Diagnosis

Now it all makes sense.

My name was being called. Again.

After a few seconds delay, my ears awoke to the fact, conferred in panic amongst themselves and admitted as much to my brain. There was a good measure of embarrassment all round.

To be fair, it was my official name, which was only ever heard under particular, less common circumstances, so perhaps my laggardly senses could be forgiven. It was never used by family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances or even regular strangers—this was the name uttered by bureaucrats and functionaries, officials and professionals, reserved for waiting rooms, interminable queues and unyielding plastic chairs. This name echoed through bank branches and municipal halls, departure gates and reception areas. As soon as I entered these domains, this other persona became attached to me, but only tenuously. It would not stick fast by itself; I tried to hold onto it, but it was terribly difficult. It remained slippery and forgettable, though through no fault of its own—it had become tarnished by its surroundings, by its exclusive use in these places of boredom, which infused those innocent syllables with their own mundane characters. Occasionally, they brought a degree of irritation, trepidation or impatience, but always boredom, boredom, boredom. Stand by. This name’s turn could be next—or never. Why was the awaited thing—whatever it was—not long over already? I yearned to become my other self again, somewhere out there in the world with everybody else, doing literally anything other than this, finally free.

I sometimes wonder what the people in these places make of me and my apparent ambivalence towards my real name. Perhaps I am an imposter? In the end, though, despite my hesitation when called, together we decide to overlook any doubts about my suitability for essaying the role of myself. Nobody would falsely assume an identity with an air of such incompetence—unless his act had been thus prepared with a deliberate, meticulous care. Well, in that case, he surely deserved to have a chance of prolonging the pretence. Up I stood and followed the doctor into his examination room.

‘How are you?’ the doctor asked, as he reached his desk. He indicated that I should take the seat opposite, as he settled into his own, to await my response.

‘Fine, thank you,’ I lied politely, doing as I was told.

There was a pause, as we both stared at each other. If only this had been some random encounter in a corridor—we would have passed each other by now, the interaction over, thoughts already returned to our separate business. The lie would have stood and that would have been that. Instead, we had to consider our next moves.

‘What seems to be the trouble?’ he persisted. Fair play. There was no way that I would be able to deflect such a dogged interrogator, I realised. I admitted defeat and tried to start talking about why I was there.

‘It… I…’ I floundered in pronouns, not quite knowing how to begin.

‘Take you time,’ he smiled, professionally. He turned away from me to face his anachronistically bulky computer monitor, to save me the embarrassment of direct eye contact or perhaps because the unseen screen was displaying something rather more interesting than my face.

‘I seem to be having these… mood swings,’ I managed to confess. As I spoke, his hands reached for the keyboard and one or two fingers began clattering away on its keys. Each worn and letterless plastic brick, tiny blocky counterparts to the monitor, all should have been decommissioned in the decade before last.

I began to wonder whether he was actually typing anything or whether he was simply moved to underscore my monologue with some light percussion. He nodded or murmured every now and again, hopefully to demonstrate that he understood what I was saying, rather than simply revelling in the vibe produced by our little duet.

My semi-improvised speech touched on random moments of emotion. I became choked as I described tears that had flowed for no reason, all of a sudden, unbidden and unearned. He began nodding more emphatically, bringing our act to its conclusion with some triumphant keystrokes, taking over the lead as my words began to trail off and then completely failed.

‘It is a classic case,’ he said to himself, as if reviewing our performance. Silence followed as, before making any further pronouncement, he appeared to reconsider his notes to be sure. (Alternatively, perhaps his completed crossword or whatever other hidden accomplishment adorned his screen needed some further admiration). With not unkindly finality, he eventually turned his focus back to me.

‘My good fellow, I am afraid that you are soft.’

‘Soft?’ I asked.

‘Soft,’ he repeated. ‘Clinically soft,’ he added, in a helpful, clarifying tone.

Despite his intonation, this was not especially helpful nor did it clarify anything very much in my mind. Faced with a blank look, he could see that some additional explanation was required.

‘Everyone can become a little sentimental from time to time. That is totally normal—perhaps even acceptable nowadays—but such emotions are ordinarily quite controllable. However, some people are hypersensitive to their effects, so much so that they can become quite useless—total blubbering wrecks, to use a technical term.’

I frowned. Setting aside the fact that this very much did not sound like a technical medical term, his diagnosis did not align with my vision of myself at all. I had always been regarded—by myself and, I thought, by others—as a level-headed, sensible sort of chap. I would never allow myself to become too moved by anything. My emotional amplitude was decorously suppressed, so as neither to swell too high nor dip too low. Moderation was the way. It was far more seemly to be underjoyed than overjoyed; the same philosophy also applied to every other possible feeling. No, this man was surely mistaken.

‘I want a second opinion,’ I blurted out. Under the circumstances, it is what the patient would say on television, probably. I was confused by the whole situation and had searched my memory for somebody else’s script to help me out.

He shook his head sadly at this cliché. Not another one, he was probably thinking. Instead of indulging my outburst with words, he opened one of the drawers of his desk and had a good rummage around. The clattering sounds spoke of various scopes, meters and probes, but hammers, clamps, screws and ever more elaborate torture devices took their places in my imagination as he continued his search, which lasted slightly longer than felt necessary for the size of the drawer. He seemed to be enjoying the suspense.

