The Missing Hour (Short Story #3)

"It wasn't me."

The Missing Hour by Adam Tuhy

The room was larger than necessary, with marble tiles that showcased a gradient of blue across the floor.

Beside The Patient, two large, rusted windows loomed as he looked outside.

Snow fell, and deep growls rumbled from the furnace beneath the windows, working overtime to combat the bitter chill of a New England February.

The door swung open, and the patient pivoted his head to see a man in a white coat enter as he polished his glasses with a cloth. It was The Doctor. He approached with a friendly smile.

“How are we today?”

The Patient composed a response he thought the doctor would approve of as he nervously rubbed his hands together.

“Good. Good. I mean, better,” The Patient said.

“Better?”

The Doctor pulled a chair out, placed his file on the table, and sat.

“Yeah—I mean. There were a few issues last month, but it seems better now.”

“You mean the blackouts?” The Doctor asked.

The Patient looked away and then back out the window; the snow was falling heavily.

“Sure. Those.” The patient fidgeted with a string from his pants, which was given to him by the institution upon his arrival.

The Doctor studied him, pressing the pen against his chin. Then, he opened the file and wrote something down.

As The Doctor scribbled, The Patient tried to peek at what he was writing from across the table, but it was too far for him to see. Furthermore, his eyesight had been deteriorating recently, an issue the institution had yet to address.

The Doctor looked up from the file.

“I’d like to talk about them.”

The Patient looked away from The Doctor, shame weighing heavily on his mind.

“I’d rather not.”

“And why is that?” The Doctor asked.

The Patient rubbed the top of his thumb until it was red and irritated.

“Because I can’t—speak to it.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed.

“You mean that you don’t remember.”

The Patient shook his head.

“I mean that it wasn’t me.”

“So, who was it? I assume this identity had to come from somewhere.”

The Patient lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck with a trembling hand.

“It didn’t come from anywhere. He’s just there,” The Patient said.

“He? So, not you. You’re disassociating yourself from him?”

Looking back toward the window, The Patient observed the snow mounting on the outside ledge. He could feel the Doctor’s eyes on him, judging.

“I’m nothing like him.”

“But you do admit that it was physically you that did these things, correct?” The Doctor asked.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

With a sigh, The Doctor leaned back in his chair, his pen resting against his chin. His eyes focused on the file before him, searching for a way to access his patient's memories. After a moment, he gave up and looked back at The Patient, hands folded under his chin.

“This is only our second session, and I want to assure you that I do not feel any negativity towards you or hold any judgments. My goal is to understand your situation better. By comprehending your diagnosis, we may be able to assist others who are experiencing similar challenges.”

The Patient recoiled at what he thought to be a rehearsed series of lines to put him at ease, let his guard down. He began to think of these men in white jackets as actors rather than established men of medicine.

“What happened wasn’t my doing. The guy sitting across from you now can’t recall any of it. That’s just part of the blackouts.”

“What happened in the months leading up to it?” the Doctor asked, attempting to apply some pressure.

The Patient glanced at The Doctor, his bottom lip quivering. He nervously scratched the top of his thumb, and a layer of skin began peeling away.

“That—that was all him too.”

“You’re going to have to start accepting that you did these things.”

“I wasn’t in control. I was unconscious. How can you blame someone for doing anything if they’re asleep?”

The Doctor clicked his pen and rubbed his temples with one hand. Then, he looked down at the file and used his other hand to follow its lines.

“As I understand it, there was an incident that you seem to remember, right?” The Doctor asked. “Something that occurred at the supermarket?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about that.”

The Patient buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes. Extracting any word about the ordeal felt like mining a rare, delicate mineral.

The Doctor knew to tread lightly now.

“It was a month after it started.” The Patient said.

“The blackouts?”

“Yes. She saw me at the supermarket one morning and called for security.”

The Doctor leaned in, resting his elbows on the steel table with his fists clenched.

“Go on.”

“That’s it.”

“What did she say to you?” The Doctor asked.

The Patient’s thumb was now stinging, red, and raw.

“I’d rather not.”

“You know that it’s essential for your therapy.”

The Patient looked around the room as if other people were present to hear them.

“She—“ The Patient jerked forward as if to shake the words out of him physically. “Said that I had been stalking her.”

“And?”

