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nickpappasauthor-blog · 7 years

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The Day Marcus Ryser Went Around the Bend

The day was May 27, 2009, when Marcus Ryser was officially “around the bend.” He called me that day in a state of unmitigated panic and despair. It appeared that some sort of obscure mania was prickling at his mind, and while we communicated – a brief yet illuminating conversation – he disclosed to me his troubles through a mixture of stifled groans and uninterrupted dialogue, a total reversal from his everyday behavior, which had me severely perturbed.

When I answered his phone call, the first thing he said to me was this: “I’ve got bad business going on in the brain, Nicholas. I can’t decipher whether the entity that I’m in contact with is benign or evil. They’ve been forwarding me cryptic information for 12 consecutive hours. The transmissions are causing me great fatigue, yet I can’t tune it out. And my fear of all fears is that I may succumb to an eternal torpor.”

“Did you talk to God?” I asked him.

“I don’t know… Could be an oracle. Could be epilepsy.”

“Stay calm – I’ll be right over.”

It was cold that night, and the breeze was invasive. But the brisk air was the least of my worries. Marcus was withdrawing from reality: and soon he would be gone for good.

My mind was paralyzed by the revelation of Marcus going mad. He was a close friend – a friend that I would regret to lose. And despite the obvious symptoms that a man of a feeble and convivial nature could produce, I would’ve never suspected Marcus to suffer such a breakdown. Moreover, I couldn’t bear thought that his sanity had begun to debilitate, and so, out of pretext, I fancied that perhaps Marcus was a medium – yes, a medium. Performing seances. I.e., an acceptable psychotic.

I had arrived at Marcus’ home. While under the unruly impression that my every action had to be carried out with the utmost prudence, I decided to bypass the formalities of “front-door-knocking” and “doorbell-ringing.” Instead, I became an intruder, committing a home invasion: the front door was unlocked. Next, I searched for him, frantically. Where is he? I thought with despair. Shadows loomed and the rooms were ominous. Stillness. Seclusion.

This was unnatural.

“Marcus!” I hollered.

“Who goes there?” rasped a familiar voice.

I turned around and saw Marcus lying on the floor in a heap. Going over to him, I gingerly raised him up from the floor, placing him down on the nearby leather chair. Scrutinizing him, I noticed that his hair was matted down from having his head pressed against the floor. What was also glaringly unhealthy about him was his rather pallid skin, and a pair of eyes that were as vacant as the eternal void. But not another moment later I understood what was going on–

Marcus was undergoing religiosity.

“What’s the first thing,” I said, “that pops into your mind, Marcus?”

And he answered back with a rapid sequence of words, like a machine spitting out a transcript: “Delphic Mysteries. Dancing Gentiles. Draconian Nightmares. Symbolical Ceremonies. Before me now is the definitive heralding of Palestine and the Kingdom of Modernism. Judeo-Christian parables cross-referenced with monotheistic scriptures. The Gnostics; the material creator. But what intrigues me the most is the Eye in the Sky; he can be quite evasive…”

Marcus concluded his verbal musings, and thereupon I gazed at him quizzically, traces of incredulity emerging from my inner conscience. Warily, I said to him, “Can you, humble Marcus, confirm your connection with what is, ostensibly, a connection with the divine? Was there an apparatus or spirit involved, such as a ‘time machine,’ or even, perhaps, the ‘Holy Spirit’? Are you oscillating between separate matrices? Have you taken any narcotics in the past 24 hours?”

“I’ve been administered phenobarbital.”

“Was it a potent dosage?”

“Yes; an ample quantity was described as ‘adequate’ by my examiner.”

“An examiner?”

“Yes; he’s very affable. But anyhow, the effects of the drug have been nullified by you know who.” He twitched faintly, then added, “What’s more troubling is the fact that the nixing of such a powerful sedative by an otherworldly potentiality is hardly the apotheosis of my experience.”

It dawned on me right then that, if it were feasible to placate Marcus, it would require the taxing labors of blind indulgence and excruciating patience. But I wasn't intent on such a dangerous course. Marcus was in peril, and I had treat it that way. However, it's never easy to tell someone they're crazy.

Suddenly, I was very nervous, engulfed by angst. Then I decided that perhaps I should keep on improvising:

“Who or whom,” I said, “has been transmitting the information?”

