The Pathology of Innocence: A Prologue

“In the freedom from one thing, one becomes enslaved by another”.

He sat under a street lamp, straining his eyes reading his books of medicine, to prove everyone wrong. He wasn’t good at much else, but a world renowned Cardiologist will he become. He lived on the border of many things. Between simplicity and complexity, between light and darkness, between love and indifference, between humor and suffering, pleasure and pain, but never between success and failure. His passion for medicine was the one place he had full control, and in that space, his world of duality was rendered meaningless. They thought he wouldn’t amount to anything, but they have been wrong about a lot of things. In 1998, he was named International Man of the Year by the esteemed London Union of Cardiologists. He healed the poor for free, and had the power to make the Ministry of Health donate free medicine to those, who couldn’t afford it, just by picking up his phone. A self-made man, who was bigger than life in his work, where life was too big for him in all else. Life, eventually retaliated and swallowed him back in its womb, defeated and helpless. Maybe it only wanted to protect him. He saved millions, and no one could save him, not even from himself. Irony comes when your life’s only saviour is death. A powerful man tends to fall prey to the hungry monsters of nobodies, and under the mercy of the tyranny of gold and soul-digging woman. The last one killed him by the very medicine he used to heal the masses. They say: “The poison that kills becomes the elixir of life, when used by the wise.” But I could add: “The elixir of life can become the poison that kills when used by the vicious”. His death was pronounced natural, though nothing was natural about it. His weak body was dying slowly of massive amounts of unprescribed insulin shots and electric shocks. No one ever thinks of an autopsy without clear cut stab wounds or visible, penetrating shot-gun bullets. After all, the man was diabetic, with two brain strokes under his belt, and had newly discovered cancer in his right cheek. His heart was suffering, even though he knew all about the functioning of the heart. On his clinic wall, there hung a frame with his favourite quote: “In the body, there is a muscle; if it healed, healed the entire body, and if it ailed, ailed the entire body, and that is the Heart”. But it was his heart that killed him. He gave it to the wrong people, and sealed it away from those, who could heal it. No one thought murder. There was no reason to go looking for undetected, fatal medicine in the blood stream. Who would kill a man, who was loved by all, and even had streets named after him? Besides, he was isolated in his end years. No one knew exactly where he is, and how he lived; not even his four beloved children. They have given up trying to bring him back from the grip of a histrionic, con artist of a women, who clawed her nails into his being, and he gestured for us to stay back. But I couldn’t stand back. I grew my nails and fangs to fend off the evil that surrounded my father to the point of sick obsession. I scarred myself senseless, trying to get through, but he kept evading me. He needed to protect me by pushing me away. After all, you can’t help anyone, without their permission. But I had to help someone… Anyone! I couldn’t help myself, unless I helped the sick, the sad and the psychotic. I had to understand, and hoped through this understanding, to muster new ways to save him. There were endless opportunities to extend help. Everyone needs saving. Some would even drown you in the process, and leave you gasping for air. But I couldn’t stop until I was on the verge of collapsing. The world was disordered, and I couldn’t reason with it. I had to step back. Maybe that was the key. Maybe I had to observe the world like a Dali painting that only makes sense when you restrain yourself from getting too close. Closeness was never an option, and trust me, I tried. The scratches on every shut door could vouch for it. Through my observation, and obsessive studying of human behavior, I couldn’t help but notice how most people fall under one, if not all, the dramatic types of personality disorders. Maybe I needed to understand the intangible things that rule our existence, to better understand the tangibility of ours. I needed to touch something. Intangible ideas are created by people, who tend to describe things in their own image. From psychopathic corporations, to narcissistic gods, to histrionic politics, to borderline love and sex. From my zoomed in perception, I saw the world this way, and it started to fall into place. Yet, in this knowledge came much pain and suffering, bordering psychosis according to a very sick world that had re-baptised their most evil qualities as their best. There was no question of integration in a world obsessed with apartheid. And there was no question of sanity, in a world tainted by madness. I dealt with the excruciating fears of abandonment that life handed out like candy during halloween, and I watched the falling stars to make a pact. “Just give me back my father, and we’ll call it even.” He called me one day barely coherent or audible. He finally wanted to see me. I started packing as he was still on the phone. I asked him where he is, eager to hop on the next train anywhere. But he didn’t know where he was. He naively handed the phone to the very woman that was adamant to keep me away. She needed to kill him in silence. She hung up and turned off his phone. And I sat helplessly next to my packed bag, waiting for another call that never came. I called my fear-stricken sister to ask for that woman’s number hiding my father. She wouldn’t give me the number, but promises to take me to him three days later. Three days were too long to wait! I had to go now, but with no direction, I waited by the fork in the path, paralysed and frustrated. Thursday morning, November 14th, 2012, was too sunny for winter. I barely slept, holding on to the bag and ready to go at the mercy of my sister’s call. By midday, my phone finally rings, and I pick up saying, “I’m ready”! But my sister’s voice was cracking, telling me: “I don’t know what to tell you”. But I did. I knew he was gone. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t cry. I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. My phone rings again. It carried a message from the woman I have been looking for. I was now allowed to see my father. She was sending his body back home, lifeless. I picked up my bag, and drove. He was lying cold, wrapped up in blankets in his childhood bed that is big enough for one person. Like a helpless child, I squeezed in next to him, and held him close to my heart. I kissed him goodnight, and fell asleep, as I drowned us both in my silent tears.