mythology.

  MINI-JACK INPUT

  Anterior insular cortex is the area of human brain that's the activity center for crazy little thing called empathy. Neuropsychiatrists are confident that there are people with unfathomable hollow space instead of that particular cortex. For example serial killers. Or me. Look at relation with my parents… let's say it's far more complex than hatred. I don't wish them bad, they are as indifferent to me as snow to an Eskimo and there is only one definite explanation. I guess all psychotics are familiar.

  "Relax yourself, lower your inner voice, calm your breath. Oh, and close your eyes in the first place".

  Wow, this office was so nice and cozy… And this chair is so warm… And this psychiatrist has such a calm voice… I could do anything for her. Even listen to her commands, which I reckoned as totally useless. I didn't remember, who and why sent me to this therapy, it was my second session and my doubts couldn't be bigger. Last thing I recollected was… that I was dreaming about some couple… But who were they? What did they look like? I had no idea...Ignorance is diss…

  Deep breaths. Clear mind. A state of peace. An intro to hypnosis. Entering into a cave. My own private Idaho beyond the pines.

  "Good, Jack. Very good."

  More breathing. More nothing. Then glimpse of white flash before my eyes. And an image appears. Then reappears. Again and again. In a loop.

  "Breath."

  Off.

  "What do you see?"

  Numbness. Trees above me. Crowns of coniferous trees. They were swinging with calm blows of wind. Their malachite color seemed malevolent against bright sky. I was laying on a hammock convinced that nothing can harm me. I felt womb-like safe. Floating in amniotic fluids. My parents were beside me. In fact, they were holding the ropes of the hammock, so I won't fall. Everything was in place.

  "What happens next?"

  Then they dropped me. They hit me on the ground. Woke me up from this hairy tale. I regained my consciousness and instantly saw their true colors. The only thing in common were our genes. Not an atom more. My witch-mother and my boor-father. They complemented one another is the worst way possible.

  Therapist noticeably inhaled, like she was waiting for this moment. She was a little afraid, and badly curious, what she'll hear.

  "What do you feel?"

  I felt that maybe two minuses are always giving plus. That I didn't belong to them, and I wanted to manifest it, but I didn't know how. That I was better than this. And most surprisingly, I utterly felt that straightforwardness of this relation is rare as blue-eyed albino. Even if it would be unpleasant as innermost circle of hell, its level of honesty is something that is beyond reach for the vast majority of children all around the world… That they aren't even close! Then I realized that there exists also my sister Alex in it, and there is a place for Hannah, not to mention my emotional juggernaut Isabella. At the moment all of them missing. I slowly began to regain consciousness.

  "Not so quick. Lay down still. Breath. Slowly. Deeply. Please. Breath. Don't move. Gently open you eyes, Jack", she confidently led me by the hand through awakening process. I squinted.

  "Huh, that was… exhilarating", my feelings could be only compared to lucid dreams flying. Absolute sense of the body, peaceful reconciliation with the world… It is amazing.

  My therapist was silently scribbling something on her tablet. She finished thought, arose her blond head and stared at me with warmness. "I think it's over for today."

  "What did you observed? What did I speak?", she really wanted to leave me with nothing?!

  "I still have only brief notes. This therapy isn't over. I need more material", yup, she really was trying to jump the shark.

  "I'm ready for another session", I was confident, and it threw her off the balance, "I won't leave with nothing".

  "Jack…"

  "Jack my ass!", I shouted in despair, but my voice collapsed in the throat,

  "…Close your eyes".

  I listened without any further objections. This time visions were vivid and almost instant. They were waiting for me like an exhibit to come and see. Touching was forbidden by any means! I felt like a child when it is stepping inside a circus, that has just arrived in town. What attractions are hiding under this snazzy big top tent? What will happen now? Will I cry again when the clown shows up?

