Black Pus - "Hear No Evil"

He is Patient Berg, and this is not a medical report. It's a report, but there is nothing medical about it. He has been born and he will die, that's probably the most medical thing that can be said about it.

::: He has a constant feeling of being hunted. He claims that change burns red hot in his pockets. He thinks even his clothes are out to get him. • I asked him to draw a picture of what it feels like to be scared, and he drew a man (perhaps Waldo?) with his face buried in a bowl of cereal. I looked at him, as if to ask, "Mm?"

"He puts his head down in the cereal bowl," he said.
"So he's drowning," I said.

He looked back at the picture, as if there were something new there. I believe it was only because he cannot draw faces very well. I was playing association, "Paranoia?"

"Yes. But with sparrows."
"Sparrownoia?" We laughed for a while, and it was a nice relief, but I must admit it also frightened me to commune with him like that. I asked him to write about his migraines:

...and then the chainsaws. They mow off your inner ear and you're balanced like a garberator, trying to find red hot pennies for the streetcar. It's like people are short circuits (bzzz!) and everything else is bricks. BRICKS.

"What, if anything, is positive about a migraine?"
"I'm glad it ends."
"Mm?" I said; it's my signature move.
"I'm glad it has an ending. I like the moment where I feel it end. Like the migraine says enough."

A reward for his suffering. I count the change (ice cold) in my pocket, and think: important for anyone.

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