Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [61]
Wrapping the sheet around himself, he hopped off the slab and – legs apparently recovered – hurried over to the juvenile male on the next bench. Julia was taken aback when the Doctor made a good approximation of a medical examination, checking the corpse’s vital signs. Julia couldn’t take her eyes off him. There was something deeply charismatic about the little man. His personality was magnetic – a well-documented but little understood side-effect of certain categories of schizophrenia.
The patient nodded to himself, apparently satisfied with the corpse’s progress.
‘He’s out of the trance now, just sleeping. He’ll be fine.’ He rubbed his hands together, as if preparing to get down to business.
Julia thought that his delusions were both absurd and tragic.
‘Now, on to more immediate concerns. I need to prove to you that I am not one of your patients. How can I prove to you that I’m quite sane?’
‘You can’t.’ Julia blurted out, before she could stop herself – the idea was ridiculous. More softly – more professionally – she added, ‘You don’t have to prove anything. You must be one of my patients. After all, you’re here, you’re describing things that can’t possibly exist. What else could explain the situation?’
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The man sighed and started speaking rapidly to himself, as if working through a problem out loud. ‘Words won’t convince you, you’ll just take them to be symptoms of my malaise. Let’s try working with physical evidence.’
He turned to look at her again, and Julia was shaken by the intensity of his gaze. He looked like a professor gently trying to explain a basic concept when he’d much rather get on with something more interesting. ‘I take it you don’t recognize me?’ he said, after a moment.
Julia decided to go along with him. ‘No. But I haven’t spent much time on the men’s ward. My work was mostly with juveniles.’
‘Ha!’ the Doctor erupted, his face suddenly brimming with excitement.
‘Then my friend here should be known to you?’
‘Hardly. Your “friend” isn’t a patient here. He’s part of a regular supply of human material we use for research purposes. He –’ Julia realized she was in danger of colluding with the patient’s perceptions. ‘Rather, this body was brought here from the local cottage hospital. Despite your protestations to the contrary, this boy is long dead.’
‘Touch him.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He’s not dead, only sleeping. Touch him. His name is Jack Bartlett and he is a friend of mine. Last night we were attacked and brought here against our will. Take his pulse – you’ll find that it’s a little slower than normal, but not dangerously so.’
Julia joined the man at the other table. She was going to have to handle this delicately. Completely breaking apart a firmly held delusion could often cause a patient distress. Sometimes, although not frequently, inducing a violent response as the carefully constructed fantasy was shattered, leaving the patient in a world they no longer understood.
The juvenile male’s body was motionless. Its skin was very pale, almost grey and its eyes were sunken. She reached for its wrist, preparing to go through the motions of taking its pulse in order to attempt to bring her patient’s perceptions into line with reality.
The hand was warm.
The man noticed her surprise and raised an eyebrow in question.
She felt the pulse of the ‘corpse’ push softly against the skin of her finger.
Faint, but regular. The boy was alive.
The Doctor smiled, reassuringly. ‘Welcome to the real world,’ he whispered.
Chris sat up and hugged the army surplus bag around his skinny waist. It was cold in the trench. Through the smoke he heard the distant sound of shells falling. The Doctor lay beside him, fading badly. His ashen face was creased with pain. Bullet wounds kept appearing and disappearing on the Doctor’s 104
body, oozing thick dark blood down the front of his shirt before vanishing, only for the cycle to start over again.
‘The future,’ the Doctor wheezed, ‘and so much left undone.’
‘No!’ Chris tried to pick up the Doctor, but huge cracks appeared in his body and he turned to dust in