Amos Lennart

-----Patient Admittance and Evaluations Form 1A-----

Name: Amos Lennart
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Hometown: Salem, Oregon

'Tell me about yourself."

I don't... I'm not sure... Look, this is sort of a weird question, right? I mean, who can actually say anything accurate about themselves? I could tell you all sorts of things you probably didn't know about yourself, but about me, your guess is as good as mine. Okay, well, here, we can compromise: I'll tell you what other people have told me about myself. They do it all the time.

I guess I'm a little crazy. See, that's one of those things you know right away, but if I was just left alone to do my thing, I wouldn't. Nobody just wakes up one day and thinks, goddammit, I'm crazy, unless there's somebody else there, telling them that their thoughts aren't right. I hate it when people tell me that. The proper term is sch-i-zo-phrenic. You probably knew that, too.

I like the texture of food. I've got a sort of a problem where I don't, um, feel pleasure the way most people do. Its called an... anhedonia? I think that's it. Anyway, it doesn't taste like much of anything, but I like the texture. I used to hear music, when I was little, like those stories about fairies. The ones where cute little kids hear music and wander off to find it and get snatched; changelings get put back in their beds. They scream and cry and get screwed up psychological disorders when they're older. Don't try to tell me I'm wrong.

Not very sociable, which sounds weird since I'm talking so much. But I have to talk during these, right? Its supposed to help or something. Anyway, I notice things about people they don't see about themselves and when I try to tell them the words come out.. well the words are fine, but the meaning is too confusing. Like, I see pictures when I feel things and then I try to tell someone that they're sort of like the smell of wet earth under old tree roots and they either get weirdly flattered or they shove off. Whatever.

Note: Subject is unusually talkative; old reports suggest a secondary diagnosis of Selective Mutism, when he seemed physically unable to speak for long periods of time. Further study is required.

Curious emotional quality: lack of affect in line with typical schizophrenia, but there is an honest belief in his ability to empathize and understand other people. See 'mental capabilities' for further notes on this topic.

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"What are some of your strengths?"

I listen to people. Seriously, I do. Sometimes they end up not being 'real', but who cares, its still a conversation. But that's something I see in myself, and I promised I'd just tell you what other people think. Sorry, I got a little off track.

People say I can be really sweet, when I'm in the mood. It really depends on who's around me, but sometimes everything gets a little brighter and I don't feel like... I don't know, its a little hard to explain in words. If I could just show you an image of what the emotion feels like, just like a mass of color and movement, it would make more sense. Um, right, but sometimes I'm around certain people and I just feel better. And then for a little while afterward wherever I go, the people around me seem to feel a bit better. Its like this whole 'smile and the world smiles with you' thing, but most of the time I just don't feel like smiling

Note: Subject is referring to empathic ability and side effects. See 'mental capabilities' for further notes.

Look, I guess I just don't know. Analyze it all you want, that I don't know what's strong about me, or however I should have worded that. I don't know. I like to dance, and sometimes I have really beautiful dreams.

"Interesting... in light of that, can you share some of your weaknesses?"

I guess I don't feel emotions the same way other people do. For a little while I was just angry, all the time, but now its different. Maybe I don't react the same as most people or something, but there so much going on in my head it doesn't matter much to me. Sometimes there's so much going on between my ears I have a little trouble focusing, too, and it confuses people because they're all talk talking away about whatever, and my brain does a flip and I start talking about moles or sunlight. Guess it can get distracting.

So yeah, moody, temperamental, or so they say. It seems reasonable to me, but, you know, I'm crazy. I think one thing that I could really say about myself and weaknesses, is that sometimes I trust the wrong people. I trusted this one guy, Clive, and that went really, really wrong. Sometimes I just get this feeling about people, like an affinity, and I want to attach myself to them and just... be with them all the time. I'd do anything for them. But they usually end up screwing things up. I don't really want to talk about this anymore.

Note: Patient references figure from distant past but omits more current examples; interesting. Surprisingly aware of schizophrenia-related short-comings, but is uncomfortable expressing how upset it makes him that he has no power over it. May be reading in beyond his words, but like he kept saying, sometimes you can see something better about someone else than you can yourself. I wonder what he saw in me.

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"Tell me something... if I gave you a mirror, what would you see?"

Well, you're looking at me, you tell me. Whatever. I'm pretty thin, and I guess I'm a little effeminate. People tease me about it sometimes, or they used to. And I'm tall, like, really tall; almost 6'1''. Gangly. Blonde, brown eyes. What more do you want?

"Do you, or have you ever, been on an exercise regimen?"

Yeah, actually, when I was younger. I was a runner for a little bit, a skinny little kid with really long legs. I miss running. When you run in these places they assume they need to tackle you, so I try not to. But other than that, no. No weight training or ninjitsu or whatever. I guess it never really mattered to me; I only ran because I liked it, not because it made me fit.

