The Nirvana Plague Read Online Free

tablet several seconds. “All right, this is what I want to do. I’m going to start stepping you down from Psilobar and switch you over to another drug. In fact, I think we’ll try a less aggressive regimen for a while and see how you respond to it. However, you need to keep taking your medications every day, every dose on schedule.”
    Roger said nothing. He was looking around the room again as though he’d never seen it before. As though he didn’t quite understand what a room was .
    “Do you understand?” Marley said.
    Roger’s eyes snapped back to Marley’s. “Everything is chemistry. The whole world is chemistry. You drink too much.”
    Marley’s annoyance got the better of him. “You know what, Roger, fuck you.”
    Roger continued in an instructional tone: “The brain, is not separate from the body. The brain can’t be fixed separately from the body. This is not separate from that, and these can’t discuss this separately from that .” The way he gestured as he spoke indicated that “this” and “that” meant Roger and Marley. “It’s no mistake to see differ enc es,” Roger said, falling into a singsong rhythm, “but it’s a mistake to ignore in differences, same ness es, simi lar ities. Re al ity distracts from dreams.”
    Marley drummed his tablet impatiently. “OK, I told—”
    “—But dreams are not not real,” Roger continued. “It’s a mistake to ignore the samenesses, the overlaps. Everything merges, Dr. Marley. But nothing disappears.” Roger looked at him hard, like he was calling on him, challenging him to comprehend.
    But Marley was tired of chasing Roger’s rabbit holes. “All right. I told your wife I’d talk to her after I discussed the matter with you. I’m going to tell her we’re changing your meds. Hopefully it’ll do you some good. Now—”
    “—Do me good. Mmm.” His eyes flicked back to Marley’s, and he said slowly, overpronouncing for effect: “The mind does not mind being out of my mind now.”
    Roger went out. Marley scribbled orders into his chart and posted them. The next patient came in. One up, one down. Next, please. But Roger had gotten under his skin, and it gnawed at him all morning.

    After the morning round of interviews, Marley went back to the nurses’ station on the ward.
    Mary-Lynn was at her desk, reading his orders on her screen.
    “What about Roger?” she said.
    “What about Roger?”
    “You didn’t change his orders. What do you want to do about his non-compliance?”
    Miles was there too, drinking a cup of coffee, watching the ward.
    Marley looked out too.
    Roger was standing very still by the windows at the far end, staring out.
    “Let’s just wait and see.”
    “Wait and see what?” Mary-Lynn said.
    “See what happens. He says he doesn’t need them anymore. Let’s see if he’s right.”
    Mary-Lynn gave Marley a sarcastic look. “If he doesn’t need his meds, then what’s he doing in here in the first place?”
    Marley glanced at her, but looked away again, answering into the air: “In the first place, this isn’t the first place. This is now. Sometimes things change. Maybe this is one of those times. I want to see what happens.”
    Mary-Lynn wasn’t having any. “ You want to see what happens? Roger ends up here because he goes off his meds. Are you going to be here to help us clean up the mess?”
    “I’m sorry this is inconvenient for you, Mary-Lynn,” he answered, without a trace of compassion. “What would you suggest? Physical restraints and court-ordered medication?”
    “ Roger,” she said, twisting his name viciously, “is a voluntary, as you know very well, doctor. As a voluntary , if he doesn’t want to comply with the treatment prescribed for him, he can damn well volunteer himself out of here. Or do you think we should just let any patient who has half a mind to prescribe their own treatment regimen do so?”
    “They’ve all got half a mind, don’t they?” Miles said, not quite