Vestavia Hills

In short, he felt like crap. And, although he did not know who to blame, and perhaps for this very reason, his anger was growing.

He would never have thought of doing it; it was something he could not understand and had always avoided because considered it a disease, he went to look for the number of a psychologist.

When he heard someone talking about it, he always looked with pity on the subject in question. How could it be possible that someone needed a person who told him how to feel, who coaxed him with pleasant or even provocative sentences, who gave him a shoulder to cry on and feel sorry for himself while getting paid for it?

What kind of person was someone who couldn't even control what he thought?

But now, gripped by the monster of insomnia, which forced him to spend whole days in a daze, and was no longer sure of what he saw or did, perhaps he too could give it a go. Those strange feelings, such as the experience of the previous day or the one in the literary café, convinced him that his psycho-physical health could be in question. He had already followed the doctor's orders: but the pills didn't work, and he had no intention of taking stronger medications.

The hallucinations were what worried him the most: if he were no longer able to distinguish the real from the unreal, well, that would have been a big problem.

With all those hours of lost sleep and that heaviness on his eyelids and in his brain, all those afternoons spent dozing off without really resting, and he was no longer sure he could distinguish what he did from what was only a dream.

Dr. Thomas Trevor.

To Robert, it seemed somewhat popular, judging from the website. Well, however, for Robert, one was worth the other, not having high esteem of psychologists.

Yet another twinge of headache convinced him that he should try.

So he dialed the number and spoke with a kind secretary, who told him that the doctor would be free the next day.

Tomorrow was perfect: Robert hoped that this could, had to be, a solution to the heaviness that felt inside his head as if he had a massive bowling ball stuck in it.

Robert noted down the information, said goodbye, and ended the call.

He already felt uncomfortable, and he couldn't quite figure out if it was because he was going to a psychologist for the first time in his life or for that strange feeling that had been crowding him for the past few days.

The next morning he reached Dr. Trevor's office according to the appointed time.

It was a somewhat nondescript building in Miller Hill Way, one of the newly built ones, where concrete and glass rules.

Robert still felt entangled in that uncomfortable feeling he felt the day before when he phoned the doctor.

He looked up to observe the window, which in his hypothesis could have been the psychologist's as if he were facing the challenge with an enemy who he needed to look straight in the eye.

The sun was scorching that day. The reflection of the light in the glass almost hurt the eyes. Robert coped with it as part of that challenge he imagined to face.

He coped with it at least until the building wall and windows seemed to turn into liquid.

The building no longer seemed to support itself on the foundations, and the more the minutes went by, the more it looked like a block of liquid cement and superheated glass pudding.

Robert looked away, convinced it was just caused by the sun's heat. But he did not have time to think of anything that he found himself catapulted into another city.

Or rather, what was around him was still Vestavia Hills, he was convinced. Something in the atmosphere made him think that. However, although he was able to recognize his town in some of the details, he felt cast out. He was like a spectator at the cinema, who can see the places he knows, but who can in no way intervene in that scene to correct the details that seem out of place.

Robert saw Vestavia Hills, but he also noticed that there was something wrong, out of place, in front of him, and he could not change it.

A boy about 7 or 8 years old, dressed in an adult style suit and looking very composed, walked a few steps away from him, he looked at him as if he was an urban fixture that should not have been there, with a mixture of severity and indifference in the eyes. Robert also looked at him sideways, as if to intimidate him, but the boy was gone. He had dissolved to make way for a beautiful girl who was going in the opposite direction, towards Robert.

He observed the provocativeness hidden under a very abundant outfit, but the girl gave him an evil look; evil and satisfied at the same time as if she was observing her prey. Robert wanted to get out of there, but he couldn't move. A much older man came up behind him and brushed up against him to get past. At that contact, Robert turned abruptly: he saw the man's face, or what was left: the older man looked very similar to a painting where part of the front had been intentionally rubbed off.

This hallucination he was stuck in, struck him so deeply that his consciousness woke up, and he told himself with the conviction that what he was seeing was only part of his nightmares. It was another lousy daydream, the result of insomnia and his nerves, as he would tell the psychologist shortly after that.

But this thought was not enough to bring him out of that impaired vision: just as it happens in nightmares, the pinch that someone gives himself inside a dream never helps waking up.

Robert turned to his left: from afar, an older woman walked with tired steps.

Even though he still did not see her features precisely, Red knew that the woman was looking at him.

She was looking for him. She wanted him.

Robert was afraid to look her in the face and was worried that she would be a person without a face like a man before. Instead, contrary to his anguish, the woman seemed to have a friendly look. She inspired confidence and tenderness, and she didn't have the contrite, wrinkled, and depressed expression of many older women.

