MTU: Hard To Look At - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

“Medusa?” Jenny said as I stood outside her front door. “Why are you here?”

“Can I come in? I’d like to talk to you,” I said.

“Where are my manners? You can move into my room if you need to. Come in.” She lived in a larger than normal home in the wealthy part of town.

We sat down in a breakfast nook of the kitchen.

“To what do I owe the honor of my savior visiting me.”

“Please don’t refer to me as any kind of savior.”

“I owe you my life. I’m sorry. I suppose savior is a bit creepy. How’s Ross?”

“Ross is great. He just dropped me off.”

“He could have come in.”

“I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“Oh. Is it going to be unpleasant? Can we get the unpleasant part out of the way?”

“That’s up to you,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about when... when your head came off, what do you really remember about it?”

“I’ve kind of tried to block that out,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I died.”

“How do you know that?”

“You probably don’t know. You should ask Elliot or Marie about being a statue. When you’re a statue, there’s a vibe to it. I wasn’t a whole statue long but I felt a vibe to it. I could kind of understand why Marie loves it so much. It’s chill. The second my body hit the floor, that vibe disappeared. I felt cold, empty. The world became distant. The sound of you screaming and Tommy flipping out, I was vaguely aware of it. Being made of stone feeling lighthearted disappeared. It was dull. Final. I was gone. I felt like my life was spilling out me, perhaps how it would feel for your blood to gush out of you. I don’t know. Why?” I didn’t reply and she said something quietly, “Is it about the animal statues?”

“You know about that?”

“Butterbuttons the cat belonged to my aunt. I’ve seen the statue a few times. Never again. I can’t go back into the room where she has it on display.”

“I’m so…”

“Don’t be sorry. Her precious Bee Bee Cat was so old. My aunt is so proud that she was able to do this to the cat. Did you really make all that money?”

“It all gets donated to an animal shelter as charity. I don’t see a dime from doing that. Neither does Dr. Hauser. I couldn’t.”

“I have to ask again. Why?”

“I have a strong suspicion that someone’s going to ask me to do it to them.”

“To a person?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want to tell them the experience isn’t as pleasant as your normal ability?”

“Exactly. Anything to discourage the idea.”

“This person must be really sick if they would put you in this spot.”

“Or they don’t know what they are asking me.”

“Oh. Probably not. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You already helped. I’m sorry I brought up what happened that day.”

“It’s no big deal.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. And she ended up filling the awkward silence.

“I relive it in my dreams every night,” Jenny said. “No, no. No sorries. I’m working on it with my therapist. It’s better to relive it every night than to not live at all.” After a moment she said, “Can I get you a beverage?”

I asked for a soda. When she returned to the table she had the biggest smile on her face. “Guess who I’m dating.”

“Who?”

“Pete.”

“My friend Pete?”

“Yes. He was actually a very good dancer. And he had me laughing the whole time I spent with him.” She spoke for almost an hour about a guy I thought I knew but apparently Pete was much deeper than I ever knew.

Way to go, Pete.

* * *

“You’re giving me everything I want?” I said.

“Sure. Why not?”

“Because artists don’t get this kind of break usually.”

Gillian O’Malley and I were in her office at the back of her gallery. She had invited me in to look around and get a feel for the space. She hoped it would help inspire me to finish the clay statues so she could sell them. Though it was an office, it had a nook with comfortable chairs and a sofa. She was on the sofa and I was in one of the chairs.

“If that makes you one of the lucky ones, so be it. You’ll get to show off your clay sculptures, which I’m still not sure how to price. I don’t want to make them too expensive. But I want to be sure you get a good profit out of them. And your friend gets to be a statue any time she wants. I’ll set up a little display like it’s performance art and sometimes the performer is unavailable. Any time you want to set her up, you just let my assistant know and they’ll be sure the gallery is available to the two of you.”

“Why are you really doing this?”

“I understand this is unusual and you’re right to wonder at my motives. I just want you to be happy.”

“How long do you have?”

“Have?”

“You have some kind of cancer, I think. How long do you have?”

“A few months. How did you know?”

“I won’t do it.”

“I haven’t even asked.” In hindsight, I wish I had noticed how crestfallen she had appeared when she said this.

“No, you’re buttering me up first.”

“Is that what you see?”

“Is it an invalid assumption?”

She was going to defend herself but stopped. “No, I suppose it isn’t. I’m so… I suppose apologizing sounds like part of some kind of pitch if you already think this is a pitch. Okay. I give up. I won’t ask.”

“And no show, no performance art gallery.”

“Oh, no, none of that changes. In fact, since you know I’m dying, I’ll also tell you about my will. Part of the charter of the gallery and trust I’m setting up to run it will require that you can use the gallery any time you want.”

“Why?”

“I like you. More importantly, I wanted someone who would care about me and remember me to look after the statue I was hoping to leave behind. I never had children. And my brother’s kids are completely uncultured. I can’t leave them a gallery. The trust already has provisions that allow you to decide your role in the gallery. You can be as hand-on or off as you’d like. Originally I was going to just set up a trust for some scholarships, still am. But knowing I can leave it the gallery to a local artist makes it even better.”

