Schizotopia: Divergency, #1

By Andy Siege

Flora is missing, and I have to find her. She won't answer my calls, and I'm terrified that she doesn't love me anymore. Maybe she's ignoring me because I'm a creep. It's probably not because she's been abducted by lizards in suits; they only exist in my paranoid delusions. Probably.

I have to warn you, I might not be the most reliable of narrators. If you come with me to look for Flora, you might help keep me sane. Or you might end up in my world instead. I warn you now, this book contains loud noises and flashing images which may upset you. It also leads down unpleasant corridors in your brain. Please read responsibly.

Written with heart and insight, this darkly comic novella delves deep into the lived experience of schizophrenia as we follow the narrator through the pulsating city of Schizotopia, where the streets are a vast neural network, the buildings are complex data stores, the flickering lights are messages shooting between synapses, and the other pedestrians are thoughts: some half-finished, others fully fleshed out, each of them unique and complicated.

At the heart of the city, in the penthouse of the Oblongata Building where the mastermind hides, lies the answer to Flora's disappearance, and—with luck and courage and the right medication—the key to bringing her home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: UpLit Press
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224383078

Book preview

43

My imagination has always been a lot more frightening than my reality. Real things have a specific color, an exact odor, a particular texture. Imaginary things have the ability to transform, to spiral out of control, to rip my brain to shreds. My most horrific injuries were always self-inflicted, when my mind created a terror out of something meaningless. Something utterly ordinary became monstrous and the only way out of the meat-grinder was to realize that it’s all in my head.

Tonight, I’m looking for my girlfriend Flora and my imagination is running wild. She won’t answer her phone and I’m picturing bad things. Maybe she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle. Or maybe she got beaten up and mugged and her phone got stolen. Or worse yet, far worse, maybe she doesn’t love me anymore and she’s ignoring my calls on purpose. Flora and I have been together for about three months, which isn’t a long time, but I’ve fallen deep deep in love. Or maybe I’ve fallen in need. I’m addicted to her presence.

I am guilty of a creepy kind of love. I know that most people get scared away by that kind of thing, so that’s probably what happened. I probably scared Flora away. The last time I saw her, she was angry at me for some reason that I don’t know. She told me that she needed to go meet someone and then she left the apartment. She must not love me anymore and is ignoring my calls on purpose.

I stare at my phone screen while it rings. In her profile picture, she has lavender hair and green eyes. Some sort of filter from some sort of app. In reality it’s the other way around and she’s got green hair and lavender eyes. Flora reminds me of a budding flower. If I knew flower names I’d tell you which one but I’m not very knowledgeable about nature. Maybe an orchid? I grew up in this fucking city and there aren’t many flowers here. No real ones anyways, just plastic poppies in dry vases at the restaurants.

Welcome to Schizotopia, aka New Vancouver. Imagine seeing the city from an airplane as you fly in. The roads are like neurons and the cars are like dopamine sending messages from your amygdala to your frontal lobe and back. The streets are full of people, like our minds are too I suppose. All the people we’ve ever thought about, their faces like petals on a slick bough. The people are our memories and our plans for the future. Too weird? I’m sorry; I get that way sometimes.

I lied to you earlier by omission. So, here’s the deal… I’m a paranoid schizophrenic, which gives the whole imagination versus reality thing a bunch more dimensions. I don’t just imagine the worst things happening. I actually believe them. I trust my imagination. It becomes real in my mind. So, when I think that the city is run by reptilian overlords, my mind goes into overdrive and fear takes over. In my reality the streets become filled with snakes in human skin, lizards in disguise, pretending to be normal people. It becomes real. Reality. Reptilians.

Ok, so I’d better not think about this too much now. I have to stop my thoughts or else I might become convinced that Flora was kidnapped by lizards in suits. Fuck, there’s a group of men in suits outside my window right now. They’re congregating at a street corner and I wonder what they’re doing. It all seems a bit suspicious. Good thing that there’s no such thing as reptilian body-snatchers. Or is there? Ok, better focus on what’s real and in my hands right now. Flora is missing and I need to find her.

I close the window and pull the drapes shut. The drapes have a green galaxy pattern on them and the sunlight shining through projects planets and moons all over my room. My room is really messy because I don’t have the strength to clean it. The effort it takes to get out of bed and start even the smallest task is just too overwhelming for me. Most days it’s like there’s a wall between me and the things I have to do. A brick wall that I’d need lots of effort to kick over. But now I have a reason to leave the house. Flora is missing and I need to find her. So, I go over to my wardrobe and pick out a green shirt. I hold it up to my nose and inhale. To my surprise it actually smells nice, like lavender. Then I remember that I had a moment of oomph last week during which I did my laundry. I throw on the shirt, some clean underwear and a pair of dirty jeans.

