Alistair Caligari // WATTY'S 2018 LONGLIST

VI: MISSING (unedited)

It's said that drive and passion resemble fire. They rage onward, burning through everything in their path--leaving destruction in their wake but always leaning forwards into new and better things. They tended to scold those nearest them, but protect themselves. It left friends and family and simple bystanders in the dust and the ash of the aftermath. Alistair Caligari possessed neither, and yet both at the same time. He had a principle, that drove him. He had a belief, one he was passionate about. Yet, he would claim to have neither. He would insist that drive, and passion, were both inherent to Human nature. One is passionate about what one needs to live, whilst the species is driven by the requirement to survive. In claiming to have neither, you did not live nor survive. In claiming to have neither, you were simply being. That was what Alistair wanted. He just wanted to be. In being, he could do what he wished uninhibited. He could do what he had to, what he needed to do. In his opinion, what everyone should be doing yet were far too afraid to try. Ford knew, though, that behind every action of his, still was the basis of drive, at the very least. He simply knew what it was that the Human race needed, and set out to provide that under the guise that they could not help themselves. Maybe, underneath the psychological defects, Alistair was nothing more than a helper. A man who, despite all of his claims, merely wanted to help and to be useful. There were many like that, many people who only felt worth the air they breathed if they were bending over backwards for another. A martyr complex. Alistair didn't have that, though, if that was the case he'd make sacrifices of his own accord. He would jump at every and any opportunity to destroy what he was for another individual. He merely helped where he saw it was necessary, or where another requested it of him. Because of that, people saw him as selfish. Why? Because he never noticed the small things. He could never hope to see the trees for the forest, his eyes focused always upon the bigger picture. Humanity needed help, but his friend, his next door neighbour, his teachers, and his family did not. They were capable of helping themselves. Thus, he paid them no heed. That mindset, Alistair's focus on the "greater good" was a safety defect. Never once did he think about those around him, above those that he did not know. Like everyone was a stranger. He wasn't worried about the damage that he could cause to them, so long as that damage may help the larger population in the future. This conclusion was something that Ford drew whilst scanning through pages of reports and news articles for the 16th of March 2108.

That date, specifically, was a turning point within Alistair's life. That was the last day, until very recently, that the scientist had ever been easily noticeable by the public. The reports, displayed as holograms of various colours in front of Ford's eyes as he sat in his living room, made this very clear. Photographs of the fire accompanied by words and thoughts from editors and publishers screamed from the pages. On the desk before him, he'd found various physical copies of the reports, though there were very few of them. It had been a long while since paper formats had been used, and it'd taken him a long time to be allowed to access these from the few libraries. They were very careful about what they let people hold, now that books and newspapers were the equivalent of renaissance art. There were other articles he hadn't been allowed to touch. He had only been allowed to look, under supervision from the librarian. There were things about the event that hadn't added up. From what he had read, though only a couple of people died in the fire, many more had been injured. That included people in sections of the building where the fire had never touched. There were mentions of conspiracies, that maybe the fire had been intentional, that maybe it had been some sort of attack plan that had failed. People had questioned whether Alistair had fled the scene not because he was guilty, but because he knew the "truth." Whatever that truth may have been lay with his patient and only with his patient. With a sigh, he pushed all of the papers back into the folder he'd broken them out from, and switched off the device displaying the digital copies to him. It was early, far too early to be digging into the past. Ford had made sure to do so, though, in preparation for later. He knew eventually the subject would have to be discussed, since it was obviously a pivotal point in his patient's life. He wasn't sure, though, if Alistair was ready to talk about it. It was the one thing, out of all that Alistair had experienced and been through, that had changed everything. His life, his livelihood, his education, his future. He had disappeared for so many years and simply to avoid reprimand. Or to perhaps avoid something else. Now that they'd found him, he'd still managed to skirt around trial and law simply due to his mental health and situation. Everything had been postponed, simply for the sake of making sure he was right of mind to start with. Yet, the longer he spent within the hospital, the more it seemed as though punishment was a long way off.