“We haven’t spent much time together. I’m only seventeen. Do I want to run an art gallery for the rest of my life? Will I still be sculpting when I get married? It’s all so sudden.”

“So is stage four cancer when you don’t catch it sooner.” She was looking at me funny and I wasn’t sure why until her head drooped and she started to weep. “I’m so sorry. You’re just a kid. I shouldn’t be dumping stuff like this on you. As I said, you can use the gallery like it was your own. My assistant will contact you in a few days with details. You don’t have work with me. I should never have even considered it.” She got up and poked her head out of the room. “Arturo?”

“You don’t…”

“Yes, Ma’am?” Arturo said. He was a man in his twenties, her assistant.

“Arturo, this is Medusa. I’ve already told you about her. I’m leaving for the day. Help her out with anything she needs before she leaves.”

“Of course, Ma’am.”

“It was good to see you again, Medusa. I’m sorry I tried to dump my burden on you.”

I was so overwhelmed I forgot Arturo was there.

“Do you really turn people to stone?” Arturo asked.

“Yes. Lasts about an hour normally.”

“Forgive my being forward about this. Gillian is an amazing woman. When she told me about you and what she hoped to have you do, I thought you had warped her perceptions somehow in order to steal the gallery. But, I was eavesdropping just now. You had no idea. I’m sorry I thought the worst of you without even knowing you.”

“You didn’t have to tell me any this.”

“No. I didn’t. But I think I should. I also think I should ask you to do what she said she would not ask. She told you she has months but as I understand it, she only has a few weeks. She stopped chemo a few months ago when she wasn’t responding to it. She only has hair now because she’s good friends with someone who has a hair growth trick.”

* * *

“I’ve decided I want to help her. But I believe euthanasia is illegal. I’m not willing to go to jail to help her. What should I do?”

Five minutes into my telling the tale, Dr. Parker stopped me and invited Dr. Lewis and Dr. Adelaide into his office. Five minutes later, they stopped me again and asked if they could schedule a meeting with a few more people. Daddy came in and asked who those other people would be.

“We know a few politicians and judges,” Dr. Parker said. “Whether or not Medusa decides to assist Miss O’Malley, we think a legal decision should be reached about the concept in general.”

A few weeks later, we were in a meeting room at town hall with the mayor, the city council, several state level politicians, a circuit court judge, Gillian, her physicians, her lawyers, the doctors from the clinic, the clinic’s lawyers, my parents, my lawyer, me, various town hall staffers, and several people I still don’t know what their affiliations were.

Before the meeting, I met with my lawyer, Lionel Barber, alone for the first time. He asked me one question and I answered him: was I willing to kill someone? We then discussed how I would proceed if I were asked.

I thought the graduation ceremony was boring. It was a Mardi Gras event compared to this. That was until the lawyer from the clinic stood up.

“While it may be unusual for doctors from the Spiral Clinic to provide medical treatment for someone, such as Miss O’Malley, who is not twisted, we believe we have a solution to the problem that will work for everyone represented here.”

“I’m all ears,” the mayor said. He had not been happy to be blindsided by a case for or against euthanasia in an election year.

“It has been medically proven that the trick possessed by Miss Medusa Harrison is a Darrington Field phenomenon that induces a suspended-animation-like state in living beings. It has been medically proven that this state is reversible. It is therefore, the recommendation of Dr. Lewis and Dr. Adelaide of the Spiral Clinic that Miss O’Malley could be placed into this suspended-animation state for medical purposes. At the moment, only Miss Harrison is capable of doing this. And she would only do this under the supervision of our medically trained staff. We would be able to study this phenomenon and perhaps someday reproduce it without the assistance of Miss Harrison.”

A murmur rose among those in attendance. Gillian looked to be on the verge of tears. After a few more hours of back and forth, the judge was willing to sign a court order permitting the use of this suspended-animation technique on Gillian. The state senator was going to attempt to make a state law endorsing the technique. That would take more time than Gillian had left.

As the meeting was about to adjourn, my lawyer, who hadn’t said anything during the meeting stood up. “If I may, Lionel Barber, counsel for Medusa Harrison,” he said. “This is a wonderful outcome for people who believe euthanasia is a human right. There is just one thing that hasn’t been addressed here. No one has asked my client if she is willing to kill someone.”

“That’s rather blunt,” someone said.

“Dead is dead. Murder is illegal. There are circumstances were killing is condoned. But, no one is forced to kill. All of this is for naught if my client is unwilling to do it. And no one has asked her. What happens a year from now when someone goes to the Clinic and asks to receive this wondrous new ‘medical procedure’? What happens when someone behind a court bench orders the ‘medical procedure’ to be performed under penalty of contempt changes?”

“No one would ever do…”

Lionel slammed his fist on the table. “Never say the words, ‘No one would ever do something to your client.’ There is always someone who is willing to do what we think is unthinkable. What protections does this minor, this minor child have that she will never be conscripted to euthanize someone against her will?”