This seemed to have caught Marcus off guard. “His surname eludes me. Allow me an interval of cogitation.” Marcus bent his head, furrowed his brow. Tiny dots of perspiration were manifested on his neck and cheeks. A desolate expression took shape in his features: there were traces of frankness, disillusion, and mild discomfort, much like a man who’s been jilted at the altar on the day of his wedding. His face was already tattered, which could be attributed to the lethargy he was experiencing; but those droopy eyes alone were perhaps the most convincing indicator of a haggard image. After more than enough time had passed, Marcus finally said, “The man responsible for the transmissions abides by a title known as ‘The Master of Enigma.’”

“What does he look like?” I asked gravely.

“He’s a foppish gentleman – very presentable.”

“Go on.”

“Well…he performed it in a rather bawdy manner. It was quite perverse, to be frank.”

“Give me an example.”

“Er… Ok.” Marcus thought for a moment, then said, “At one point, he may have compared the descending of the Shekinah Glory to that of a ‘sexual awakening,’ as if Christ himself was aroused – in an erotic manner – by his own spiritual prestige in the abode of the Lord.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” I blurted out in a display of mild contempt, committing a faux pas. But Marcus was heedless of my tactless conduct – heedless of everything, for that matter.

“Furthermore,” Marcus went on, “the foppish man made it abundantly known that he expatiates his sins at the ‘Purgatory Palace’; he calls it a ‘stable gig.’ I suppose that, from what I can interpret, the confessing of his depravity is part of a comedy routine.” He suddenly looked at me severely and, somewhat abruptly, said, “What do you make of this, Nicholas?”

An acute sense of dread poured over me. What was Marcus talking about? It all chalked up to nonsense, like a religious crank who prattles on about the contrasting nature of God’s will. It only strengthened my conviction of his sickness.

Yet I continued to dither between alternatives. My instincts betrayed me. What would it take to make Marcus aware of his illness?

But then, quite unexpectedly, Marcus sprang up from and, in a spell of renegade terror, upended the leather chair. He ran into the next room, which served a sanctuary for his philosophical dissections. I made chase for him – I couldn’t let the madman out of my sight.

I entered the room, and before me was an arrangement of textbooks and literature of manifold persuasions. Marcus was retrieving a volume from a shelf on the far side of the room–

“What you got there?” I asked him uneasily.

“My exegesis,” he responded. “Give it a once over” – and he handed it to me.

I opened the exegesis to a random page. Then I turned the page over. I repeated this process. Soon I was leafing through the exegesis. And then it occurred to me: the contents of the exegesis were nothing but esoteric hyperbole. Not a single word could I understand. There was a plethora of sophisticated and theological terms, such as: intra-loquacious dictum, extraterrestrial meta-sapiens, the Unholy Heretical Messiah, etc. It was all beyond my wits.

“I can’t discern any of this,” I said drearily.

“Why not?” Marcus was thoroughly disgruntled.

“It’s too prolix, Marcus.”

“Pshaw,” said Marcus as he snatched the exegesis from me. “You need more spiritual training.” He consulted the exegesis, determined to sway my sympathy in his favor. A diminutive yet luminescent twinkle could be observed in his eyes, uncompromising in its quasi-shimmer. He glared at me – a skeptical expression – and said, “Answer me this, Nicholas: are you an authority of the Humbug Regime? It would break my heart if I were to uncover your dastardly motives.”

“I’m on your side, Marcus.” But I sensed that I was beginning to lose him.

Marcus grunted, evidently dissatisfied with me. But at least he was rational enough to grasp my deception. That was an encouraging sign. However, I wasn’t sure what my next move would be. I felt like an impostor. There simply wasn’t a healthy way to break the news of his condition.

“Marcus,” I intoned, “What other unusual, autonomous phenomena have you been experiencing?

“What do you mean by ‘autonomous phenomena’?”

“Well, suppose that – and I’m just throwing this out there – there are things happening outside of your own awareness, such as catatonia. Or somnambulism, perhaps.”

“Somnambulism?” Marcus found the implication of sleepwalking to be preposterous. “What are you getting at, Nicholas?”

“There's no cause to be disconcerted, Marcus,” I said to him calmly. “This is an informal inquiry. Think of me as a scientist: I'm merely extrapolating.”

