Jon Mueller

This short story by Jon Mueller was originally published as text accompaniment to the release “flor” by Telelcognac. Since it’s long been unavailable, we’re reprinting it here and hope you enjoy the read.

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Last Tuesday, my friend and I went out for lunch. He is a fairly successful psychiatrist that I met during college when I was getting my certification to teach elementary school. Being a teacher now, I’m not quite as successful as my friend, but we still get along tremendously well. In fact, when we do have lunch, which is about once a month, we never really even talk about our jobs at all.

Things were different on Tuesday though. We proceeded through our normal small talk about his family and what we did over the weekend but this time he seemed impatient with this discussion, like he wanted to talk about something else. More specifically, it was as if there were something very important that he wanted to tell me. Sensing this, I asked him if there was something the matter. “No,” he replied. Then, still looking directly at me, he began to tell me about one of his patients.

“He’s new,” my doctor friend said. “He called me up last week, saying he got my number out of the phone book, and that he needed to see me. Actually, the way he referred to his request for a visit was rather peculiar. He said he needed to ‘tell me something.’ Though this statement seemed odd, the sound of his voice was calm, and his request for a visit to my office was cordial, so I set up an appointment with him.”

My friend then explained, “when the man arrived for his appointment, he seemed relieved, as if just by being there he had already half resolved his issue. He took a seat and almost immediately began talking.”

The patient then described to my doctor friend, “I’m a telephone repair man. One day I received a call from a man. His voice was choppy, only certain words came through the line. Fortunately I was able to piece together who he was and where he was calling from. The man ran a small tea house on the far side of town and obviously he was having some trouble with his telephone. Gathering the small amount of information that I could, I headed over there immediately.”

“When I arrived,” the patient continued, “I approached the front counter of the cafe and asked for the owner.”

“He’s in the other room,” the woman at the counter answered, “down the hall and to your left.”

“I thanked her and then proceeded down the hall to where the man was, ready to help him with his problem. When I found the room, the man was sitting behind a desk. He almost immediately began talking, but to my surprise, his voice was exactly the same as it had been on the telephone. Only certain words came through. It was like listening to a song while picking up and setting down the turntable needle in various spots. I stood there silent, listening to his voice go from a staccato telegraph noise into an even more bizarre series of mere bits of words; letters, syllables, and sounds of no language whatsoever. At this point I became terrified, not so much because of the surreal freakishness of the scene, but the feeling that he was actually telling me something, though I surely couldn’t understand what,” the patient explained.

Continuing on, the patient said, “without much further involvement, I fled the cafe, and upon driving home, arriving there, going to sleep, going to work, having dinner, or doing anything at all since the episode, I cannot rid myself of the feeling I had in that back office. This, doctor, is why I came to see you.”

For a moment, my friend the doctor sat puzzled, staring at the patient. Then ironically, the patient thanked my friend for his time and left the room almost as swiftly and now seemingly as strangely as he entered it.

Because of this, it is now the case that my doctor friend feels somewhat troubled. He states that he feels something is getting to him, or perhaps even being pulled from him. Any other attempts at an explanation of his feelings is frustrating to him, and equally as confusing to the person listening. What he adamantly insists though is that at night, during the day, in the shower, at breakfast, in his car, at work, or any time and place for that matter, he has the unsettling feeling that something has been told to him, somehow. What makes matters worse is that he really cannot describe just what it is that has been communicated to him. All he is aware of is that it consumes him every second of his existence. That feeling, just as his patient felt in the back office of the cafe, is becoming more and more unshakable, which is why he wanted to meet me for lunch and talk.

Of course, I didn’t know what to tell him. Not that a response is even what he was seeking. From this point on, lunch seemed odd. Returning to small talk felt awkward, so I quickly ate what was on my plate, made an excuse about an appointment and was on my way back to school.

After the children in my class had returned from lunch, I stood at the front of the room urging them to not waste time taking their seats, as I was eager to begin the afternoon lesson. After they all had settled down in their chairs, focusing their attention on me, I looked out over the room, into all of their faces and stares, and suddenly my mind went blank; the afternoon lesson being completely dissolved, seeming as if there never even were a lesson to have been forgotten. Ashamedly, I looked at their expressions of immediacy and stood there for what seemed like years in silence, for I had absolutely no idea what to tell them.

©1999 Jon Mueller