, and so there’s nothing to suggest that I am incapable or above hating. But if I am to hate him, then a person like you, with the sanity of a priest, will exclaim: he does not even exist. But what makes you the judge? I have created him, and so I am in a better position to tell if he does or does not exist. And since I have created him I know him through and through, giving me all the right in the world to hate him. You, with your wry smile, will want to show me that if I have created him and have come to hate him, then there must be something in myself that I must hate. Thanks but not thanks to you Freudian no-goods. You are all wrong. He is my imagination - not my reflection. He and I are poles apart. Have you never feared ghosts that you knew, by all reason, were your imagination? Would you say that the ghosts you feared were, out of all places, within you?

The wiser of you lot would say, “there is a good reason to fear ghosts, they are the most unlike us. But what reason could there be to hate a creature of one’s own making?” My answer to the wiser of you is this: He may be my creation, but he is no different to you or your neighbour, whom, as you can see, I can hate very well. He’s just as much arrogant, self-centred, and most of all, ignorant. If I can hate you without hating myself, and you me, then we can hate him too.

Someone even wiser may suggest “Forget him. He is only in your mind. Or kill him in one of your stories, and bury him for eternity.” How naive of you. Death is a part of that play where flesh and bone play Romeo and Juliet. He? That monster has neither flesh nor bone. He lives in my memory and trespasses all my created worlds, punched, kicked, thrashed black and blue, even murdered sometimes, but he knows not how to die.

Hate him. A lot of fuss, you may think, over a fictional character. But we all fuss over a dead rat in our lunchbox, do we not? Imagine finding a rat infesting your meal every time you choose to lunch. Let me tell you this, your routine fuss will begin to change into a hot stream of energy that ejects from your core and leaves you more pathetic than the last time, that is what I call hate. I promise that you will come to hate that lifeless rat as I have come to hate him.

He has lost the will to shower or to clean himself. He stinks of cat piss. He still dares to board a rush-hour train, the one that my protagonist is waiting for three stops down the line. She is waiting for her seventy-nine year old mother who is travelling alone. He takes a seat, 23, the pink-shirted, blue-tied banker on 22 is visibly irritated. He shuts his laptop and immediately regrets not saving his excel sheet. A college-bound girl takes out her rose-smelling napkin and uses her fingers to stuff it into her nostrils. An old woman, seated diagonally to the creep, offers a sharp unblinking stare towards him. The creep sees awkward movement all around him but he doesn’t care, all the staring and coughing only makes him want to stay longer, and if possible, even stink more. The banker asks the creep to take a seat in the corner, for the sake of hygiene. The creep nods his head, but only mockingly. The old woman joins the banker and says “where are your manners? What is wrong with you lot, millennials or whatever you call yourself.” He bothers little, drops his head and closes his eyes - to sleep. More people gather around speaking on top of each other, all directed at him. The banker, feeling cheated by the creep’s lack of concern, tries to pull him up by the arm. The creep kicks him in the gut and spits on his face. Most of the passengers, not including the old woman, alight at the next station not knowing how to get rid of the creep. The old woman decides to stay not wanting to keep her daughter at the next station waiting. The alighted passengers inform the station police about the wretch on the train. The cops find him, still there, on that very seat, 23, across the old lady. The cops ask him to get up and show an ID. He stands up and gives them an ID. The cops then want to know if he has a valid ticket to ride on the train. He shows a ticket that expired a year ago. One of the policemen tells him that he is penalized and must pay double the amount his fare. He says he will not. The cops tell him that they must take him to the police station. He says he is not interested. The train stops. One of the policemen leads him out of the train. He bites his hand and runs away. On his way out of the station, he sees the old woman walking towards the phonebooth. Her daughter had asked her to look for her there. The creep runs into her from behind boot-first. Her head hits the booth. He continues running.

I want to get rid of him. The last time I tried, the plan came undone. This is how it went. A man, Justo, his name, lived in 32 B of a refurbished building that used to be an inn at the time of the second world war. Justo suffered a condition, psychosis, a persistent delusion that he was living with a woman called Preki. Preki was Justo’s first love and long-term commitment. They met in college and were together for seven years after that. On the twenty-seventh Sunday of that seventh year Justo’s father passed away from cardiac arrest. All in sleep, without an ounce of pain. Justo’s bony shoulders carried the responsibility of settling his father’s businesses out of town. After a week of bereavement, Justo packed his bags and took the bus, to return only after the businesses were settled, which he thought would take no more than six months. Justo’s days there were divided between work and prayer, working fifteen hours and praying four hours a day. Justo’s prayers were answered and he returned home a month and two days earlier than expected.

When Justo returned and went to Preki’s house, where she lived with the bunch of novitiates who were sent on mission service, he was met by the owner of the house. The owner said that all the tenants had moved out including Preki and he did not know where Preki had gone, although he did know that the novitiates had gone back to the Cathedral having finished their service. Next, Justo went to Preki’s mother’s, where he was told that Preki had taken the wrong path, and by now was too far to turn back. Having said thus she shut the door on Justo’s face, and then refused to open the door again. Justo, with his limited wisdom, arrived at the conclusion that Preki had gone away with the novitiates, perhaps even on a vow of celibacy. One day by chance Justo saw Preki in the market, buying radishes. She wore the same skirt and sweater that Justo had last seen on her. Although something was awfully different about her. Her face was rather pale, and she had under her eye, around the cheeck-bone, a blue spot turning purple, and on her third finger, an irritably tight wedding ring.

Justo rented and moved into 32 B because its windows looked out onto the lane, and on the other side of the lane was the apartment inhabited by Preki and her husband. After two years of sleepless nights sitting by the window, trying to gauge Preki’s mood from her silhouettes, sometimes entangled with that of her man, Justo caught the delusion. He started seeing Preki in his house, roaming about, sometimes close to the bed, or in the kitchen, more often than not in a loose skirt and a sweater, but sometimes naked coming out of the shower. Justo could hear her laugh, but she never talked, always only listening intently to what Justo had to say. Justo had somehow managed to indulge in just the right amount of madness; he believed enough to have an erection upon seeing her naked, but also knew better than serving a glass of wine before an empty chair.

The creep was Preki’s husband this time. I had set up Preki to be found in a full blown orgy with his colleagues, delivering a fatal blow to his self-esteem. But when Preki turned out too weak to do so, I prepared Justo to kill the creep.

Preki, Justo’s delusion, helped him think of the perfect murder. He went out and bought all that was required to pull the plan, a rope, rat poison, a bag of sand, and a shovel. Upon Justo’s return to 32B, he found Preki naked, but not in the usual just-out-of-the-shower way. There was no towel wrapped around her head, and she was lying on the bed, arms and legs spread wide like the vitruvian man. There was something awfully different about her, she was ten times more beautiful than his delusion, in fact radiant, almost shining, smelling heavenly.

Justo found a note placed in her hand, it said “gift wrap it yourself.”

Justo looked out of the window at Preki’s apartment, her silhouette was missing while that of her husband seemed to be in a rush, packing bags, ready to take a bus out of town.

Somebody knocked on the door, and by what Justo could say, it was the police.