Flowers for Algernon

And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t remember what I had to say. All missing. “That’s a woman.. “ I said, “… on her knees washing the floors. I mean-no-it’s a man holding a knife.” And even as I said it, I knew what I was saying and I switched away and started off in another direction. “Two figures tugging at something… like a doll… and each one is pulling so it looks as if they’re going to 200 tear it apart and-no!- I mean it’s two faces staring at each other through the window, and—”

I swept the cards off the table and got up. “No more tests. I don’t want to take any more tests.”

“All right, Charlie. We’ll stop for today.”

“Not just for today. I’m not coming back here any more. Whatever there is left in me that you need, you can get from the progress reports. I’m through running the maze. I’m not a guinea pig any more. I’ve done enough. I want to be left alone now.”

“All right, Charlie. I understand.”

“No, you don’t understand because it isn’t happening to you, and no one can understand but me. I don’t blame you. You’ve got your job to do, and your Ph. D. to get, and-oh, yes, don’t tell me, I know you’re in this largely out of love of humanity, but still you’ve got your life to live and we don’t happen to belong on the same level. I passed your floor on the way up, and now I’m passing it on the way down, and I don’t think I’ll be taking this elevator again. So let’s just say good-bye here and now.”

“Don’t you think you should talk to Dr.—”

“Say good-bye to everyone for me, will you? I don’t feel like facing any of them again.”

Before he could say any more or try to stop me, I was out of the lab, and I caught the elevator down and out of Beekman for the last time.

October 7-Strauss tried to see me again this morning, but I wouldn’t open the door. I want to be left to myself now.

It’s a strange sensation to pick up a book you read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover you don’t remember it. I recall how wonderful I thought Milton was. When I picked up Paradise Lost I could only remember it was about Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge, but now I couldn’t make sense of it.

I stood up and closed my eyes and saw Charliemyself-six or seven years old, sitting at the dinner table with a schoolbook, learning to read, saying the words over and over with my mother sitting beside him, beside me…

“Try it again.” 201 “See Jack. See lack run. See lack see.”

“Nol Not See Jack see! It’s Run Jack run!” Pointing with her rough-scrubbed finger.

“See Jack. See Jack run. Run Jack see.”

“No! You’re not trying. Do it again!” Do it again… do it again… do it again… “Leave the boy alone. You’ve got him terrified.”

“He’s got to learn. He’s too lazy to concentrate.” Run Jack run… run Jack run… run Jack run… run Jack run.. “He’s slower than the other children. Give him time.”

“He’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with him. Just lazy. I’ll beat it into him until he learns.”

Run Jack run… run Jack run… run Jack run… run Jack run… And then looking up from the table, it seems to me I saw myself, through Charlie’s eyes, holding Paradise Lost, and I realized I was breaking the binding with the pressure of both hands as if I wanted to tear the book in half. I broke the back of it, ripped out a handful of pages, and flung them and the book across the room to the corner where the broken records were. I let it lay there and its torn white tongues were laughing because I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

I’ve got to try to hold onto some of the things I’ve learned. Please, God, don’t take it all away.

October 10-Usually at night I go out for walks, wander around the city. I don’t know why. To see faces, I guess. Last night I couldn’t remember where I lived. A policeman took me home. I have the strange feeling that this has all happened to me before-a long time ago. I don’t want to write it down, but I keep reminding myself that I’m the only one in the world who can describe what happens when it goes this way.

Instead of walking I was floating through space, not clear and sharp, but with a gray film over everything. I know what’s happening to me, but there is nothing I can do about it. I walk, or just stand on the sidewalk and watch people go by. Some of them look at me, and some of them don’t but nobody says anything to me — except one night a man came up and asked if I wanted a girl. He took me to a place. He wanted ten dollars first and I gave it to him, but he never came back.

And then I remembered what a fool I was.

October 11-When I came into my apartment this morning, I found Alice there, asleep on the couch. Everything was cleaned up, and at first I thought I was in the wrong apartment, but then I saw she hadn’t touched the smashed records or the torn books or the sheet music in the corner of the room. The floor creaked and she woke up and looked at me. “Hi,” she laughed. “Some night owl.”

“Not an owl. More of a dodo. A dumb dodo. How’d you get in here?”