“I'm not making this stuff up, Nicholas. I've been inaugurated into a higher divinity via God’s Wisdom.” He pointed at my face, as if I had committed a heinous crime. “I’ve got a firm grasp on what I perceive, and you can't convince me otherwise."

“If you believe me to be throwing dust in your eyes, you are greatly mistaken, Marcus. I interpret your findings with the utmost sensitivity.” But what I said just now was a bold-faced lie. Marcus was a total nutbag; and now, more than before, I was adamant in securing him the proper care.

“Have you not been listening to me, Nicholas? I know secrets – secrets that'll strip our world of all that is mundane.”

“What do you mean?”

Marcus blinked. “You know… Paradise, Elysium, the Firmament. We can undercut reality.”

I was beginning to feel numb and desensitized. The walls were receding and the ceiling caved in. Weightlessness was abounding. This is what happens when you must hurt someone close to you: reality loses its verisimilitude. As I continued to lapse into stupefied remorse, I thought: Why did my friend – of all the people in the world! – have to lose his mind?

I presently said, “You’re in a bad way, Marcus. I can help you.”

Marcus was silent as he brooded over the developing quandary. And in that instant, there was a fundamental change: his presence was suddenly bereft of human qualities. Listless and alien were the descriptive terms that represented the deportment of Marcus Ryser.

But then another change had incurred. There was some squirming and writhing. Bleakness was swaddling him like a blanket. It appeared that I had gotten through to him, but he seemed to be experiencing an anti-catharsis. Equilibrium: shattered.

Marcus spoke: “I can’t believe it…”

I spoke back: “Don’t believe what?”

“You’re a…”

“I’m – what?”

“You’re the Quotidian Monster! You’ve been masquerading!”

“I don’t know what that means, Marcus!”

“Animus! Animus!” Marcus’ head snapped back violently. He clutched his right eye in a frenzy of disturbing apprehension. “Those are the sirens I hear!”

“Get a grip on yourself, Marcus!”

Still heedless of his crumbling sanity (somehow), Marcus made a break for the hallway. I promptly followed after him.

In mid-retreat, he yelled at me: “I had an intuition that you were an agent of the Evil and Villainy! When will the bloodletting ever end!” He turned the corner towards a remote section of his home.

“Marcus!” I shouted back, turning the same corner.

“Godless heathen!”

“Marcus!”

“Don’t make me hurt myself!” He entered a bedroom at the far end of the hallway…

…I, too, had entered the bedroom. “Marcus!”

And he jumped out the window.

A second later I heard a dull thud from outside. The sound itself had a macabre effect on me: Horror began to set in. I was weak and scared. The shock wouldn’t go away, so I waited it out. Time crept along. Then, staving off enough of my fears, I inched my way over to the window. And when I peered out of the aperture, and saw Marcus, inert, unstirred, sprawled out on the ground like a sack of wasteful flesh, I nearly lost it. However, I was able suppress most of my most erratic emotions, albeit with great struggle.

Panic has its catalysts. Things can go wrong at any moment. God inflicted harm on my dear friend – where’s the predestination in that? But I shouldn’t be mad at an impersonal Deity. Some of us are more vulnerable to cosmic condemnation than others.

The good news was that Marcus survived the fall, but not without an aftermath, and a stigma to boot: mental illness. He would go through life with obstacles too daunting to overcome. There would even be a pivotal juncture in his life where the mounting pressures of psychological disorder and excess medication would nearly push over the edge and induce him to take his own life.

Don’t worry. He’s still alive right now.

I vividly remember the moment when the paramedics arrived. There I was, demoralized and mad at universe for manufacturing such a travesty – a distortion of all that was, at one point, unadulterated. I could barely look at Marcus. I cried, plaintively.

And as they were wheeling Marcus away on a stretcher, the little wretch turned to me and said, “Nicholas, Nicholas.” He looked me square in the eyes. “Promise me that you will contact the Master of Enigma and inform him that I found his veiled assertion that Christ had masturbated to the thought of divine prophecy to be a rather penetrating witticism.”

“Absolutely, Marcus. Absolutely.”

I watched as Marcus went away, for good. He’ll be in and out of hospitals until it’s no longer “in and out” but merely “in.” I lost my friend, and from that moment on my poignant thoughts would never cease.

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