The Patient shrugged.

“I told her I had no idea who she was. She kept yelling bullshit, bullshit over and over. I tried to calm her down, you know? But when I reached out to touch her, she let out this crazy scream. I just ran. Out of the store and back to my car,” The Patient said. The Doctor sat back again and started jotting short notes in the bottom corner of the file. Looking back at The Patient, he saw he was retelling the story in some trance. The Patient continued. “The look in her face. I may not have remembered ever seeing her up until then. But I believed her.”

“Let’s talk about the next time you saw her. The next time that you remember.”

The patient began to rock slowly back and forth in his chair, dragging his movements.

“It was—I don’t know, a few weeks after that.”

“Yes?”

“I came to and realized I was following her.”

The doctor tapped his pen against his hand, looking down as he contemplated adding another note. Ultimately, he decided against it and returned to his questions.

“What time was it when you came to?”

“Same as always.”

“Seven?”

“Almost on the dot.”

“And where were you when you came to?” The Doctor asked.

“I was outside, looking in through the window of a coffee shop. When I came to, I was already looking at her.”

“What was she doing?”

The Patient shrugged and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

“Nothing. Just sitting there, drinking coffee.”

The Doctor searched for a shift in The Patient’s demeanor. He found none. The Doctor had to pull his mind back from teetering on the brink of desperation.

“What went through your mind when you found yourself there and saw her?”

The Patient looked up, his gaze blank.

“I just kept thinking one thing,” The Patient murmured, lowering his head. As he lifted it again, a tear glimmered softly in the light. “Not again.”

The Doctor sat back and observed a custodian shuffle by the door, mop in hand.

“Did you stay?”

“What?”

“When you came to, did you stay there?” The Doctor asked.

The Patient shook his head, quick with conviction.

“No. No. I was out of there. Ran back home.”

The Doctor leaned in closer.

“Was that when you found the notebook?”

Stone-faced, The Patient began to breathe heavily, acutely aware of where this was all leading, tracing the timeline to the end. To this room.

“You—know about that?”

"Wasn’t it a huge piece of evidence that the police found?” The Doctor asked.

The Patient tried rubbing his thumb, but the sting from the raw skin stopped him.

“I guess it was.”

“As I understand it, it was found in your work locker with a search warrant.”

“Yes.” The Patient said.

"Could you share why you decided not to throw the book away?”

The Patient looked at the ground and ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know. He hadn’t done anything yet.”

The Doctor shook his head.

“You mean it was you. You have to accept reality. You and you alone are responsible for these actions.”

The Patient pounded the table, causing The Doctor to jolt upright.

The Doctor gripped the table, poised to push himself back. The image of The Patient lunging forward to strangle him flashed into his mind.

“I’m sick of people telling me that.” The Patient brought his hand to his chest, pointing at himself. “I was knocked out cold. I was sleeping. I’m not responsible for any of this.”

The Doctor took a deep breath and considered altering his approach. He raised both hands in a calming gesture.

“I can imagine how frustrating this must be for you. However, it's important to understand how your words come across to someone in my position. This entire situation depends solely on your word. I’m working to help third parties believe that you’re being truthful.”

The patient let one arm hang while the other rubbed it to dispel goosebumps from the frigid air.

“You know that wasn’t even my handwriting, right?”

“I understand it was compared to documents you had signed.” The Doctor said.

“Yeah, and two experts agreed the same person didn’t write it.”

The Doctor looked down at the file and raised a finger.

“There was one expert who deemed it inconclusive, right?”

The Patient crossed his arms.

“Well, two to one.”

The Doctor scribbled a note in the file and dog-eared the page.

“Can you tell me what you felt when you found it?” The Doctor asked.

The Patient looked at The Doctor, fear evident in his eyes.

“Confused, then scared. Just scared.”

The Doctor sat in silence for a moment, then started flipping through the pages of the file. Once he located what he was searching for, he looked back up.

“There’s something about the notebook that I wanted to ask you.”

The fear in the patient’s eyes transformed into confusion, interwoven with a touch of intrigue.

“Yes?”

"The notebook revealed that you had recorded her complete schedule, along with her appointments and the phone numbers of friends and family.”

“Again, two to one,” The Patient said.

The Doctor sighed and rubbed an eye.

“You know there is an issue.”

