Mind unravelled

A convenient coincidence

Isn't it funny how your subconsciousness knows already the truth, long before it dawns on you?

As a therapist I knew that the subconscious was to be trusted, unless its vision was blurred by mental illness, like PTSD or depression. In many therapy sessions, it had been my secret guideline, like a whisper in my ear, explaining everything the patient didn't tell me.

My subconsciousness already knew what was going on. Just like you do, but you know it because I told you this earlier. It's hard to realize that you've been time traveling, it's really not the first thing that comes to mind when you wake up in a hospital. I might have realized it sooner, if only I could have opened my eyes. But since they were swollen, I couldn't open them and had to puzzle the pieces together based on what I was hearing. At a certain point on this day, I would realize that I had been traveling exactly hundred years back in time. But for now, all I knew, was this:

I was in hospital after a terrible accident of an unknown nature, the nurses thought that I was a foreigner. there was a man sitting at my bedside, smoking a cigarette. Perhaps that puzzled me the most, smoking cigarettes in public places, especially hospitals, was forbidden. So why did nobody rebuke him? Was he of such importance that he had these kinds of privileges? Or was he so dangerous that nobody had the courage to stand up against his behavior?

The interrogation was short, but thorough. The man at my bedside wanted to know who I was, who I worked for – which I found a fairly odd question if you wanted to know what kind of job someone is doing – how I old I was, and so on. I answered them all truthfully. You might want to know these answers too, for I think I haven't properly introduced myself yet, excited as I am to tell you this tale.

I am Andrea Holland, born and raised in Silverstone, a small place somewhere between London and Birmingham. When I was 18, I left home and went to Oxford, where I studied psychology. After I finished my studies, I did some temporary jobs before I landed at West Midlands Veterans Mental Health Network, where I gave therapy to traumatized soldiers. A month after I turned twenty-seven, the university of Cambridge ask me to do research. And now, three months later, I apparently, had some kind of accident.

After I answered his questions, I decided it was my turn.

'Who are you, sir?' I asked.

He didn't answer directly. He has things to hide, I thought to myself, otherwise he wouldn't have needed time to think.

'You're not from around' he grumbled in his low voice. His answer left me a bit confused, as it was really not an answer to my question. I dropped a silence, many a time in therapy sessions people started telling me more when I didn't directly ask a new question. It was a technique most other psychologists found hard to use, cause our basic reactions is to avoid silences, for silence is awkward. But I had the advantage of being quite the introvert, which, for me, meant that I sometimes struggled to find a new question to ask and thus leaving a silence.

I heard him inhale deeply, then he went on. 'you are on the territory of the Peaky Blinders. Don't make trouble here. You'll regret it'. His calm voice was the opposite of threat he was expressing. I heard his chair slide over the floor, he got up. Slowly and weightily he walked away, then he stopped, turned around and said 'I'm Thomas Shelby'.

Then the turmoil in my head started.

NEXT: OUTSIDE