He ran fast, so fast his lungs were seared. He ran blindly. He ran like a stag hunted by hounds. Night drew him on, tugging him with urgent hands. He tripped on a root, stumbled, fell, heard shouts, then rose again while the full moon swept his path with a searchlight’s beam.

The shouts increased, lights probed, as he weaved in and out of the grasping brush, the looming trees. His heart raced, faltered, raced faster, as he drove his body forward to escape, to reach what he could not see.

‘Prisoner 4538!’

The rattle of keys in the heavy steel door tormented his mind with abandoned hope, with expectant fear, as he covered his head with a single wool blanket and pulled tight the thin grey tunic that covered him, his body half off and half on the small cot he lay on.

‘Stand up, Prisoner 4538!’

A boot kicked him in the side, then hands dragged him up,  but he raised his hands to resist,

‘Try that again and…’

He never got to say anything else.  One of them held him by the arms while the other glared at him like a schoolboy ready to the tear the wings off a fly,  who kicked him again, then the one with the tattooed hands shouted,

‘It doesn’t pay to threaten us! Move when we tell you to move.”

Strong arms shoved him forward. The floor was cold and his feet were bare.

‘Who are you? Where am I?’ Why am I here?”

He was answered with another shove to the back, then manhandled down a long grey walled corridor, half-stumbling, half running, trying to keep ahead of the men, blinded by the arc lights that lit the way.

It seemed an eternity until the three stopped at a closed door on which was written the single word, “The Teacher,” stencilled in black on the grey paint. One of the men knocked. There was the sound of a muffled but sharp voice. The man who knocked swung the door in, then with the second guard, hustled the prisoner into the room to make him stand before a man in a dark grey suit, white shirt and black tie, seated at a black metal desk who received the salute of the two guards with a nod of his head then observed the prisoner with calm interest.

He waved his hand at a single wooden chair placed a few feet in front of the desk. The guards forced the prisoner down onto the chair, then took several steps back to stand, legs apart, arms behind their backs, looking straight ahead.

4538 tried to sit upright in the chair but the seat was oiled and slippery. He kept slipping down lower than the man in front of him. He tried to grip the armrests but they were oiled too. He gave up and rested in a state of precarious imbalance while the man across from him sat in silence, watching him squirm. The man indicated with his hand and the two guards saluted, then left to wait outside closing the door behind them. There was a silence which seemed to stretch out with no end, then, quietly, the man drew out a pack of cigarettes, took one from the pack, took a black lighter laying on tp of the desk, lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, then, as he exhaled, asked,

‘Do you know why you are here 4538?’

The prisoner looked around the room, that was otherwise bare, and replied, “I don’t even know who you are or where “here” is. Why don’t you tell me?’

‘You can call me the Teacher, if you wish, and you are here to learn, to accept. That’s all. Are you ready to learn, are you ready to accept?”

‘Learn abut what. Accept what? And how did I get here? Who the hell are you?

‘Your condition. Your place on the road of life; bound to the wheel of things.’

‘I’m not bound to anything. I choose my own path, my own life, my own way’.

‘Your way? Is that a good life? What is this way of yours except an illusion? You’ve led yourself down the path of illusion all your life, and now a break has occurred, that’s why you’re here. You were brought in for your own safety, for the safety of the community, of society. The man leaned forward, ‘And how is a good life possible without knowledge of the way things are?’

‘Maybe I don’t like how things are, and I don’t want anything to do with your wheel of things. You’re lost in illusion, not me. What am I supposed to say? Who are you?’

‘I’m your mirror. Are you afraid to look?’

‘You’re talking in riddles.’

4538 slipped in his chair again, tried to sit back up, but only slipped further down. ‘Let me go.’

‘Oh, we can’t do that, not until you learn and accept. It would be irresponsible. The new world requires it. Everyone must learn, accept, be transformed, must abandon their illusions, face reality, and through knowledge of reality, transcend it.’

‘You sound like a priest.’

‘No, not a priest, you’re friend. I don’t offer salvation, only awareness, and transformation.’

