A Voice from the Grave
flash fiction
The mother brought this five-year-old boy to my office. Her instructions were to find out why he cried in his sleep. I wasn't impressed with the woman. She had frown lines around her mouth and heavy lines on her forehead. She stomped in and out of the office, and left him there without a backwards glance.
I talked to the boy, but he was more interested in the small car that he had clutched i his hand. I watched him play with it as I called his mother. She was easier to face on a cell phone than in person.
She wanted me, a renowned child psychologist, to hypnotize her child. I reiterated that she would have to come back to the office and sign the consent form.
“Hypnotism was supposed to be safe,” she growled at me. I stood firm and I heard my receptionist deal with the difficult woman.
“I’ll be back in an hour!” I heard her shout through the door.
The receptionist brought in the consent form. I made sure it was fully signed and that the mother had checked all of the boxes. In my experience, this type of person would sue me in a heartbeat. I wanted to make sure my ass was covered.
The boy was silent and ran the car across the leather couch. I sighed.
Because the mother wasn’t there, my receptionist, acting as assistant, when I started the session. Everything was normal and the child went easily into hypnosis, until I asked him why he cried in his sleep.
When he answered, his voice had the low tones and squeaks of a teenager just hitting puberty. I thought that someone was playing a game, soI had my assistant look for a teenager, or a speaker, maybe even a digital recorder, something that would explain the voice. We looked through the boy’s clothes, but there was nothing. The only explanation was that the voice was coming from the boy.
The teenage voice said, "She killed me with a pillow. I cry because I remember in my sleep."
"Who killed you?" I asked.
My assistant kept looking for the intruder.
"Stop looking. I am right here." Then the voice became impatient, "my mother, the woman who dropped me off here, she killed me."
I had heard of past life regressions, who hasn’t? But this wasn’t one of them. I carefully brought the boy back from the hypnosis and told him that he wouldn’t remember anything here. Then I called his mother to come pick up her child. I told her that I couldn’t help him.
In casual conversation as she was forcing the boy into his coat, I asked if she had a teenage son.
"He died in his sleep," she said, "about six or seven years ago.”
I shuddered as I watched her take the boy away. The child's words would not save him. A voice from beyond the grave from hypnosis couldn't be used in a court of law. I knew that when the child became a teenager, his mother would kill him.
I went to my office, buried my head in my hands, while tears ran down my cheeks.