Schizophrenia

"Sir, he's asking for that box again." The man sighed sharply, looking up from the papers he had been immersed in.

"Fine, bring him in here. It's about time we talk to figure why he's in here." he replied, putting the papers back on his desk. The officer hesitated, his hand on the molding of the door as his body turned to exit.

"If you don't mind me asking..what is in the box?" The chief shrugged indifferently.

"Dirt."

The police chief exited his office to the interrogation room just down the concrete hall, not soon enough to avoid the incoherent yelling from the mysterious visitor, though. He sat down in the familiar cool metal seat, it was uncomfortable to say the least, but he liked it. Because this was his favorite part of the job, finding the missing pieces of the complicated puzzles criminals hid behind.

"The box-where-? I need to kill her! To bury her wicked heart-god her lovely face. I miss her-the box! Let go-I need the box." The man screamed as he entered the room in between the two officers holding him fast by the wrists. The chief looked onto the man with a stern expression, trying to ignore the pain of pity that stung just beneath the right side of his rib cage, pity affected his job.

"Liar, liar!" the man barked as his eyes spun around the room blindly, the officers struggling to put him in the chair across the table. "You know you can't kill her, you love her too much." The man sat very still suddenly, his eyes staring straight into that of the chief's, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. And after a heartbeat of silence a terrible grin spread across the man's un-kept face. He looked rather goofy, with the dirty bandage across his forehead slightly pressing down on his left eyebrow and his missing right eyetooth.

"Hello, my name is Chief Banes," the head of the police department said dryly," who are you?"

The man laughed, and even his teeth looked dirty next to the white of his mangy beard. "Why, I'm George Markham." he said matter-of-factly, though his voice sounded much too young for his appearance. Banes wondered if it had anything to do with that damned bandage they had had to put on him when they found him bleeding and shouting in the desert a day and a half ago.

"George Markham. Well, it seems we don't have you on file, George, your fingerprints say your somebody else." George laughed at that, slamming one of his dirty hands on the table with a hoot.

"And who do my fingerprints say I am? Also, when did my fingerprints start speaking? I haven't heard them say anything!" He laughed again, and it was a hearty sound that in other circumstances might have made Banes smile a little.

"Oh they do," Banes played along, that was the trick with these kind of people, crazy people, you had to feed in to their lies a little to get a bit of truth in return. It was baby steps, give them too much information at one time, or press them too hard and they'd plunge head first into the deep end. Not that he had that much experience with people like that, not this crazy, "and they told me your name is Oliver Wilken."

"Wilken?" George muttered, sobering up instantly and meeting eyes with the chief. The dusty blue irises inside of his skull were wide with pleading, "No, no, Banes you gotta believe me. That guy is bad news. I have nothing to do with him, he's crazy. Absolutely bonkers, insane, and not the good kind either."

"Really?" Banes mused, folding his hands together as he watched.

"Yeah, take it from me, buddy. I don't know what you're looking for, but he ain't got the answers." Markham said, throwing his hands in the air.

"What makes you think I'm looking for something?" The chief asked with one of his eyebrows raised, grateful that there was a tape recorder under the table that he could listen to later. This was definitely going to be the most interesting interrogation he would ever be a part of.

"Well we're in an interrogation room, ain't we?" George asked with a small smile. "I might look stupid, chief, but I ain't." The chief smiled a little back, but what he really thought was that if the man used proper English his point might be better proven.

"So, George, what can you tell me about this box?" Banes asked, hoping his digging a little deeper wouldn't send the man back into his spiraling blabber of confusion.

"Box? I don't have no box." He said a little defensively, moving his eyes from the chief's.

"I know. But do you know about it?" Banes pressed a little, his voice still as placid as an untouched lake.

"I don't know about the damn box!" George yelled, his hands gripping his tangled white hair as he shook his head fiercely.

"George-"

"No! Listen," he shouted, pointing at Banes with one hand as the other gripped his hair tighter, "you don't know what you're getting yourself into-what you're bringing on. The man, he's crazy! Get rid of the box. Kill the man, and then live. Forget we ever came around, you'll be better off."

"We?" Banes asked, knowing that George was leaving fast by the looks of the way his eyes were rolling. With a grunt the man's elbows fell back to the table and his head slumped down to where Banes couldn't see his eyes. "Dammit," he sighed and leaned back into his chair.

"Oliver? Oliver Wilken can you hear me?" Banes asked loudly. Why was he talking like that? The man was in front of him, it's not like he would hear him any better if he increased the volume, that didn't change mental illness.