The hallway that I share with my flatmates is flocky with dust. The walls have scribbles all over them from parties. We like to allow our guests to draw pictures and write little messages on the walls. There’s lots of random names and penises. We’re a pretty cool group of roomies and I’d like to think that our parties are legendary. There’s always drugs although I don’t partake on account of my psychiatric illness. I used to do it all, LSD, coke, ganja, but ever since I was first hospitalized with psychosis I’ve stopped. My mind alters itself enough on its own and keeping it stable is a constant struggle.

I’ll tell you about my roommates later… maybe… if they become important to this story. I’m guessing they will, but I don’t fucking know yet. My first priority is to find Flora, so I put on my green sneakers and head out the door. I make a lot of noise as I rush down the stairway and I bet the neighbours can hear the ruckus. I reach the bottom floor and burst out onto the street. It’s early evening and the sun hangs quite low in the sky, its rays penetrating my pupils directly into my gray matter. I have a problem with sensory gating on account of my schizophrenia and it takes me a moment to fully arrive on the sidewalk. The street ambience is too loud and there’s too many colors, so I shut my eyes and take a few deep breaths.

When I open my eyes again, the first thing I notice is that the men in suits are no longer congregating at the street corner. They’ve dispersed and are walking off in different directions as if trying to pretend that they don’t know each other. I become suspicious because it seems that they might have been plotting something but then I figure that my mind isn’t working properly. Maybe the men in suits were at a wedding together. That would explain the way they were dressed. And maybe they’re on their way home now. That would explain why they are walking off in different directions. I have to constantly check my judgement so that I don’t become paranoid. It’s exhausting as fuck.

I duck my head slightly because I don’t want anyone to notice me and I walk off into the bustle of Schizotopia, aka New Vancouver, aka the worst place in the world. The first place I’ll go is the Neuron River to a spot below a bridge that Flora and I frequent when the weather is nice like today. It’s a good place to chill and we like to bring a blanket and some food. There are swans in the water and I always feed them bread. Flora is right there inside that memory. She is sitting underneath that bridge with her legs crossed and she’s smiling.

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42

I saw Flora for the first time almost exactly a year ago, while I was being treated in the mental institution. I was a new patient and she was visiting an ill girlfriend. I was locked up in ward B2 and couldn’t leave without my doctor’s express permission. You’re probably picturing the psych ward as an old-school asylum like in the horror movies with mold and feces all over the walls, but that’s wrong. Mental institutions have changed a lot in the last few decades. Patients no longer sleep in giant halls and instead share rooms with only one or two other people. The hallways are brightly lit, clean and hung with outsider art. The food isn’t bad and there’s an overall sense of dignity. I’d be lying if I said that the conditions at Saint Occipitus were perfect, but they were good.

I was given permission by my psychiatrist, Doctor Front, to walk around the hospital garden for half an hour because he figured that some fresh air would do me good. In those days my psychosis was based on the belief that the military was surveying my every move in order to recruit me for Special Forces training. I was so fucked that I even thought the sparrows were surveillance robots. I was sure that their tweeting was Morse code or something. But then I saw Flora with her green hair and lavender eyes and I forgot everything that had been torturing me.

Flora was sitting on a bench with her friend Rebecca, who had bandages around her wrists. Becky had apparently tried to kill herself recently. People don’t realize this, but depression is a real bitch, even when compared to something as debilitating as schizophrenia. Depressed people want to die. There’s one thing that unites all living beings and that’s our survival instinct. Flies have it, lions have it and people have it too. It’s at the core of our motivations… why we eat, get out of bed, procreate. But depressed people want to die. Let that sink in.

So, Flora and Becky were sitting on a bench in the hospital garden in late summer last year. I remember there was a patch of white roses framing Flora. I’m not a flower expert but I’m pretty sure they were white roses. Flora’s facial expression was serene and Becky was talking in a hushed voice. I assumed she was telling Flora about her dark thoughts. Then the girls hugged intensely and Becky began to sob. I walked past them and made eye contact with Flora. She smiled at me briefly and I immediately forgot about the military surveillance.

Later when I was back in my room up in B2 I couldn’t think about anything but that beautiful greenhead. No one obsesses like a schizophrenic obsesses. Once a thought has reached that compulsive part of our brain, it revs into overdrive and seeps into every corner of our consciousness. But now, instead of thinking about robotic bees, I was thinking about the lavender-eyed girl in the garden. I wondered who she was, what her name was, what kind of music she liked to listen to. I have to admit, I even played with myself a little as I thought about her, and I wondered how I could engage her in a conversation the next time she came to visit. I figured that there was no chance as long as Becky was with her, so I’d have to catch her while she was alone, ambush her as she left the hospital.

The next few days, whenever the psychiatrists would allow it, I’d walk around the garden searching for Flora. Waiting and searching, waiting and searching. When I was up in my room I’d stand by the window for hours, keeping an eye out over the hospital entrance. After about a week, Flora finally came back and I immediately went to get permission from Doctor Front to go for a walk. Then I headed to the exit so that I could trap the girl when she left again. I know that was creepy of me but hey,