She wasn't talking, but Robert sensed some of her words: or rather, he heard sounds coming from the woman's face, even if he could not understand what she was saying. It was more like a set of voices very close together, just as if more than one person was speaking at the same time, what he felt was a faint buzzing behind which few words emerged.

"Fire, devil ... ... disappeared ... fear ..."

In short, something not very reassuring and angry.

Then suddenly, the old woman's face looked like someone violently punched in the stomach. Slowly that outraged look turned into a strange grimace: the face deformed, looked cruel, the mouth began to widen and emit a guttural and hollow sound. The eyes grew embers.

Robert looked away and ran away.

Then he realized he was still in front of the same building: he hadn't moved then, but the old demonic lady was gone.

So, as if he were on a treadmill, he started to move towards the entrance of the building.

On the outside, it still looked like a modern building, but inside there was a moldy scent mixed with the smell of something that had just burnt down.

It was a kind of sacred building: it could have been a church since Robert was staring at a wooden cross. It was very dark; only a faint light filtrated in there, coming from who knows where. Despite this, Robert saw everything with clarity, with exaggerated precision, as if an extraordinary faculty was born inside him as if someone or something wanted him not to miss any detail.

At that point, when the wooden cross drew his eyes, it seemed to come alive: it bent slightly on itself and, even if no Redeemer was hanging as in other crucifixes, it appeared, in a bizarre way, to be staring back at Robert. Then it expanded as if something was boiling under the surface of the wood. Finally, the cross, just as the young man stared at it more intensely, completely lost in what it was a real nightmare, exploded: a black stream burst from its center, a tongue of darkness seemed to crawl towards Robert, who backed away a few steps. The cross continued to spew darkness, spreading across the floor and between the benches. Then a figure appeared from the left behind a room that led somewhere: it was a human figure, indeed a man, who was walking solemnly. There was something unstoppable and frightening in his presence.

Robert could not see the face of who was coming. A new thrill of anguish had caught him, the fear of that black stream that continued to leak out the crucifix.

Then, finally, his need to escape had the upper hand. So he ran away.

He found himself by the building where that vision had begun, the psychologist's office, which now seemed to Robert like a piece of land in miles and miles of ocean. He had been catapulted there by a sort of teleportation. The impact of that "journey" was so strong that Robert staggered for a moment.

He looked furtively around, and it was more to make sure that there were no other diabolical beings and that he had returned to what must have been the reality, rather than for fear of being caught out.

He walked in with a knot in his stomach, a mixture of anxiety and desire to drink something very strong.

Even the brass plate that indicated Dr. Trevor's office seemed unreal: but it was only Robert's extreme desire to enter it that made it so. Red stared at it almost to challenge it to turn into something else.

Fortunately, at least this time, nothing happened.

After he rang and someone opened the door, he was welcomed into the waiting room, once the bright living room of a tasteful apartment, by the doctor himself.

It was a man in his forties, sporty and very accommodating: Trevor wore dark jeans and a dark brown jacket worn over a turtleneck sweater that gave him a truly professional look. Over his nose, he had a pair of trendy eyeglasses, framing a smile that looked like a part of his outfit.

"Nice to meet you, Robert," said the doctor. "Excuse me just a few minutes, I'll be right back" he then pointed at the sofa to sit on and also invited the patient to help himself to the gummy candies that were on a table.

Robert sat down where Trevor indicated but left the colored candy. Although he had calmed down slightly compared to the cold sweats of the nightmare just before, he inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly. He felt like he was on his first date.

He would have liked a glass in his hands, at least to give himself a demeanor. He had to settle for an anonymous magazine, which didn't interest him at all.

After a few minutes, as promised, Dr. Thomas Trevor came back: "Here I am. This way, please."

Robert was invited to enter a much smaller and more intimate sitting room than the waiting room.

Everything specially arranged and designed to instill calm, Robert thought. "Who knows if these things work," he said to himself, "we'll soon find out. I bloody need some calm."

A carpet softened the steps by muffling them. The patient chair was so puffy and soft that even if a rusty scrap metal robot had sat on it, it would have made nothing but a faint "puff" noise. On the table was a salt lamp with orange and pink tones, while a floor lamp in the corner of the room emanated some more light, just as soft and discreet. The walls were pastel-colored, also in pink and orange tones from what you could make out with the lighting of the room: no paintings hung on the walls.

The doctor took a seat on a more straightforward chair.

The psychologist didn't waste any time: "So, Robert, tell me: why did you decide to come here?" His tone was friendly, but that put Robert on the defensive.

He took a few seconds before replying. Then said, just as straight to the point: "I don't sleep anymore. I have been suffering from insomnia for a long time. "

After speaking, Robert observed Trevor trying to see any reaction. He only saw the face of a sympathetic person interested in what he was saying.

