HALLUCINATING IN BLACK AND WHITE The Sequel

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FOLLOW-UP REPORT

At eighteen months, Maja’s kitchen was located inside the flowering column. The refrigerator contained milk, three pears, and a small weather system confined to the vegetable drawer.

The attending physician declined coffee.

He had learned something from the examination room.

INTERVAL HISTORY

Maja reported sleeping well. The filaments behind her ears now reached the upper balconies, where they opened into pale structures resembling trumpets.

They produced no sound.

Nevertheless, residents downstream had begun remembering music from before they were born.

“Any discomfort?” the physician asked.

“The postman won’t come up the path.”

The physician looked outside. A creature with eleven eyes was sitting on the postman’s bicycle.

NEW FINDINGS

The colony’s perimeter had expanded overnight to include a railway station demolished in 1963.

Trains arrived without passengers. Their windows reflected occupied compartments.

Maja recognised her mother in the second carriage.

Her mother was twenty-seven and holding a paper bag of plums.

Maja ran beside the train until the platform ended. Afterwards, she sat on a suitcase for most of the afternoon.

The physician recorded an episode of exertional distress.

He crossed it out.

ENVIRONMENTAL OBSERVATIONS

The growth favoured unfinished things: letters never posted, interrupted conversations, buildings whose staircases had been removed.

A biopsy taken from the kitchen wall contained a complete sentence.

Maja refused permission for its publication.

SECONDARY CASE

The physician’s first symptom was a white root emerging from his fountain pen.

His second was the return of a particular Thursday.

He had spent forty years trying to forget that Thursday. Now it waited in the consulting room wearing his father’s coat.

He missed two appointments.

Maja found him beneath the arch, holding his unopened medical bag.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

He nodded.

She sat beside him. The little organisms gathered at a respectful distance, though one climbed into the bag and fell asleep on the prescription pad.

REVISED ASSESSMENT

The distinction between hallucination and environment could no longer be maintained.

The physician prepared a paper. During revision, every occurrence of “the patient” changed to “Maja.”

He corrected it.

By morning, the names of his other patients had appeared.

DISPOSITION

The kitchen table was extended to accommodate two.

Outside, the railway signals glowed in shades of grey. A white flower pressed against the window, flattening its petals like a curious hand.

Maja poured the coffee.

This time he drank it.

In the vegetable drawer, the rain stopped.