Macabre/Number 5/Apprehension
Apprehension
by
Joseph Payne Brennan
He had always been afraid. Since childhood he had been aware of a feeling of apprehension, a persistent foreboding. He felt convinced that some frightful fate, some ghastly end, lay in store for him.
And the strangest part of it was, there seemed no basis whatsoever for his obsessive fear. He had inherited enough money to live comfortably without working; his health was splendid; he had many friends. His wife adored him. His two sons looked up to him. His ancestry was sturdy, wholesome; he had never been touched by scandal.
But his apprehension remained. Never for a single day or night did it desert him entirely. As he passed from his thirties into his forties, his foreboding increased.
Finally he became convinced that he must have some creeping insidious disease, that he always had had it, and that, somehow, although it gave no physical evidence of its nature, it flashed continuous warnings to his subconscious mind.
He began a round of hospitals and world-famous clinics which lasted for over a year. But the best specialists remained baffled. The worst they could reveal was that he had a small cavity in one tooth -- which he promptly had filled -- and that he had a very mild allergy to certain types of pollen. The allergy was so slight it rarely bothered him, but nevertheless he undertook extended treatments and cleared up all traces of it.
But still he remained apprehensive -- more apprehensive than ever. Only his wife and his closest friends knew of his fear, and they were powerless. For years they had vainly attempted to argue him out of it. Both reason and ridicule failed.
At length one of his friends repeated a suggestion which he had made at intervals for ten years: "Go to a good psychiatrist -- the best -- tell him about it. It may simply be rooted in some unpleasant childhood incident which your conscious mind has forgotten. A good psychiatrist will ferret it out, shine the light on it, banish it forever."
For some reason which he couldn't explain, he had never wanted to go to a psychiatrist. He shied away from it, even though he knew that his friend's suggestion was a sensible one. But perhaps he was no different from many other people who feel a sense of unnease, even shame, about psychiatric treatment.
Finally, as his apprehension increased, he made the decision. He would go. He would hunt up the best known, the most widely praised psychiatrist in the country.
Afte rcareful inquiry he decided on Doctor Clarence Trustark. They said Dr. Trustark was a genius. Fabulous. As fabulous as his fabulous fees. He had effected cures where all hope had been abandoned. His magic had eased patients out of padded cells, out of strait jackets, out of shadows which seemed to have closed in forever. A mere obsession he would probably find, well -- routine.
It took six months to get an appointment but at last he was ushered into Dr. Trustark's waiting room. Fabulous. Subdued lighting. Muted background music, magical, elusive as the music of dreams. Carpets that caressed your feet like layers of foam. Chairs you seemed to float in. Fear? What was there to fear?
And finally he sat in Dr. Trustark's office. It didn't look like an office. It resembled the cozy den of a world traveler, of a connoisseur who had tastefully selected choice items.
Dr. Trustark himself was the most striking object in the room. His long face seemed infinitely sad; it appeared to have congealed into lines of inexpressible sorrow. It was as if all the woes of his many patients over the years had carved lines of sympathy on his face, as if, like a sponge, he had absorbed into himself all the fears and terrors which had been poured out to him. It was the face of a martyr, a saint. Looking into it, one immediately felt a sense of guilt. What could one's own troubles be compared to the mournful knowledge etched on that face?
Dr. Trustark's masterful smile put him at ease immediately. He had thought he would be tense, that he would answer questions with reluctance, but instead he found himself speaking readily, withholding nothing. For over an hour he answered questions, even volunteering information.
At length Dr. Trustark stopped making notes. He nodded, smiled with a trace of weariness. "There seems to be nothing in the outward, obvious, events of your life. It has been full and happy. Now we must search further. Follow me, please."
Closing the door behind him in an adjoining room, the psychiatrist motioned his patient to a small cot.
"In this room we have absolute privacy," Dr. Trustark assured him. "The walls are completely sound-proof. Nobody can hear you even if you are overcome with emotion. You may tell me anything. Whatever it is will never be repeated beyond these four walls."
Very shortly Dr. Trustark had him in a state resembling hypnosis. The room's soft lifting and the Doctor's soothing voice relaxed him completely. He soon found himself talking about his boyhood, about his early childhood. He recalled many things which he had forgotten. Strangely, perhaps, they were all pleasant. He rambled on and on, absorbed in idyllic memories.
Abruptly Dr. Trustark aroused him from reverie. He tried to sit up and found that he was strapped to the cot. He stared at the psychiatrist in amazement and alarm.
Dr. Trustark's face was suddenly a twisted mask of fury. "Another fool! Another weakling! Another spineless parasite. You always fear because you have nothing to fear! No struggle, no sweat, no pain! You are afraid of fear Itself! You are a husk, a shadow, a nameless nothing!"
His voice became shrill. "Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at my face! You see what idiots' drivel has done to my face? Like acid marks, burned, drop by drop for thirty years! Weak, useless idiots like you!"
He began pacing the small room, like a caged animal. "You had everything. I had nothing. My childhood was a hell! And who can I tell? Who can I tell that I am nightly gnawed by fearful dreams no words can encompass? Who? No one! The great Dr. Trustark go to -- another psychiatrist? I would be laughed at. Do you hear? Laughed at! Ridiculed! And yet I go on listening to the mush of fools like you!"
Striding swiftly toward the cot, he thrust his face close to that of his now thoroughly terrified patient. "Well, I tell youI have had enough! I am through! Finished! And I shall finish with you!"
Turning, he walked to a nearby table, pulled open a drawer and drew out a gleaming scalpel.
He brandished it. "You, my friend, shall now pay for all the fools' drivel of thirty years! Now you have found the source of your fear! At last you have found it! Yes, you had something to fear! Truly! It was me -- waiting here for you these thirty years!"
As his mad laughter rang through the room, the patient began to scream. But even as he screamed, something in the back of his mind assured him that he was screaming in a sound-proof room.
Dr. Trustark's wild eyes appeared above him. The scalpel swept downward toward his face.