The Storyteller of Pain discussion

The Storyteller of Pain BY Loren Molloy
Chapter 1
“Don’t you see I am a map of scars? Under this skin, under this flesh, a book of scars tells the story of my life. I’m like a patchwork quilt but nothing so pretty or so neat. Each scar is a story. Each story leads to another scar and another story. The story is never complete. It will never be complete. I am the Storyteller of Pain.”
“That’s nice Mrs. DelaCour, but I asked you how you slept last night.” The psychiatrist looked at the woman sitting in the chair across from her.
Mrs. DelaCour was mid-forties, came from a good family and was dropped off at the sanitarium 3 nights ago. The family was powerful and wealthy. They simply couldn’t afford to be seen with a lunatic for a family member, so they signed her over to the sanitarium for safe keeping. Mrs. DelaCour had repeated the same thing to any question she was asked. ‘Don’t you see I am a map of scars?’
Dr. SinClair had been head psychiatrist there for the last 7 years. In all those years she had never been so puzzled as she has been with Mrs. DelaCour. The history given showed neither signs for hysteria nor any psychosis. No signs of trauma or abuse seemed present. She has had patients who rambled things plenty of times before. She’s even had patients who just seemed to crack one day and never return.
This was different. Lilian had never felt this before. She knew she shouldn’t base things on her feelings or emotions but she never felt like this before with a patient. Lilian had been in rooms with murderers, rapists, and mad men alike but she was never scared, only fascinated and professional. Delia DelaCour was different. Lilian couldn’t explain it but the moment Delia spoke, Lilian had goose bumps appear on her flesh and a chill flew up her spine.
Delia’s eyes looked dead. Her voice sounded empty, cold,
and raspy. The only word she could think was "haunted".
It was a look of horror, of seeing too much for the mind to handle, a nightmare that would never stop replaying before the person’s eyes. Waking or asleep made no difference. Mrs. DelaCour was stuck in an endless loop of horror. Whatever she saw, whatever happened to her, it was bad, very bad. Her skin was pasty, pale, and clammy. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, fear-ridden, and yet somehow looked dead and lifeless at the same time.
Mrs. DelaCour seemed like a marionette that only came alive when it was time to say her little speech. She was like a pull-toy with only one message. Ask a question and an invisible hand pulled an invisible cord somewhere deep inside her and suddenly she had lifelike movements and speech. When her message finished its recording, she would go back to a lifeless looking marionette. It was disturbing to say the least. All Dr. SinClair could think was, what could make a person become like that?
This had been their first therapy session since the intake when she was admitted. It was the standard 48 hour observation in confinement. It was during that time the staff decided it would be best for Mrs. DelaCour to stay in confined quarters indefinitely.
The next morning after Mrs. DelaCour arrived, the staff had told Lilian that putting that woman in with general population would be a terrible idea. Anything other than confined quarters would be detrimental to the rest of the patients and would become a dangerous situation for everyone involved.
Dr. SinClair asked what brought them to this conclusion so quickly. She was told by the head nurse that the moment they put Mrs. DelaCour into Observation, the patients in the rooms around her began to get extremely agitated, and violent towards themselves. The fear was palpable and the screams were deafening. It wasn't until they removed the rest of the patients, one by one into different rooms away from Mrs. DelaCour, that the patients settled down at all.
Delia, herself, didn't move from the spot on the cot they placed her on at all. She just sat there, not moving a muscle, except to speak her message over and over again.
When they checked on her in the morning, she was still in the same spot, same position saying the same thing. Delia never slept, not once in that time. It baffled Dr. SinClair to hear of such extreme reactions from the other patients without Delia needing to do anything to stir them up.
Dr. SinClair just stared at her patient for several moments. It had now been three days and Delia had still not slept. The Veronal milligrams had been upped for the third time in three days. If this Barbital medication doesn’t work to knock Delia into slumberland, then she would be the first person in the hospital’s history to not have this medicine work. It’s what all the patients at Danvers Lunatic Asylum are given at bedtime.
Once, they had to up the dose for one of the male patients but he was 6’7” tall and weighed almost 350 pounds. Upping his dosage only made sense; the right milligrams for the person’s weight. Mrs. DelaCour was not by any means a massive individual and five times the recommended dosage was unheard of. Lilian prayed this time it worked because otherwise she wasn’t sure what medicine to prescribe for sleep that would actually work for her.
Delia just sat there motionless staring at Lilian. The feeling was very unnerving to say the least. Chills of fear ran up and down Lilian’s body. She now understood completely why the staff and other patients felt so fearful of this woman. A sickening lump of ice was forming in Lilian’s stomach.
No matter the question she asked, Delia would begin her same monologue. It was very frustrating to Dr. SinClair. She even tried letting Delia finish her whole message and then asked, ‘But why are you suddenly the storyteller of pain?”
The reply was the very same speech started all over again. Never a word was chosen differently than the time before. It seemed to be a memorized speech, one that seemed to delete all other information from her being. It was just so frustrating! It was like a recording with only one message. 'Where did the rest of the recording go? Where did Delia go if this is all that’s left?' Lilian thought. Delia certainly was acting extremely dysfunctional. As for her lack of sleep, if they can’t find something that will knock her out, her health will become seriously endangered.
Finally, her appointment with Delia was over. Lilian learned nothing new about Delia nor did she learn anything new about the woman’s pathology. How does a high class woman like Mrs. DelaCour go from a radiant light and sheer delight in social circles to this “pull toy”?
At first Lilian thought it could have been caused by a delayed nervous breakdown after hearing the news that Delia’s husband died overseas. Alas, that couldn’t be the case. As it turned out, it happened over a year and a half ago. The family said she grieved for many months before showing her face again in society. She seemed to be in relatively good spirits after the grieving process was over. It also wouldn’t explain her bizarre behavior. A loss of a loved one has never caused this kind of reaction from someone.
Lilian felt completely stumped by this case. Her meeting with Delia didn’t illuminate the situation at all. The feelings she got from Delia weren’t normal either. Lilian in fact didn’t feel like herself after the meeting. Pure fear flooded her system throughout the whole meeting. It took all Lilian’s strength not to show her fear to her patient.
She was truly grateful when the session was finally over and a nurse came and took Mrs. DelaCour back to her room. Now that Lilian was alone, she felt sick to her stomach and had a massive migraine. She felt extremely out of sorts. Maybe it was because this case just didn’t make any logical sense. Lilian sat in her office, completely puzzled, staring out the window that overlooked the grounds.
Barkley, the night guardsmen, startled her almost out of her skin when he turned on the light in her office. She had sat there pondering what to do with this bizarre case for so long and so deeply, she didn’t notice nighttime had crept up on her. She was sitting in complete darkness.
“Holy shit Doc! You scared the crap out of me.
What are you doing sitting in pitch darkness?"

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