Th journal

Tuesday 01 1947

The patient sits across the room on the same leather chair. His hands squeeze the end of the arms leaving scratches in the cheap italian leather. I watch as he switches from his left leg to his right, rigorously shaking them vibrating the grey stained carpet beneath. His muscles clench as tendons threaten to release their hold on him with every question that is asked. Yet he never breaks his stare-the painfully blue-silver eyes to mine. As if he is studying me instead of the other way around. I accept his challenge-never wavering my gaze from his- like I’m being sucked into this abyss that I don’t want to escape from. He fascinates me. The sense of hope that he carries, even now, when he is trapped.

My eyes begin wander as does my imagination, as I scan his arms and his chest. No scars from what I can see only tattoos. One on his arm and one hidden beneath his shirt that teases me as is flows from his neck to god knows where. His eyes follow mine then ease away studying all heavily guarded exits, as if by some miracle, the officers would disappear leaving only us and his impending escape. Pulling myself from my thoughts I remember why it is that I am here. “I will ask you once more boy.” I say as I pretend to write down “helpful” things that I have noticed this past hour. I look up from my book back to his abyss and resume my questions. “Are you boy, a homosexual?” No response.

Not that I expected any different, but I wait still. Hoping that he will answer so that I may skip this irrefutable madness that is required of me. Yet his silence continues, only furthering the inevitable scene that is to replace his silence with screams. When he smirks and spits on to my face. Why? Why would he force me to go to such lengths in order to force the answer out of his plump pink lips? I wipe my my face, ensuring that only a neutral expression is being displayed instead of weak, rendering emotion. I force a laugh, “You shouldn’t have done that boy.” I snarl. And then, with a wave of my hand the horror continues. His whole body trembles as he succumbs to the pain he tried so hard to prepare for, but failed to do so. The electricity flows from the chair to his legs then biceps then eyes. As his pupils begin to roll until all you see is white. And after a respectable amount of time the shock ceases. I force a sigh of annoyance as I gesture for the guards to collect his unconscious body from the now melted chair. What a beautiful man he is, even when bloody unconscious by my own doing.

Tuesday 08 1947

The doctor hasn’t come to collect me yet. And I find myself surprised by my own twisted excitement (if you could call it that). Which leaves me to ponder about the doctor and his own inquiries towards the subject at hand. My imprisonment. In this sad sack of a cell they call a dorm. I am to be “healed”- as they put it- from my inormaties. My “gross indecency” according to the doctor, has lead me to this predicament I am to forced to accept as a reality. But am I to believe that I, a homosexual 32 year old man, am invalid and corrupt in my own thinking a beliefs. As one man once questioned, though I cannot seem to remember whom, “ Just because something thinks differently than you, does that mean it’s not thinking?”

I find this to fit my exact situation, as I reside in a two-hundred square feet room with no windows and only one door with a man who is approximately one hundred and ninety-five centimeters and weights around one hundred and thirteen kilograms. I am, what one may call a locus in clean water, a place where I do not belong. The doctor sneaks it’s way back into my mind as I begin to think of its place here. From the way doc closely studies me, I find myself curious about the drive behind those circle glasses that are used to hide behind as much as they are used to see immensely. The way those eyes scan every centimeter of my body always sends a shiver through my spin, which I disguise as an after shock from those “therapy” methods.

The ways it’s lips are small but plump with a slight curve whenever writing down in that old haggardly journal. Or the way it’s well toned body sticks to the fabric exposing raw, pulsing muscle. Those beautiful eyes behind circular glasses. Those eyes that hide many secrets in attempt to bury them, but not fast enough to escape my stare. It fascinates me, though I have no room to be in fixation of anything. I should see the thing that tortures me for an hour trying to accuse me of being a homosexual (which I am) in order to heal the bond that I have lost with their God. I can’t help but laugh. There have been many cases in which the prey falls for their predator only to be killed in the end.Yet I have learned nothing from others mistakes. But am I such a fool to fall through the cracks of my emotion and slip through the mirror of insanity?

Tuesday 08 1947

As I walk to the patient's room I find myself thinking of him again in an unholy matter. What am I thinking? I am his doctor, his “healer”. What gives me the right to fall for a man I barely know. A man who’ve I’ve hurt and punished for a “sin” in which I do not believe is a sin. Whom I have let down in more ways than one. One who I have… loved. For many years now I have loved him. For many years now I have tried to “fix” a man I do not believe needs “fixing”. I crave to wrap my arms around him once more and press my lips unto his. To remove the thin fabric that separates our two figures from becoming one shadow. Oh how much I crave him only to hurt him instead. I find myself dizzy as my thoughts settle and as reality seeps in.

I am in a mental facility. Where I am the predator and he my prey. I, his sword and him my shield. Yet I question if I am hurting him more than protecting him. I am saving him from years in a prison cell with inmates who would beat and rape him, yet I lock him in a prison of my own creating. I save him from beatings, but I electrocute him every Tuesday. I am almost there. Almost there. I am almost...where? Almost to my beloved or my victim? Almost to my heart or my weakness? To whom am I running off two in the middle of the night? A lad who is to be executed if I do not fix? Or a wanker who does not know when to give up and confess to a sin he has not committed? Being a homosexual is not a sin but a blessing, one that is worth all the electrocution in the world if only to see his face again. I am here.

“Robert” I whisper, “Robert I am entering your chambers now, so please back away from the door.” I grab my keys from the left pocket of my jumper. The first key in the ring of many. The most important out of many. I slowly ease my way into Robert’s chambers to find him sitting on his bed staring where a window should be. “Well hello doctor, what might bring you here this fine evening?” he says still facing the invisible window. The silence unbearable. I have experienced quite enough silence from him in the morning that I just can’t stand it in the evening when he is in such close proximity. “I am here to “heal” you some more my boy.” I respond teasingly. I begin to move forward when he stops me with a raise of his hand. Here, here he is in control of me. Here I am his prey and he is my predator. Here, he is free. “You know doc. I once heard that those whom you imagine nothing of will go on to do the things that no one can imagine.” Robert rises from his bed, and heads towards the walls, brushing the bumps of the concrete. He laughs, “You are one no one imagines to love a man such as myself, yet here you are. Doing something that no one would ever imagine you doing. Does that not frighten you?” And only then does he look at me. His eyes filled with tears.

His tears surprise me. In all the years of torture, in all his years of pain, I have not once seen him cry. Not even for a second. I walks towards him, without any intention of stopping no matter his orders and embrace him. “I am only frightened to live a future in which you do not exist in.” He cries.

Wednesday 09 1948

“Doctor Mathews, you are being accused of Gross Indecency, how do you plead?” The whole room looks at me and I at them. “I plead bloody guilty your honor. I plead guilty of loving a man named Robert, who was the most amazing homosapien you would ever meet. I plead guilty, your honor, in having relations with said man every night after treating his wounds in which I personally inflicted. And now is my time to repent. Now is my time to pay for all of the misdeed I had shown him. So yes your honor, I plead guilty. But not of “Gross Indecency”. No sir, I plead guilty of falling in love with a man I was not able to protect.” The jury is quiet, and I am satisfied. As a beautiful man once told me, “ Those whom you imagine nothing of will go on to do the things that no one can imagine”(The Imitation Game).