"She's gone," the man moaned, clenching his fists until the knuckles were white.

"Who's gone?" the chief asked, starting to become a little haggard with the routine of this.

"My love, she's gone." he wailed again, his shoulders starting to shake with small gasps.

"What was her name?" Chief Banes asked, wondering who these women were. One was dead, and one was going to be. One was an evil bitch from the likes of it and the other a perfect lover, or maybe there were none at all. But he had to know, because there was a reason this man wandered into their town and he would be damned if anyone got hurt because of him.

"Does it matter? She's gone now!" the man blubbered, still refusing to look up.

"Where did she go?" Banes asked patiently though he felt like screaming.

"She left--left me. I watched her- she left. Threw out the ring I gave her--and the bouquet."  he gasped in between heaves of his shoulders while his tears dripped onto the metal table.

"Why did she leave?" he asked slowly, trying to weave together the characters that seemed to share this one man.

"I'm alone now, all alone." he sighed.

"You're not alone, Oliver." Banes reassured, feeling the need to reach out and touch the man's forearm like he would do to his son.

"Oliver?!" The man hissed, bringing his tear stained eyes to the light. "I am not that bastard."

"Why do you dislike him so much?" Banes wondered aloud, letting his eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"Because he killed her! He stole her away from me!" the man yelled, slamming his fists on the table.

"Who?"

"Oliver!" he shrieked.

"No, who did Oliver take from you?" Banes clarified curtly.

"Her. Don't you get it? He killed the only girl I'll ever love, she had my heart and he killed her. I hate him." his voice broke in the middle of the scream as the tears came down faster.

"But aren't you Oliver-?" Banes started to ask, but was interrupted by the angry screeching of the man.

"Stop! Stop saying his name, you're going to bring him back, and no one can stand him!" and the same desperate look was in his eyes as the man, George Markham, before him.

"Bring him back from where?"Banes inquired, starting to wonder if the man was not only sick but possessed as well.

"Sleep-ugh!" he squeezed his eyes shut tightly then after a moment reopened them with a sigh. The change had occurred, Banes could see a whole new demeanor to the man by the way his eyes looked around the room, almost as if he understood why he was there.

"Who are you?" Banes asked flatly, feeling the circles starting to form under his eyes. This was exhausting, he doubted he would get any where this man.

"You know who I am," the man said as he stroked his chin, grimacing at the feel of it, "why else would you have me in here?"

"Actually," Banes corrected smartly, "I don't know who you are, because it seems to change every few seconds."

The man chuckled at that, and the youth in his eyes seemed to match the age of his voice. An early 30 year old, maybe even a late twenty year old.

"Now, I'm not that good of an actor. Surely I don't have you fooled to make you think I really am different people, do I?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"So you're just acting? Playing a little joke on us?" Banes asked with narrowed eyes, he was inclined to hit the man if it were the truth.

"Not necessarily," the man said with a sophisticated shrug. He looked like he belonged more in a suit in the middle of a court room than in torn clothes at a police station. "I mean, it's not on purpose, I assure you, but my problems aren't yours, right?" The smile that followed resembled that of a sales person.

"Depends, because it seems you're bringing your problems into my town." Banes growled, taking the intimidating approach, betting on the fact that this character could handle it.

"My problems and I are just walking through, if you let us go, we'd be on our way." The man said with a charismatic smile, looking even more goofy than before.

"And why exactly are you walking through?" the chief pressed.

"We've got business," he said with a shrug, " isn't that why anyone passes through here? Or do you have some secret sight seeing I didn't know about?"

"Why were you bleeding and yelling when we picked you up?" Banes asked, ignoring the jab.

"There was a fight, but you should see the other guy," he said with a wink, and Banes felt the urge to choke him halfway to death.

"Between who?" the chief asked in a strained voice, trying to keep his frustration at a disguised level.

"Listen, bud," Banes flinched a little at the endearment, "you don't need to know about me. Besides, what am I even doing in this dump?"

"You were causing a disturbance with your yelling as well as making death threats," Banes said coldly, letting his glare burn into the man who just shook his head with a chuckle in return.

"I formally apologize for the disturbance, as for the death threats who were they made to?" he asked, trying to hold back a smile.

"That's what we're trying to figure out." the chief answered, trying to read the guy.

He smiled wickedly, "I don't think you have much to hold me on, sir, with all due respect. If there's a fine I'll pay it, as for the death threat, it's just nonsense. I'm crazy, remember?" Banes wanted to kill the guy, or at least for the other versions to come back. The ones he could treat like children and strangle information out of.

