A Greek God In Harlem (12 page)

She always got a jab of pain in her forehead whenever she woke up but she didn't remember telling that to anyone. They were just random headaches after all.

She shrugged the bizarre message off and placed the phone back down on the counter, forgetting that she had wanted to call Percy.

So Eric wants to come down to visit huh? She rolled her eyes and went through his clothes which were still in her closet. 

She had never touched them since he had left and they were collecting dust. She started to remove them one by one, dusting them off.

That's when she saw it. The wad of newspaper clippings and papers.

She hadn't seen
this
before. She started to go through the documents and what she saw, was... 
mind numbing
.

THE NEW YORK TIMES- WEEKEND EDITION

Gods, Monsters and Brains

By Scott Thompson

3
^rd
February 2010

Tanya Whitford proves that the rare condition known as 'mental hysteria' can attack even the most intellectual of beings.

She was a successful, bright Literature teacher at a prestigious school in Harlem. Her students loved and admired her. Perhaps that is why they decided to go along with her treatment.

It was a sunny day and Ms Whitford was flipping through a Reader's Digest entitled
 
Perseus
 
in a bookstore, when suddenly shots were fired from outside. Apparently, those shots were meant for a notorious drug dealer. However, Ms Whitford was the innocent bystander caught in the crossfire.

Abdul, the shopkeeper remembers, "The glass shattered and the next thing I know, this beautiful customer of mine is laying on the floor, a stream of blood seeping from her head. I called the paramedics but had to do something fast... by the time they came, she had lost a significant amount of blood... I was only happy she had made it..."
 

When the bullet was dislodged from Ms Whitford's brain the next day, the damage caused was already visible. She had to be reminded of who she was, where she lived and where she worked...
 

But one little detail was left undealt with... her sudden obsession with Greek mythology. 'Mental hysteria' expert Dr Zarefsky explained this as an escapist mechanism that the brain used to create a fantasy for its patient. The brain had chosen to concentrate on Greek mythology because... this was the very literature she was reading when the brain's functionality had been put to a halt on that fateful day.

Dr Zarefsky assigned one of his best doctors to the case immediately, to try to pull her back to her senses. However, the fact that this doctor is Greek-American, apparently has had some bizarre repercussions that the doctors would not like to discuss.

Tanya Whitford's students may have lied to her when going along with their Greek Mythology classes, when they knew she should have been teaching Literature. They may have been lying when they smiled in her face well knowing she was a patient at a mental facility.

However, they did all of this out of pure love for their teacher, who miraculously survived a drive by shooting, only to lose her logic and start believing in gods and monsters.

By Scott Thompson for the New York Times

Chapter Eleven

Tanya's heart was beating. She dropped the newspaper disbelievingly and picked up another one. LA Times, Time Magazine, The Daily Mail in the UK, they had all reported her story a year ago. With the exact same 
details
.

She felt like she couldn't breathe. She fell back to steady herself and felt her eyes brim with tears. She opened her mouth to cry out but no sound came out.

She clutched her head and felt one of those painful migraines again. 

Then there was a knock on her door. When she didn't answer, the knocks became more frantic. She could faintly hear him... calling out her name, asking her if she was okay, asking her to open the door. 

Dr Theodosiou's voice was getting louder.
And Tanya had fallen onto her bed listening to his voice. A voice no longer soothing, but piercing and painful.

A stranger's voice. 
A doctor's voice
.

Percy tried the door handle once again but it didn't budge. And she was not letting him in. He tried calling her cell phone for the umpteenth time but she didn't pick it up.

He was panicking now. What was going on in there? Was she okay? !

Percy frantically kicked the door open and it finally did. He rushed inside...

"Do. Not. Touch. Me" Tanya said as Percy held his hand out to her still figure. She was lying on the bed facing away from him. He gulped.

He now saw all the newspaper clippings that she had been reading. Probably articles that Eric had kept in his clothes.

He sat down gently on the edge of the bed. So she had found out...

She was sniffing, sobbing silently and holding herself. After what seemed like an hour she finally spoke up

"Who 
are
 you?" she asked.

"I'm Percy," he replied, knowing that's not the answer she was looking for.

"You bastard, I asked you a simple question. Who are you and who do you work for? What do you want from me?"

"Tanya...I'm, I'm Dr Percy Theodosiou. I'm a psychologist... I was… up until today. I gave in my license."

Tanya chuckled, in a very sad kind of way.

She was still facing away from him. Still holding herself and scrunched up in a ball.

"What happened to me? Why do I get these headaches?"

"Tanya... you survived a drive by in a bookstore a year back. A bullet was dislodged from your brain," he wanted so badly to grab her hand. He felt uncomfortable talking to her like a doctor.

"I was shot in the head? And I can't even remember?!" she almost shouted. Percy didn't say anything. She continued,

"So you're a doctor that was sent to treat my... mental situation,"

"Yes." He replied curtly. He felt a wave of shame wash over him as he spotted his tie and t shirt lying in her laundry basket.

"Were you sent to sleep with me too? To bang me out of my misery?" she now turned around and faced him, tugging at his heart in the process. Her tear stained face was angry, confused, lost, scared... all at once.

"Tanya... I... I was supposed to help you get out of your Greek mythology phase," he said slowly, "I, I failed. I failed you."

Tanya was now seated up, looking at him, "How many of my students knew about this? Did the school know what you were doing?"

"Tanya," he hesitated, "all your closest students knew about me. The school gave me permission to... to pose as a teacher... everyone knew you had been shot and had survived, but not all the teachers knew about me. "

Tanya's mind thought of Aisha when he said this. She continued to ask,

"Why did you sleep with me? Why did you romance me? Was that part of the treatment too?" she asked angrily. Percy looked down shamefully. It certainly was not.

"Tanya... I was weak. And thus I was not there for you. Not in the way I should have been..."

"I want to see Eric..." she finally said.

Percy felt his heart sink. 

Tanya got up from the bed and rushed to the phone, looking for Eric's number. 

Eric's heart beat faster as he listened to Tanya's voice on the other end.

"Eric... I... I need you to come down to Harlem. I need you right now...I'm so scared and confused."

She was sobbing, he could hear it. 

He bit his lip and tried to comfort his girlfriend over the phone. This would be the perfect opportunity to see how far her treatment had gone. 

She had probably found out about the shooting and he hoped this would at least trigger her memory.

And perhaps this would be the perfect way to tell her how loyal he was, how good he was to her... just that she couldn't remember.

He would tell her how all his 'past infidelities' were just a figment of her faulty mind.

Lies, perhaps... but necessary lies. He wasn't going to let go of her that easily.

He got up from his office desk and winked at the cute blonde receptionist on his way out. She blushed at the Dominican hunk and got back to filing her nails.

Tanya practically ran towards Eric at the bus station. She fell into his embrace and he frantically kissed her forehead and cheek.