"This thing is killing me," continued Red, "I wander around the town and among the others like a zombie."

Again he glanced at the doctor, who had the same expression as before.

Well, who knows what and how many cases of troubled people he had heard. He certainly could not be impressed by yet another neurotic who said he slept too little.

Robert went on, not so much because he trusted the reassuring and benevolent face of Dr. Trevor, as because he wanted to empty the sack immediately, or at least a large part of its content, convinced that the "therapy," that's what is called right? Could already be that, and could heal him, at least in part, right away.

So he added: "I think, related to my insomnia, there is also the other problem I have ... hallucinations. I see ... things ... unreal things. "He paused and looked again at the psychologist. Then he concluded: "Unreal and frightening."

It seemed to him that he had made a great effort, maybe because he felt very embarrassed.

Dr. Trevor asked him, "How long haven't you been sleeping well? How long have you had these visions? "

So it was there, in that quiet and relaxing cosy room of psychologist Thomas Trevor, that for the first time in his life, Robert Red said something about himself, beyond the futility of his conversations with whom he called friend, beyond the grouchiness he sometimes had with others.

Robert told of the hellish landscapes he was facing. He spoke about the people in his visions who turned into demons. Talked about the reverend, the fiery eyes, the devouring mouth, and the religious setting, which were the underlying cause for many of his dreams.

While sitting on that soft chair, he spoke about this, how he felt, reliving himself almost entirely.

Contrary to what he had thought, he did not feel judged at all. Nor did he hear advice or instructions. However, this did not ultimately help to soften his doubts.

Or at least this seemed to the psychologist, who told him: "You are very defensive, Robert. No, don't take it as a criticism. I'm just telling you what I feel. But it is not an unpleasant fact in itself.

You should ask yourself this week until our next meeting, why you keep this attitude. Just try asking yourself this question. "

Even Trevor got there in the end, Robert thought with disappointment: he too had that arrogance that characterized practically all the doctors he had known.

That's what annoyed him. But in his heart, for the moment, he was not thinking of giving up therapy just yet.

He wasn't sure what to say, what to do, whether to ask the doctor if the session was over, whether to get the wallet out to pay him his fee, whether to make a circumstantial smile that at least simulated a little friendship and courtesy.

Trevor did everything: he said that the session was over; he then said that the first time there was no need to pay anything, and finally, he showed off his smile of circumstance and the firm handshake you give to a friend.

"You know, Robert," added the doctor, "what you told me is unique. And it's fascinating." He now had a very professional approach. "Once a patient of mine told me something similar, in her dreams, she had also given a name to the city they were set ... "

The doctor smiled and gave no importance to what was only parting chatter to him.

Robert registered what the psychologist had just told him with a kind of pungent curiosity. He wondered if the doctor could ever tell him who that patient was. Probably not.

AN UNPLEASENT DISCOVERY FOR JOHNATHAN APPLEBOT

6.

Vestavia Hills, 1858

Reverend Abblepot went back home as he did many times before, like those who love their home, who know it perfectly and who, inside it, feel comfortable and sheltered from the world.

Many times he went out to carry out his task as a shepherd among his congregation: he used to give a word of comfort, or for the job far from easy to visit sick or even worse dying people; or went to visit a particular parishioner who hadn’t been to church for a while; or finally, he used to take a walk, and in the meantime exchange small talk with those who saw him as a point of reference in town.

Every time Johnathan Abblepot went back to the vicarage, he had that satisfied feeling like someone who had just done his duty.

He was also going back to a secure family home, orderly and straightforward, looked after by a kind and devoted wife, who didn’t deprive the man of the house of anything. That afternoon, however, something seemed to have changed.

It wasn’t the appearance of the house, which was always the same, with that scent of fresh flowers that Elizabeth liked to have around for him from time to time. Not the atmosphere, which remained quiet, calm, secluded, as the Reverend was used to finding.

Perhaps what had changed was in himself, confined to the depths of his heart, in a recess that was trying to talk to him, even if he still hadn't trained his ear to hear well.

As he took off his jacket, to place it on the usual armchair in the living room, Abblepot thought of Martyn Trischer, Evelyn's, the shopkeeper, nephew.

It had already happened to him before that someone didn’t respond to his greeting, but it had never bothered him.

How he was feeling now, though, Abblepot began to think, was different.

Martyn Trischer had no special relationship with him: he was a parishioner like others, a good boy, with the peregrine ideas of young people, but who had always kept himself busy, even in the vicarage. The young man was not particularly close to the reverend.

Yet the rushed greeting that the boy had given him and that note of concern in his look (had there really been? Abblepot was almost sure of it) had left the reverend a strange feeling, like when you eat something gone off, that releases its real taste only after we swallowed it. That, therefore, annoys us even more, because now we can't do anything about it.