  Before me, there aroused closed door in the white crumbled wall. I came closer and tried to peek through the keyhole, but all I saw were two misty silhouettes sitting on a sofa in a some kind of club. I looked closer and what I saw was disgusting. Big hairy boar was laying on some blonde woman and clearly doing frictional moves. She was relaxed with her arms loosely hanging from the bend. I heavily vomited onto the door. After few calming breathes, I prised open my only obstacle and waltzed in. Everything was now technicolorful and seemed alive, but what I felt was that I couldn't be seen. I was like a hidden observer in a video game waiting to be respawned somewhere on the map. I could only watch. Let's roll.

  I recognized that one of those characters on the sofa was young incarceration of my father. His slim silhouette (as I recall, two years from now, he wouldn't have know that "torso" mean anymore, he would be that fat) didn't resembled himself at all. Who was sitting there must have been his alter ego or rather archenemy. Unfortunately other details didn't leave any place to wonder. I will always remember his tight eyes (like squinting Chinese) and wide smile that opened many so laps throughout his lifetime. Not to mention his oval, pale, vampiresque face, which was coquettishly turned to the woman he was chatting with. Could it be…?

  "How is your mother?", my therapist asked this question in the most crucial moment possible and abruptly knocked me out from strange vision of my parents' rendezvous. I was grateful, since I don't want to have anything to do with that insane woman.

  "Luckily, I didn't have time to eye her. What a relief".

  "Why do you fear them?", I sat in astonishment silent while she continued, "I turned out that you think that there is a curse hanging above waiting to drop on you. That your childhood was a Roswell-like mystery, something classified, but there isn't any proof of it. You made up this story only in your head, because the real causes are just too ordinary for you to bear them. You're not average, but you aren't also special in a Walt Lloyd way. It won't be easy and I don't have magic serum for this, but get used to it. That's for bad news.", her smile would make stone blossom, "Todays exercises should eliminate or at least greatly minimize the sway that your parents had over you. I diagnose that this toxic influence won't be bothering you anymore. That's everything for now. Your therapist is adjourned.", her last comment hint came with a happy wink.

  Suddenly I got a inner feeling that everything is going to be okay. My therapist leaned towards me and her blond her intimately surrounded me like clouds on the sky right before the storm.

  "Next time we will talk about those dream of yours".

  Good night. And in case I don't see ya, good luck.

  MÁS CHRIS

  "Maybe a beard?" - he thought - "Around my bird". The topic of hairstyles which Christopher Treehorn has planned to wear on the soonest red carpet meeting was with him as long as he remembers. Mr Treehorn doesn't have many memories from his childhood, and most of them blurred, but he could easily describe his career with the slightest details awakened in the middle of the night. Thankfully, because in the spare time he was slowly trying to write an autobiography. "It will be the thickest bad-ass book ever!", such bright ideas were born in the place where exaggeration meets aggro. Christopher was one of a kind. Meanwhile, in the less indifferent place of the Borough…

  The awakenings became harder and harder.

  I crawled out from a total blackout.

  Have I passed out?

  What have just happened?

  What the hell was that white flash?

  And above all, what the fuck?

  I felt like I was torn into the middle of a storm, but my thoughts were spinning around one thing. Only work matter
ed at the moment. This project was so important that it stole my dream time, decreased it to the absolute minimum. This film just had to happen and it was mainly my role to do the magic and pin famous British actor Christopher Treehorn to it. I heard he is a total pain in the ass, so I told myself I'd better find some painkillers. Little sleep caused many health problems, but the biggest of them was my partial amnesia - my memory contained every detail about the film, actors and payments, but the rest of my life was in the fog of war. Fortunately I remembered where I live. "No time to think, have to act" - one of few sane thoughts was quickly vacuumed by my brain - "What's next to do?".

  "Simply, what have to be done? Concentrate, Jack", my inner voice was taking control over this ship, I could sight with relief, "You've heard that he is a jackass, a jerk, a total motherfucker, yet there must be a way to get to him. He's just a star, for god's sake".

  I knew I had a meeting at the University in two hours, but didn't prepare at all. "How can I overcome it? Will I succeed?", and then a thought struck me like a terrorist. Hard. To the point. With bewilderment.

  "If I want to be an equal partner for Chris, it's high time to stop asking questions. Even more, no more statements, what to do next. I don't plan how to shit, negotiation with him should't be different". In time my passion of nailing it down turned to