want of a better word—dream, she begins to devour me. She has long teeth. She has claws and too many heads. It is no longer a woman at all but a creature of horror. But I am paralyzed and mute, helpless to savemyself. The thing reaches into my chest—the pain is abominable—and tears something out of me. It is my shame, the part of me I most despise, the thing I can’t live without.
Why am I thinking, “Rose”?
It’s a relief when Dr. Zybnieska marches in with her clipboard and sits on my bedside chair. She looks unusually pleased with herself.
“Well, Ray, how are we this morning?”
The volume of her voice is always a shock. I try not to flinch.
“All right,” I murmur. My voice sounds okay this morning, to my ears. “Good. Any more nightmares last night?”
I shake my head firmly.
She leans over and picks up my left hand and examines it.
She scribbles something on her clipboard. Looks at the chart over my bed.
“And the right hand? Still nothing?”
I lift my head and glance at it. I can’t lift it, so it’s the only way of checking it’s still there.
She produces a metal instrument and presses it into the flesh of my wrist. I can’t feel a thing. She makes a note.
“Okay. We finally have some test results.”
She looks excited. Like someone about to deliver a punch line.
“The toxicology results show diverse traces of tropane alkaloids in your system!”
I say nothing, as I don’t know what to say.
“We have found traces of what looks like scopolamine, hyoscya-mine . . . also ergotamine. Very interesting. That would certainly explain the hallucinations you’ve been having.”
Hallucinations. Thank God. Thank you, God. Not real. There was never anything, nor anyone, there. I try to tell myself this, but . . .
“You know what they are?”
“No.”
“Alkaloids that come from poisonous plants. More to the point, they are psychotropic in effect. Were you experimenting? Tripping? Maybe an accidental overdose?”
I shake my head as vigorously as I can manage. In my long-gone experimental days, no bad trip came close to these horrors.
“You would have to have ingested two or three different toxic plant species to show these results. Do you know how that happened? Do you grow your own vegetables? Pick mushrooms in the woods?”
I shake my head, thinking, She should see the contents of my fridge. Like Dad, who, having experienced hedgerow food as a child, embraced processed food with evangelical fervor, I know that natural is not always better.
She makes a note.
“Strange. Ergotamine . . . Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“Its more common name is ergot.”
This doesn’t mean a whole lot more to me. She seems enlivened by the whole thing. From my point of view, I don’t see that it’s that exciting.
“Ergot is a fungus that grows on cereals. Where fungicides are not used, it can still occur, especially in wet summers—like now. But there probably hasn’t been a case of ergot poisoning in this country since the Middle Ages!”
She leans back, beaming.
“So you are a very rare case.”
“Thank you.”
“LSD is a man-made derivative. Perhaps some people still use ergot to get high. Is that what you did?”
“No.”
“No idea how you could have ingested it?”
“No.”
I say no, but, of course, I have begun to form an idea.
“Will it go . . . Will I recover?”
“There is every reason to hope so. The picture is quite complex . . .The paralysis is unusual, although there are documented cases of ergot poisoning causing paralysis and hallucination. Some people think that cases of bewitchment in the Middle Ages were due to eating bread contaminated with ergot. Perhaps every case. You’re very lucky. All of these compounds can be fatal.”
“Will I remember what happened?”
“We’ll have to wait and see. But with scopolamine poisoning, memory loss is often permanent.”
“Is that a fungus, too?”
“No. It comes from plants of the datura family.
Why am I thinking, “Rose”?
It’s a relief when Dr. Zybnieska marches in with her clipboard and sits on my bedside chair. She looks unusually pleased with herself.
“Well, Ray, how are we this morning?”
The volume of her voice is always a shock. I try not to flinch.
“All right,” I murmur. My voice sounds okay this morning, to my ears. “Good. Any more nightmares last night?”
I shake my head firmly.
She leans over and picks up my left hand and examines it.
She scribbles something on her clipboard. Looks at the chart over my bed.
“And the right hand? Still nothing?”
I lift my head and glance at it. I can’t lift it, so it’s the only way of checking it’s still there.
She produces a metal instrument and presses it into the flesh of my wrist. I can’t feel a thing. She makes a note.
“Okay. We finally have some test results.”
She looks excited. Like someone about to deliver a punch line.
“The toxicology results show diverse traces of tropane alkaloids in your system!”
I say nothing, as I don’t know what to say.
“We have found traces of what looks like scopolamine, hyoscya-mine . . . also ergotamine. Very interesting. That would certainly explain the hallucinations you’ve been having.”
Hallucinations. Thank God. Thank you, God. Not real. There was never anything, nor anyone, there. I try to tell myself this, but . . .
“You know what they are?”
“No.”
“Alkaloids that come from poisonous plants. More to the point, they are psychotropic in effect. Were you experimenting? Tripping? Maybe an accidental overdose?”
I shake my head as vigorously as I can manage. In my long-gone experimental days, no bad trip came close to these horrors.
“You would have to have ingested two or three different toxic plant species to show these results. Do you know how that happened? Do you grow your own vegetables? Pick mushrooms in the woods?”
I shake my head, thinking, She should see the contents of my fridge. Like Dad, who, having experienced hedgerow food as a child, embraced processed food with evangelical fervor, I know that natural is not always better.
She makes a note.
“Strange. Ergotamine . . . Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“Its more common name is ergot.”
This doesn’t mean a whole lot more to me. She seems enlivened by the whole thing. From my point of view, I don’t see that it’s that exciting.
“Ergot is a fungus that grows on cereals. Where fungicides are not used, it can still occur, especially in wet summers—like now. But there probably hasn’t been a case of ergot poisoning in this country since the Middle Ages!”
She leans back, beaming.
“So you are a very rare case.”
“Thank you.”
“LSD is a man-made derivative. Perhaps some people still use ergot to get high. Is that what you did?”
“No.”
“No idea how you could have ingested it?”
“No.”
I say no, but, of course, I have begun to form an idea.
“Will it go . . . Will I recover?”
“There is every reason to hope so. The picture is quite complex . . .The paralysis is unusual, although there are documented cases of ergot poisoning causing paralysis and hallucination. Some people think that cases of bewitchment in the Middle Ages were due to eating bread contaminated with ergot. Perhaps every case. You’re very lucky. All of these compounds can be fatal.”
“Will I remember what happened?”
“We’ll have to wait and see. But with scopolamine poisoning, memory loss is often permanent.”
“Is that a fungus, too?”
“No. It comes from plants of the datura family.
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