Elizabeth came up to him from the adjoining room: “John! Welcome back," the joy of her voice had the sparkle it had every other day, "how did it go in town?"

Elizabeth was adorable in every gesture she made. Even in the most trivial questions, she managed to have an attitude that would put even the grumpiest of men at ease. She had always been this way. Their years of marriage hadn't changed her at all; they only made her a more mature and flawless lady of the house.

"All right," replied Abblepot.

But it was not difficult for Elizabeth to sense something elusive in Johnathan's voice: “You look worried. Did something happen? "

Abblepot did not want to get caught out; also, because he would not have known what to say and how to explain.

So he remained evasive: “No, nothing, why would you say that?

I feel, well... a little tired. Although I didn't do anything in particular,” and then Abblepot tried to have a more lively tone, "I am feeling a bit weak." I think I am coming down with something."

Elizabeth showed concern: “Shall I make you a hot cup of tea, huh? As mom said, it's suitable for any occasion! "

"No, don't bother," replied the man, "I am going to sit on the armchair for a while and relax. Old age hey!" he hinted a laugh to give more credibility to his apparent desire to joke about it.

Elizabeth understood perfectly well that her husband, taken by who knows what thoughts, had little desire to talk.

Sooner or later, Johnathan would always tell her what worried him. However, the young woman felt that this time her husband would not do as he ever did before.

And perhaps, on this occasion, she didn't want him to do it.

She said: "Then I will sit here with you to read a book."

The reverend smiled at her as if he was lost in thought and then said that he would do the same. He took the Bible and sat down on the armchair.

“Because you can bandage a wound and mend an injury, but those who have revealed secrets have no more hope. Whoever winks with the eye plots evil, and nobody can deflect it. With you, his speech is sweet; he admires your words, but behind your back, his speech will change, and he will twist your words." So read Johnathan Abblepot in the book of Sirach, which was one of the last meditations he was using to prepare his next sermon.

He looked up as if to follow one idea or to have another, but his mind didn’t take notice of the biblical verses. In front of him was the window of the small bay window that overlooked the lawn. From where he was sitting, he could see part of the fence.

And then he remembered that image of Martyn Trischer leaning against the fence, just before the beginning of the last function.

Again him, again Martyn Trischer.

At that point, Johnathan Abblepot's mind registered a small piece of information, which did not immediately lead to anything: his look went on a little book with a fine binding, which was carelessly resting on the table in front of the window.

Abblepot went back to reading the Bible. Or at least try to do it. His wife, Elizabeth, did not look away from her book.

Shortly after, the reverend got up to get some water, under the look of his wife. He looked at the table again, without any conscious attention.

When he returned, his wife seemed to have got up and sat back down again.

The next hour passed without any distraction. Abblepot seemed to regain concentration to mentally compose notes and arrangements that would have been useful for next Sunday's sermon. Elizabeth read a few more pages of the book in her hands, then began to tidy up some other rooms.

The reverend did a few household chores and went to the church.

Dinner time came quickly enough. Elizabeth had prepared some stew and mashed potatoes: they consumed it cheerfully and with a good conversation. The reverend's so-called tiredness seemed to have overcome; the girl was pleasant as usual.

It was then, at the end of the dinner, that a shadow reappeared in Abblepot's mind and face.

His brain had brought the detail of that book back in his mind. Like a wounded animal that hides in the ravines until it has regained sufficient strength, so that thought, strengthened with the passing of the hours, had come back to the reverend's mind.

It was a momentary flash, but that left a clear trace. Now that he had remembered, Abblepot knew that the book was not part of his library. The spine, the cover, its colour, and the size: he was practically sure that he had never bought anything like it, and no one had ever given him a book.

So, where could it come from?

By now, his brain had started: and a series of details surfaced.

When he got up to get a glass of water, the book was on the edge of the living room table near the bay window, he was sure of it, he could almost still see it in front of him. Just as he knew that, once he returned to the living room, almost without realizing it, he still had a look at the table, and the book was gone. The missing book now seemed as evident as the groove of a disappeared building left on the grass.

Abblepot tried to dismiss this thought as absolutely insignificant. But a prod, similar to something physical, pressed his chest and warned him to clear up any doubts.

When Elizabeth said she was going to bed, Abblepot stalled a bit so he could go in the living room again.

As soon as his wife went up to her room, he rushed to the study, searching for that book. As he already knew, there was nothing like it in his library. He also looked in the library, the shared one, where his wife also provided herself with readings; and again, as he imagined, he found no trace of what he was looking for.

Either he had had a hallucination, or that little book was on the living room table and Elizabeth herself, who else? She must have taken it away from there. Obviously, to make sure he didn't see it.