Flowers for Algernon

As I walked, the ridiculous words drummed themselves into my head over and over again, rising to the rhythm of a buzzing noise: Three blind mice… three blind mice, See how they runl See how they run! They all run after the farmer’s wife, She cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a sight in your life, As three… blind… mice?

I tried to shut it out of my ears, but I couldn’t, and once when I turned to look back at the house and the porch, I saw the face of a boy, staring at me, his cheek pressed against the window pane.

PROGRESS REPORT 17

October 3-Downhill. Thoughts of suicide to stop it all now while I am still in control and aware of the world 193 around me. But then I think of Charlie waiting at the window. His life is not mine to throw away. I’ve just borrowed it for a while, and now I’m being asked to return it.

I must remember I’m the only person this ever happened to. As long as I can, I’ve got to keep putting down my thoughts and feelings. These progress reports are Charlie Gordon’s contribution to mankind. I have become edgy and irritable. Having fights with people in the building about playing the hi-fi set late at night. I’ve been doing that a lot since I’ve stopped playing the piano. It isn’t right to keep it going all hours, but I do it to keep myself awake. I know I should sleep, but I begrudge every second of waking time. It’s not just because of the nightmares; it’s because I’m afraid of letting go.

I tell myself there’ll be time enough to sleep later, when it’s dark. Mr. Vernor in the apartment below never used to complain, but now he’s always banging on the pipes or on the ceiling of his apartment so that I hear the pounding beneath my feet. I ignored it at first, but last night he came up in his bathrobe. We quarreled, and I slammed the door in his face. An hour later he was back with a policeman who told me I couldn’t play records that loudly at 4 A. M. The smile on Vernor’s face so enraged me that it was all I could do to keep from hitting him. When they left I smashed all the records and the machine. I’ve been kidding myself anyway. I don’t really like that kind of music any more.

October 4-Strangest therapy session I ever had. Strauss was upset. It was something he hadn’t expected either.

What happened-I don’t dare call it a memory-was a psychic experience or a hallucination. I won’t attempt to explain or interpret it, but will only record what happened.

I was touchy when I came into his office, but he pretended not to notice. I lay down on the couch immediately, and he, as usual, took his seat to one side and a little behind me-just out of sight-and waited for me to begin the ritual of pouring out all the accumulated poisons of the mind.

I peered back at him over my head. He looked tired, and flabby, and somehow he reminded me of Matt sitting on his barber’s chair waiting for customers. I told Strauss of the association and he nodded and waited. “Are you waiting for customers?” I asked. “You ought to have this couch designed like a barber’s chair. Then when you want free association, you could stretch your patient out the way the barber does to lather up his customer, and when the fifty minutes are up, you could tilt the chair forward again and hand him a mirror so he can see what he looks like on the outside after you’ve shaved his ego.”

He said nothing, and while I felt ashamed at the way I was abusing him, I couldn’t stop. “Then your patient could come in at each session and say, `A little off the top of my anxiety, please,’ or `Don’t trim the super-ego too close, if you don’t mind,’ or he might even come in for an egg shampoo-I mean, ego shampoo. Aha1 Did you notice that slip of the tongue, doctor? Make a note of it. I said I wanted an egg shampoo instead of an ego sham poo. Egg… ego… close, aren’t they? Does that mean I want to be washed clean of my sins? Reborn? Is it baptism symbolism? Or are we shaving too close? Does an idiot have an id?”

I waited for a reaction, but he just shifted in his chair. “Are you awake?” I asked. “I’m listening, Charlie.”

“Only listening? Don’t you ever get angry?”

“Why do you want me to be angry with you?” I sighed. “Stolid Strauss: unmovable. I’ll tell you something. I’m sick and tired of coming here. What’s the sense of therapy any more? You know as well as I do what’s going to happen.”

“But I think you don’t want to stop,” he said. “You want to go on with it, don’t you?”

“It’s stupid. A waste of my time and yours”