"That's the thing, Oliver," the man clenched his teeth at the name, "I don't see anything in your records that says you are. No registered mental hospitals or even diagnoses of mental illness."

He leaned forward so that his face was only inches from the chief's when he said, "Well that's the thing that's scary about crazy people, Banes, is that they can blend in with everyone else for as long as they want without anyone knowing until one day, they just snap."

"And what made you snap, Wilken?" Banes whispered in a voice that sent goosebumps down his own back.

"Love. Love's the death of all things, Chief." he said with half of a smirk.

"And the box?" Banes asked, realizing that he had to let the man wander off at the end of the day. He had too much work to do, and he looked like the only real problem he was was to himself.

"What about it?" he said, leaning back into his chair.

"It's full of dirt, why's it so important?" he wondered, trying to feed his personal curiosities more than interrogate the man now.

"Maybe to someone who wasn't looking," the man said with a shrug as he rested his palms on the top of his head and tilted his chair back. And in the change of light Banes could see scars running across the man's tanned skin in all different directions on his arms and face.

"What happened to you?" he muttered in astonishment and the man clenched his teeth and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Bad things," he said lowly, "I got my heart stolen and I have yet to get it back, doubt I ever will."

"You too?" Banes asked, realizing that maybe he was closer to the answers than he thought.

"Who else?" he asked with his eyes still closed.

"The one before you, he was crying about his lover being gone, his heart being taken." Banes explained and realized that he was starting to sound crazy himself for feeding into it.

"Peter? Yeah, he's a crybaby. But his heart is mine too if that makes any more sense to you." he said quietly and it sounded almost like he was drifting to sleep.

"Oliver?" Banes asked, afraid that's what he was doing.

"I am heaven sent, don't you dare forget." the man mumbled and Banes could feel his hair on the back of his neck raise.

"What?" he asked, leaning forward so he could hear him better.

"I hope you come down with something they can't diagnose, something they can't find the cure for," he muttered as if it were playing off a recording in his head. A moment passed then he was scowling, his hands shaking with fury. "The bitch put a curse on me I swear it."

"What girl?" Banes inquired lowly.

"I think about you every day, and now I'm all alone." he whispered to himself. Banes couldn't ignore the electricity in the room, he was on the verge of understanding this man's story.

"You're not alone, Oliver. I promise that I'm right here." and again Banes wanted to comfort the man, less like his son now but more like he wanted to comfort himself. Like these problems were suddenly his now too.

"My friends, they're at the bottom of that lake. They don't swim because they're all dead." and realization slammed into Banes like a bullet. Right into the temple like a shot to the brain. Something hot leaked down his face and he touched it curiously, drawing his hand back red.

"Get it, Banes?" The man asked, his eyes open and burning now, "I'm not Oliver Wilken, you are." And suddenly those blue eyes were familiar, and the beard was no longer white but a grungy blonde. The missing tooth was one he had accidentally knocked out when he played football in high school and the gash in his forehead was from the car accident. The accident that killed her. Killed her and all his friends. The one that had sent them off the side of the cliff and into the lake they had been planning to spend the week at.


The car accident that killed his fiancee a week before their wedding day. The one that was 3 days after the worst fight they had ever had. The one where she told him that she wished he came down with something they couldn't diagnose, because he drove her as crazy as she drove him. 


"No, no, no!" Banes screamed as he realized it was just a mirror in front of him. It shattered then, plunging him into darkness.


"No!" Oliver screeched, waking to sweat covered sheets that entangled him like a snake. 


"Vera?!" He yelled, in the hardly lit apartment when he realized her side of the bed was cold. Tears streaked down his face when he realized it wasn't a dream but a waking nightmare, a view into himself and how crazy he'd become. He walked to the dresser across the room slowly, afraid of what rested on it. 


He traced the wooden lid lightly, like he used to trace Vera's thighs. He picked up the box gingerly, letting a sob break from his chest as he opened it. 


"When I die, you'll carry my ashes to where we first met, right? On the side of that highway in New Mexico where you saved me from dehydration and countless other things." He remembered her saying only a few months after they had started dating. 


"What other things did I save you from?" He had asked. 


"Well," she said, looking at him with those big green eyes, "you saved me from myself." 


"I promise." he muttered as he gazed into the box of gray ashes. And as he looked inside of that box he realized that that was the end of his road too. Because he hated the pain she'd left him with, and the world didn't make sense without her. And maybe when he layed that box in it's proper place she'd finally let her rest. 


Maybe he'd rest too.