BLINKING BORIS

Last updated 29^th October 2005

1.

Good evening. Ah, I hear you say, why say good evening when it is morning or afternoon or whatever? The answer, my friend, is that it is evening here, in the world of client, Mr Dymock. If you have been reading his diary – or web log, as the young people call it – you will know all is not well with the former celebrity. For one thing he has created what purports to be a Tiree website. Like me, you will be hard pressed to find references to Tiree anywhere on this site. Don’t you think that is rather odd?

This is because – and whether Mr Dymock realises it or not – the Tiree depicted in this website is another Tiree. It’s not even a virtual Tiree. It’s a trans-dimensional Tiree that exists – where? Somewhere in cyberspace, one supposes. Peopled by a strange cast and crew who may or not have counterparts in the real world.

I am as unsure of the legitimacy of my existence as the other players. Nevertheless I will attempt to fulfil my duties as Mr Dymock’s psychotherapist to the best of my ability.

I first ran into Mr Dymock – who is no spring chicken! – in the mid-60s. It was summer as I recall and we chanced to meet in a small town in Lanarkshire called Motherwell. Young Master Dymock was famous in those days. If you’re scratching your head trying to bring his name and fame to mind please save your efforts. He was famous inside his head.

This place inside his head is a territory not far from where I am writing this.

I scared him. I can’t recall where I scared him the most. It may have been some horror movie I was starring in (for you must surely know that I too trod the boards, but in the real world only). The thoughts of my ghastly appearance may have come back to him in the night time or amongst the tall grass, it matters not. The fact of the matter is that initially all attempts on my part to teach him the difference between an actor and his role came to nought.

And therefore he grew up thinking he was someone else, something else, somehow different. He never kicked a football and he had a sensitive – nay, a romantic streak that made him feel alienated from most people his own age.

I pursued him. I admit it. It did him good to fear being alone. Let me explain. He had this notion that if he were left alone for any period of time I would sneak up to him and kill him. Strange that, isn’t it? To feel apart from humanity and at the same time feel compelled to seek it out.

It wouldn’t have done to leave him alone, you see. When we find someone straddling reality and the world of the imagined steps must be taken to preserve the trans-dimensional balance. The task I had – for a while at least – was to make sure he made not hard and fast commitment to either side. The consequences of his stepping over were unthinkable, both for Mr Dymock and myself.

And then one day – the summer of 1965 – I saw the young chap do the most remarkable thing.

It was one of those nice summers. You remember nice summers, don’t you? There was the young chap walking down the street alone, perhaps coming back from doing an errand for his Mother – when he came upon an elderly beggar, bedraggled of hair and dress, a long brown coat tied with a string, a flat cap in his hand, just standing there. And – he was blind.

Master Dymock had never seen a beggar before in his life and he was touched. He ran home, got his pocket money from a drawer, went back and deposited the lot in the old man’s cap.

The old man mumbled his thanks, blessed you Master Dymock.

Even I was impressed with this. You see, very few of us ever commit a true act of selfless generosity. We have a little think to ourselves as we hand over the cash or the commitment: aren’t I a nice person?

And Master Dymock became Mr Dymock and he would give of his time and money many times in the future but never again without regard to puffing up his ego.

It was then I knew there was hope for the young blighter.

And so, as his date with fate approaches, he has at last lost his fear of me and invited me to join him as an associate in his new trans-dimensional enterprise.

It is never very easy to get Mungo to relax. He comes for his therapy session at least once a week. Of course if he is feeling particularly unwell he will ask to see me more often. This presents no problem. I have no other clients, after all, being exclusively retained by Mr Dymock.

Often he says nothing. On other occasions, the opposite is the case. I let him have his head as our meetings are almost always without theme.

And yes, I have a couch on which Mungo reclines. The room is slightly darkened and I sit behind him.

Once he has settled himself on the couch I say the words I always say at the start of the session:

“Mungo, if you have a skeleton in the closet, take it out and dance with it.”

He always reacts the same, that is, with a mute little start.

Today is one of those days when he wants to talk but cannot.

“I feel like a character in a story in which the plot has lost its way,” he says. Then, silence, a silence that lasts for minutes. Finally he leans up on one arm and looks back at me, appealingly. “Do you think I had anything to do with Mr Marker’s blindness?”

“Do I think you somehow made him blind? But how could that be possible, Mungo?”

Mungo tries to relax again. He is staring up at the ceiling. I really do not like to be much of a presence in these sessions. He has, after all, come here to explain himself to himself and I am merely a sounding board.

“Why are we here, Boris?”

“Because you have brought us here, Mungo.”

“And where is here Boris?”

“This is where you are, Mungo.”

“And do I come here from somewhere else?” he asked. This of course was what he had been leading up to. “Am I someone from another place? Or is this my real life?”

I cross my legs, arch my fingers. I am dissatisfied with Mungo today.

“Tell me, do you see the world as it is, or do you see the world as you are?”

“Ah, Boris!” he exclaims, slapping the side of the couch. “While I am always ready to learn I rarely like being taught. You have hit the nail on the head, I feel. You’re saying that none of this is real?”

“That would be extraordinarily foolish on my part,” I suggest. “No. Take Mr Marker, whom you just mentioned. He has an interesting point of view in this regard. He is blind and yet in another sense he ‘sees’ what he likes. The world is at he would have it. I have heard it said that people seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. One’s interpretation of oneself may change and with it the dominant world view. The madman who is chased from the graveyard by the statue of an angel at his heels knows what he experiences to be true. We say he is mad. He says we are mad not to see the truth.”

“Yes,” Mungo agrees. “But so few madmen are happy, far from it. It is not a state to be envied.”

I stand and walk to the window, open a slat in the blind. The day has become dull and far out at sea I can see bad weather on the way. The afternoon shift is coming in. Remarkable. In the space of a few days the operation has by such a degree as to demand 24 hour working.

“To reiterate: the way life treats you is a merciless mirror image of your attitude toward your life. These offices, complex, workers – are they real or imagined? Does it really matter? If you have another life somewhere – one in which you are dreaming all this – why can’t you remember it? Surely it is the dream which quickly fades upon awakening and not the real world?”

“I don’t trust myself. I think I may do something to hurt myself.”

I turn and motion for him to stand up. The session is going nowhere today.

“I am not surprised you do not trust yourself,” I tell him. “He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.”

“I want to believe in everyone,” he says rising. He turns and slowly walks to the door. “I think I will go home now,” he says.

“As you wish,” I reply, smiling and making a slight nod of the head.

TO BE CONTINUED

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