“That is?”

“During this time, you said your blackouts would last one hour daily, correct?”

The patient nodded slowly as he slid closer to the edge of his seat.

“Right.”

“What I’m trying to understand is if it was only an hour a day, that being—“ The Doctor looked down at the file and pointed to a section. “From around six in the evening to seven. How could you determine where she would be during the times that didn't coincide with your blackouts?”

The Patient scratched his hand and crossed his arms again.

“I don’t know. The police accused me of breaking into her apartment, but I don’t remember. They claimed I stole property, but I don’t recall that either. Plus, they never found anything that they said I took.”

The doctor checked his watch and saw it was five minutes to six.

“When you woke up from your blackout, you didn't see anything they accused you of?”

“No,” The Patient said.

“Only the notebook?”

“Only the notebook.” The two stayed silent for a moment as the furnace roared behind them. “Can I tell you something?” The Patient asked.

The Doctor’s gaze shifted from the file and followed the table until his eyes landed on the man across from him.

“Of course.” The Doctor’s voice was soft, almost muted amid the roar of the furnace.

“I think he made a mistake.”

A small crease formed between The Doctor's eyebrows.

“I don’t understand.”

The Patient leaned forward, resting his arm on the cold table. He gazed past the doctor at the door but saw no one. Then he focused on The Doctor, whose gaze met the patient’s face, ideally still like stone.

“I don’t think I was supposed to find the notebook. I think he accidentally left it in my backpack. Regarding the other items, he must have taken them somewhere outside my apartment.”

The Doctor observed him, his chin resting on his hand.

“So why didn’t you—sorry, he hide it after you found it?” The Doctor asked.

“As soon as I found it, I hurried to work and hid it in my locker. He never noticed I put it there.”

“How did you come to this conclusion?”

The Doctor’s finger tapped quickly on the table.

“After one of my blackouts, I found myself standing in my living room.”

“Go on.”

“The entire apartment was a wreck. The rooms had been completely overturned. My coffee table was broken, my bed was a mess, cabinets were open, and dishes were shattered on the floor," The Patient said. “That’s when I got mad. So I punished him for it. And that’s also when I think he decided to do what he did.”

The Doctor tilted his head.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

The Patient’s eyes drifted around the room, circling the ceiling lights like moths drawn to a flame before the touch of death.

“Well, I was tired of not knowing what I had done or what I would do, so I—“

“Go on.”

“I knew it was happening around the top of the hour, so about a quarter till, I would handcuff myself to my bed.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow as he wrote a note.

The Patient felt judged.

“Handcuffed?” The Doctor asked.

“Right.”

“And you think this correlates with—” The Patient held his breath, his ears dreading the words he knew were coming. “The murder?”

The room fell still again.

It was a significant word to introduce, but both recognized it as the inevitable elephant in the room, lingering at the end of their discussed timeline of events.

The patient appeared resigned, his face dropping as he recounted the following events.

“I had to pay a friend to come unlock the cuffs. It was the only way. I knew I couldn’t keep a key around for him to find. I would wake up with my hand bloodied along with my face. He even broke my nose once. He was punishing me. Then, one day, I found myself running late. It was almost six. The train was delayed. As soon as I reached the door to my building, the lights went out.”

The Doctor closed the file and asked his last question.

“Was that the night?”

“Yes. I woke up, standing over her. The knife was in my hand. She was already dead.”

2.

The Custodian pushed the mop in large swabs, and the water was bleeding into the cracks of the tiles. He checked his watch, and the face read ten after six.

It was time to leave, but he took his time, knowing that the weather would make it difficult to get home anyway.

He pulled out his phone to text his wife that he would be running late and that she and the kids should eat without him.

As he walked past the room's door, he noticed through the glass square that the Patient was standing in front of it, his back facing him. However, he couldn't see The Doctor through the glass square in the door.

The custodian set the mop aside and placed his hand on the heavy door, pushing it open. As the door swung wide, he found The Patient gripping a pen tightly, his fist clenched around it. It caught the custodian's attention that the hand holding the pen was smeared with blood, with droplets trickling from its tip.

The blood dripped onto the Doctor, who lay motionless on the ground, blood spitting from his neck.

The Patient slowly turned around, and when he faced The Custodian, a broad smile spread across his face, revealing all his teeth.