The Adventures of Ognimod, chapter 3
Chapter 3.
Chapter 3
I was in the psychiatrist's office, a place of green walls decorated with Karl Jung portraits, "modern" art and similar stuff. Rather than lying on a couch, as in the movies, I was sitting directly in front of him, at his desk. He looked at me through huge, square glasses, and had a beard which gave him a certain resemblance to Freud... which really was like in the movies.
"I haven't seen you in years, Domingo," he said. "May I call you that, or do you still insist in being ashamed of it and ask to be called Ognimod?"
"It's not shame, doctor," I said, tired of his own insistence in telling me my name ashamed me, bent on finding 'repressed [whatever]s in everything. "I like being named Domingo, but, I mean..... you see, 'Ognimod' is... is supposed to be pronounced right by, uh, the... the people.... who don't understand Spanish."
"That's a cute explanation, yet easily brought down by the undeniable fact that, here, everybody understands Spanish. Evidently, having a name you don't like brings you Pillarian anxiety and post-traumatic depression". (Well, that's what he said, I think. Honestly, I understand absolutely nothing about psychiatry).
"Would you like me to refute YOUR explanation, doctor? 'Ognimod' is just 'Domingo', spelled backwards. If I didn't, um, like my own name, do you believe that... I... I would call myself an, uh, an, uh... um... a variant of... of it?" He was stumped. Continued to speak:
"Tell me, what brings you here?"
"Guess what..."
"Did you have a fight with a young woman again?"
"No, this time I didn't want to fight. I just let her win." I sighed. "What should I do, doctor? Why do I keep trying to get everyone to like me, but end up doing the opposite?"
"If you give a good first impression, people will understand you're nice without trying to prove it. That much, you've understood. What you have not understood is: that to keep trying to prove it will bring that good first impression down, and that if you made a mistake and ended up fighting somebody, the good impression they had of you is not gone, because they know you're not mean, or... whiny, or 'delicate' by nature. They know you're kind, friendly and intelligent. That's what you haven't understood. That's why you lost that girl in school, that's why you lost those two young Argentine girls, that's why you lost your friend in Caracas, and who knows who you lost now. That's something I can't help you with, 'Ognimod'. It's something you have to learn to work out on your own."
"How?"
"What did I just say? It's up to you to figure it out. There's no pre-set way. If there was, everyone would think the same. That wouldn't be good for world diversity or, I admit, psychiatry. Isn't that right?"
I nodded. But, since I was already wasting the psychiatrist's time... I should tell him something else that had me upset.
"Doctor... I believe I haven't explained to you why am I so desperate to be liked by everyone in my way, haven't I?"
"Actually, yes, you have. But, only because I'm in a good mood today, I'll let you explain it again. I warn you, however, that you won't get no more advice than what I've been giving you since four years ago."
Argh, so I had told him. I have to find another psychiatrist.
"You'll see... when I was, uh, um... about, 13 years old, more or less... I... uh... stumbled upon an Internet forum. And well, I... they were older than me. I was the immature one, and... and they... didn't like me, not at all."
There was a pause.
"So, yeah, that."
The psychiatrist then recited something he'd truly had been telling me since 2005 (it's 2008 now). He had repeated it to me so many times he knew it by heart, and each time he recited it in the exact same tone, as if he had rehearsed it. "You were not appropiate for people that age, which is why they treated you like that. That has nothing to do with the first impression, or the last. Remember: people who use the Internet don't want to kill you. Do you understand?"
"Yes... I do." I glanced at my watch. "Look, I'm going. How much?"
"Nothing. Consider it a favor. And also, the sooner you go, the better. I have other patients to attend."
"I understand. Bye."
I left.
I was walking back home. Ivory was leaving at 2 PM, and right now it was 12 o'clock. The psychiatrist worked in Los Teques, State of Miranda, and I lived in Los Nuevos Teques, same State. Los Teques is as old as time, but Los Nuevos Teques had only been founded in 1973. And Los Teques, with time, has gotten so bad it's virtually unrecognizable. Imagine a little storybook town which a capitalist who's allergic to simpler life filled with buildings and malls to make it look like a city. The results were: overpopulation, uncontrolled transit, robbings, kidnappings and murders every other day and twice on Sundays, a police force that did nothing, and a general ambiance of discomfort. Here was where mom, sister and I had to live until we got the old apartment back, which in the meantime had been occupied by a lady whom my grandpa had pardoned the rent as long as it meant my family would never live there again. Now that the situation has changed, however, I think I no longer have such animosity for grandpa...
I was already in Los Nuevos Teques now. As I passed by the mall and headed home, the harbinger of my reconcilliation with Ivory, even if it almost cost us our lives, came down. A small piece of paper fell from the sky.
I picked it up and read it. It said, "YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED".
What fine subtlety, I thought. If this thing was any more subtle, I'd have a seizure.
Other papers began to fall, gently. They all read the same as the first. Not getting any of it, I went home.
Ivory didn't even say hello. I headed to my room, to watch more of those old movies only I like.
There was Judge Doom about to drop Roger Rabbit into the vat of Dip, before Bob Hoskins' character gave him a whisky and saved his life. And suddenly, it happened.
The image froze. The TV set and DVD player went dead. Believing it to be a power failure, I paid it no mind... until I heard a bloodcurling scream from the living room... from Ivory! I ran over to see what was going on.
"What's happened? What is-- MOTHEEEER!"
Ivory's TV, which until then had been receiving a game show, now showed horrifying imagery... Mostly, stock footage of people killed in war (including, yes, the one where a Nazi shoots people on their knees, one by one), screaming, suffering... and several things beyond, such as people blown apart, crushed, mutilated...
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I desperately turned the TV off. I was breathing heavily, panicking. "What... what was that?"
"I don't know..." babbled Ivory, also scared to death. Suddenly, the TV turned itself on again. The bloody imagery had disappeared; the game show was on again... but the contestants and hosts were just as shocked, a nervous landscape of dread painted all over their faces. And then, with the show about to continue, the picture was unexpectedly replaced by a static image of a black background and a question mark.
A metallic, and maybe electronically altered, voice boomed a warning message.
"TO ALL INHABITANTS OF EARTH. YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED. YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED. YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED. YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED..."
It was repeating what that paper said! It continued repeating "your days are numbered" infinitely. And we heard an explosion. And then another one. Soon, several. The buildings out front, and part of our own, and any building it sight, wherever it was, was blowing up, and when they weren't, strange figures broke in through the windows...
"Ogni, what's going on?" Ivory asked, scared.
"I ... have... no--"
And right that instant, no less than a legion of masked guys all in black broke in throught the study's window, and the dining room's window, and the kitchen's, and literally anything made of glass that lead outside. And they began destroying the house, and barking orders in English... I took a hand to my pocket instinctively; I still had the keys to the house in it! I grabbed Ivory's arm.
"Let's go!"
I dragged her, running to the door, and whan I was going to open it, it seemed I got hit on the back of my neck...