Eventually, he pulled out a pack of cards, with the hint of a flourish. The box was plain on one side and entirely covered in illegible fine print on the other. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he deftly slipped out the deck and looked through the cards, secretively, withdrawing a dozen or so, which were returned to their home. He hesitated, his eyes flicking up to me briefly with a calculating gaze, then he went through the deck again, reducing the stock yet further. The next set of removals were neatly squared and the pile was placed aside, not yet into the box; they were held in reserve, just in case. The rest he fanned out across the surface of the desk—face down, of course. The arc bent invitingly towards me. Pick a card, it said.

‘Pick a card,’ the doctor urged in agreement, leaning forward slightly himself to observe my actions.

I obliged, choosing one from near the centre of the arc, sliding it towards my side of the desk, still face down. The back was a drab grey, with only a thin white border for decoration. It gave nothing away.

‘You may turn it over, whenever ready,’ the doctor prompted.

I did so. It was the three of clubs (my least favourite suit). The value stood in the upper left- and lower right-hand corners, but there were no matching pips in the middle. Instead, the majority of the card was taken up by a photograph.

‘Aw!’ I clapped a hand to my mouth, a subconscious attempt to suppress this even more involuntary exclamation. The picture became blurry all of a sudden. I blinked a few times until some clarity returned. There, in the centre, was a concentrated bundle of bright yellow adorableness. It was the sweetest little duckling that ever there was. It was just so fluffy! I blinked again to clear my vision, which had begun to swim alarmingly. I yearned to hold it in my hands, to caress those delicately soft feathers, to protect and to nurture it. We could become the best of friends, this duckling and I.

I tore my eyes away. Giving yet another ambiguous nod to the results of this first round of the test, the doctor reached forward, flipped over the duckling and swept it gently aside. I watched it go, reluctantly.

He gestured to the spread of available cards, bidding me to take my next turn. I scanned them carefully, attempting unsuccessfully to find one that spoke to me. I made a choice at random, then waited for permission to reveal its nature.

It was the six of spades (my favourite suit), but I barely registered that. I had a couple of clear seconds to stare at the image. It depicted a beautiful woman, wearing an irresistible expression—she was beaming beatifically, playing with a laughing child, whose eyes were alight with the purest joy. This was all that I could discern before my view was washed away by tears; I completely broke down and began sobbing uncontrollably. They were just so heartbreakingly happy! I was moved by their love beyond all reason. I could not have wept more if I had been a bereaved husband and father, confronted with the last picture of his family taken before their untimely death in a tragic car accident. What on earth was wrong with me?

After some habitual nodding, which I sensed rather than saw, the doctor gathered up all of the cards, including the unneeded reserves, and stowed them safely back in box and drawer. The test was already over.

‘I have never seen such a reaction to a six before,’ he stated. ‘The diagnosis is incontrovertible.’

I was in no position to controvert him. He was plainly correct and, besides, I was still too busy sobbing all over the place.

‘Normal people can tolerate at least a ten without falling to pieces. If I had shown you any of the face cards, it would have been incredibly dangerous. An ace would have probably been fatal—your heart would almost certainly have burst!’ He smiled, as if to indicate that this could have been a joke, but I very much believed him.

Gradually, the sobbing subsided into sniffling and I regained some control of myself.

‘But… I used to be so… stoic?’ It was supposed to be a statement, but my unsteady voice began to doubt itself and ended the sentence with interrogative confusion. Perhaps it had never been true… had I always been like this, but just never realised? No, surely some emotional equilibrium had broken, because I would have remembered suffering such sentimental overreactions before… right? This crisis of identity seemed to require a dramatic explanation, yet I was unable to recall any especially traumatic event that could have provoked the change. ‘What… what happened?’

‘Who can say?’ the doctor mused. ‘These things can often manifest later in life, although nobody quite knows the cause. A viral infection, perhaps? Some autoimmune reaction? The literature is divided on the subject. There is undoubtedly some underlying inherited susceptibility, but genetics is not predestiny. Some people can go through their entire lives at risk, without ever developing clinical symptoms; they are simply lucky enough never to encounter the stimulus that would trigger such a response.’

I mulled this over. It seemed decidedly unfair and somewhat bathetic that this could have been a side effect of a mild cold, something that might have barely registered at the time, but its legacy had been to throw my life into disarray.

‘Doctor, what can I do?’ I pleaded, hoping for some miraculous conclusion to our encounter or at least some sleight of hand, a placebo that could offer the illusion of a cure that, by belief in its magic, might become the very thing it was pretending to be.

‘There is no easy way to say this,’ he began—but I interrupted with alarm.

‘Is it terminal?’ I asked anxiously.

He answered me with a frown. ‘Of course not! Pull yourself together.’ He left a stern pause. ‘So long as you do not encounter any aces.’ He was making fun of me. Or trying cheer me up. I could not tell.

‘Nevertheless, I was going to say that I am afraid that it is entirely incurable. Now, that is not to say that you cannot exist quite happily, even thrive, with this condition, but only if you accept the truth of the situation: you will be clinically soft for the rest of your life.’

I hung my head in shame as this judgment was passed.

‘You can only hope to manage the symptoms.’

He pushed a box of tissues towards me. I seemed to be crying again.