‘Transformation into what? ‘

‘Into that happy being who is happy because he has accepted the reality of the world as it is.

‘You’re mad.’

The man stood up from the desk and walked up to the prisoner, looked him straight in the face, then stood behind him. He leaned down and whispered in his ear,

‘There is no other way.’

Prisoner 4538 moved his head away from the voice but it followed him,

‘Will you accept?’

‘Never.’

The interrogator moved away from the prisoner, then turned to look down at him. He paused then press a button on his desk and the door opened and the two guard reappeared.

‘Take him away. We will talk again tomorrow. Think about what I said. Accept and be transformed or lose yourself in your maze of illusions, each one leading inevitably to another, until your doom.’

Prisoner 4538 was hauled roughly to his feet and half carried back to his cell by the two guards who said nothing but breathed hard the entire way. The hallway seemed to stretch out in front of them forever, the end lost beyond the point of perspective, beyond the endless doors on either side.

They came to a door with his number on it, already opened. He was thrown back onto the cot without a word from the guards, who slammed the door shut as they left.

He heard the keys turn in the lock as he lay still, listening to their steps moving away, his only company the silence of the space around him. He lifted his head. The cell was bare except for the single weak bulb that cast macabre shadows on the walls, the cot on which he lay and a bucket in one corner. He lay back, puzzled, and afraid. He lay quietly but as the hours dragged by, began again to drift in and out of sleep until he was again running, breathing hard as he ran, away from the shouts, from the searching beams, towards a place he could not see but knew was there, somewhere. He ran, as only the desperate can run, until he disappeared into the night’s dark womb and the shouts became distant, faint, and confused.

The doctor ran his hand through his hair as he walked over to the window, reflecting on the question. The leaves of the trees on the hospital grounds were turning. Reds and golds glittered in the autumn sun. Late flowers still blossomed and squirrels played in the branches as nurses walked patients along tree-lined paths, enjoying the warm autumn light.

He paused as he reflected on what he was about to say. The he turned to the group seated in his office, the senior resident, his junior, the psychiatric nurse, all three looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

‘You asked my opinion of this patient. He is very interesting in many respects. I have examined him a number of times and it is clear he has suffered a deep psychotic break, but of course he cannot accept that, it would shatter his world view.’

‘Patient 4538 is still suffering the delusion that he is a prisoner. His delusion even extends to dreaming that he is escaping from a prison; that he keeps waking to be taken for interrogation. He thinks his delusion is reality, his dreams his conscious state. But without any identity it is going to be difficult to treat him. We have no history.’

The junior nodded, ‘Since he was found by the police a few days ago wandering the streets, looking for the good life, he told them, our investigations and theirs have produced no information on who he is or where he’s from; totally disoriented. Said he had to keep running until he found the way, that he won’t accept, won’t be transformed.’

The doctor looked reflective, then replied, as he sat down in his leather chair,

‘A sad case, thinking he can find the good life when he has no idea what the good life is, when he is burdened by the illusions of the modern age, confusing reality and fantasy, trying to  escape everything, refusing to examine himself. To him, his illusions are concrete reality.  It has become the pathological condition of western society these days, but in his case it has developed into an extreme case. I am not optimistic. He certainly won’t accept our treatment. His delusions could be permanent. Perhaps further interviews with him will lead us somewhere deeper into his mind so we can help him but I fear he will never recover.’

He turned to look out the window, reflecting on patient 4538, as the others looked on in quiet agreement.

The sudden buzzing of the telephone on the doctor’s desk broke the thought-filled silence. He reached for the receiver and put it to his ear. His face expressed surprise, his jaw tightened. He listened intently then said, ‘All right, you had better call the police,’ then put the receiver back, turned to the others and said,

‘He’s gone. The door to his room was locked but he’s gone. Just disappeared. Like he never existed. Well, I’ll be damned.’

And, as the doctor sat back in his chair, to ponder how the patient could have escaped, could have dematerialised, vanished, Prisoner 4538 kept running, kept stumbling in the dark, kept running from the chasing fear, running from the teacher, running from reality, searching his endless nightmare for the solace of a dream.