The Nirvana Plague Read Online Free Page A

laughing.
    “Shut up, Miles.”
    Marley suppressed a smile, and finished the argument: “I am going to give Roger twenty-four hours to get his act together. You can enter your objections into his record, if you like. Now I’m leaving. Call me if anything changes.”
    After he left, Mary-Lynn said, “Yes, I will enter my objections in the records. And see if I don’t call you.”

    Later that afternoon, Miles sauntered back in from bedchecks and slung himself over a stool. “Hey, Mary-Lynn,” he said, looking out, “what do you think is going on with that?”
    Mary-Lynn looked out over her coffee cup into the ward. Roger was sitting at a table talking to two female patients — Chandra and Jeanette.
    “They’re having a conversation,” she said. “People do that.”
    Miles rolled his head toward her. “Yeah, people do. But Roger doesn’t.”
    “Maybe he’s feeling better.”
    “You think so?” Miles said. “You think maybe we should pull everyone off their meds?” She’d been grousing about Roger and Marley all day. Miles wanted to rub it in a little more.
    She mirrored his smirk back at him.
    “Don’t be a smart ass, Miles. I’ll make a note in his chart.” She picked up her keyboard and started tapping.
    “Well, I’m gonna check it out.”
    “You do that.”
    Miles went out into the ward and sauntered up to the table where the three patients were sitting in their scrubs. “Yo, you kids need a fourth?” he said, rapping the table with his knuckles and swinging a leg over the open chair.
    Jeanette blinked at him. “A fourth what?” Jeanette was another of the schizophrenics on the ward.
    “A fourth . For a game. What are we playing?”
    “We’re not, we’re not playing a game, cards.”
    Miles blasted her with a big toothy smile. “I just figure any time three people are sitting at a table they must be waiting for a fourth.”
    “A fourth what?”
    Roger interceded: “Miles is just making a joke, Jet.”
    Everyone called Jeanette Jet . Except Roger.
    “So that we won’t mind him joining us. Mmm.”
    Jeanette blinked at Roger. “Why would we mind?”
    “People think that other people don’t like them.”
    “People? People think people?”
    Roger reached and put his hand on her arm on the table. “Normal people. Different people. Mmm. Nobody knows that nobody’s normal. Everyone’s worried they’ll be discovered.”
    Miles was astonished, but he kept his expression friendly. Roger hardly ever talked to the other patients, let alone call them by their pet names. Or touch them! The Roger that Miles knew didn’t empathize. He was all shattered intellect.
    Jeanette said, “I see.”
    Roger looked back at Miles. “You don’t see.” It was an observation, not an accusation.
    Miles found himself slowly shaking his head in confirmation.
    “Don’t worry,” Roger said.
    “OK,” Miles said.
    “It’s not what is expected. But it’s not bad.”
    Miles felt a chill sweep over him. “What’s not?”
    Roger looked at him a long time, unblinking, like a scientist monitoring an experiment, or a predator watching its prey. Finally, he concluded, “No, you don’t see.”
    “See what?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Not yet what?”
    “Hard to explain,” Roger said. “Hard to say. Mmm. Easy to understand.”
    Chandra had said nothing since Miles sat down. She didn’t talk much anyway. She was a twenty-something Indian woman, a chronic psychotic who wouldn’t stay on her meds out of the hospital and was always self-destructive when she went off them. Her fine brown skin was streaked with pale self-inflicted scars.
    She’d been sitting at the table all the while, eyes cast down on the scarred backs of her hands. But now, Miles noticed, she had started humming — or something like humming. It sounded like a suppressed groan or growl.
    “How are you feeling, Chandra?” Miles said.
    She growled a little louder, but didn’t look up.
    “What’s wrong with her?” he said to Roger. It