"I see... and how about your mental capabilities... what can you tell me about those?"

I hate this question. Its like you're asking if I'm stupid or something. No, I know what you mean, I know what you mean. I was listening. I'm good at listening, remember? Um, well, I guess it'd be called telepathy. Not really how they do it in the movies, though, where you can talk to other people's minds and stuff. At least, not for me.

Sometimes, when I'm around people, I start to get all these colors and smells popping into my head. Depending on the person and the mood they're in, its pretty different. Like, sometimes I'll be sitting next to a guy and all I can get from him is the smell of stagnant water and a big image of a wall. The guy's obviously closed off and apathetic, right? So I guess its called empathy; it just works a little differently for me than it would for most people. When I try to explain it the people tell me its because I don't feel emotions the same others do, so my brain scrambles them into pictures and smells and stuff. Otherwise it would just be useless information. Like, I'd have a head full of TV static all the time.

I've never actually witnessed this, but sometimes I guess I channel other people's thoughts out loud while I sleep. For example, if you were sitting where you are and I was laying here, asleep, I might open my mouth and start chattering about what you were thinking. People have had whole conversations with me while I was asleep, only they were really with themselves. I don't even get to remember any of it.

Note: The patient has a propensity for sensing the emotions of others and trying to relay them back to the originator in words, but as he does not truly understand them himself, it can be confusing for everyone involved. Also, when unconscious he plays the roll of a hypnotized subconscious for the conscious mind next to him. This could be a useful tool for studying other patients.

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"Is there anything personal to you that you hold on to and take care of?"

No, not really. I try not to hold onto material things. They remind me that other things aren't real.

Note:All attempts at further questioning on this subject were ignored.

"How about people? Anyone important in your life?"

No. I'm not in touch with my family and I was just transferred here, so I don't know any one yet. This is my admittance evaluation, you know that.

"What can you tell me about your past?"

I don't like thinking about it. Do I really have to tell you? Don't you have another file in front of you with all this stuff written down already? Whatever, fine. So I was born up in Salem, Oregon,and my parents were well off and stuff. We had a big garden and I had a little sister and an older brother. None of us ever really got along. My brother used to play this game where he would hold my head underwater in the bathtub and if anyone would come in, he say he was teaching me to swim. What a laugh. Anyway, I didn't develop my problems that far back. I was a normal kid, sort of. A little more serious than most kids, I guess. I didn't talk very much. Other kids just kind of left me alone.

I managed to be pretty normal up through high school. When you're in high school is cool to not care about anything and just want to sit around smoking. That was all I wanted to do. And for a little bit after I'd graduated I was so stoned I didn't notice when the hallucinations started. I thought they were just relapses, stuff coming back through my system, you know. But I stopped using and they kept happening, and I guess it was sort of too much for me. I got this weird idea that my family wasn't mine, that I was a changeling. Like, I mentioned it before. A weird fairy baby. I thought I could hear my real family talking to me when I was in the garden, and then I could hear them in the house, and then they were all I could hear. I saw some things, too, some screwed up stuff. I don't want to talk about it.

I sort of ended up setting the house on fire. My brother died inside, but everyone else got out fine. The court ruled that I wasn't responsible, because I was crazy, and they sent me to the local loony bin. That's where I was before here, for a couple years. It was a pretty boring place. They kept having to change my roommates, the place was so underfunded we had roommates, ha, because they started freaking out and talking about how I spoke to them in my sleep and knew stuff I couldn't know. The doctors thought I was doing it myself, but then one time I was taken away from the others because I hit somebody and I had a sleep-talk with one of the nurses. They believed me after that, and started running tests. Some of it hurt.

When we were doing that I started seeing stuff, but not hallucinations. Like, they weren't out in the world, they were behind my eyes. And then I started smelling things, and I thought maybe I had that illness were you have little seizures and you smell and see things while its happening. But they ran some tests and there was nothing wrong, so they started testing that too. And the equipment down here is better than up there, or something, so here I am, ready to be studied once more. Guess this is sort of what my life is now.

Notes
Regular interviews should be scheduled to explore if he is always this lucid, or if this was a good day.

-Karen N. Adler,
Ph.D Parapsychology, Belkane

Role Play Sample
This sample is not for this character; he is brand new <3

It had been a clear day, clearer than most this time of year. The light through the broken windows of the terminal reminded her of summer, the rich golden afternoons that she imagined might still happen somewhere. Not here, but maybe somewhere farther south, or west or just back, back when she was a child. She could imagine those afternoons stretching on forever, caught in a single moment of her memory; sometimes she wished there was a way to make a map back there, just shrug off today's clothes and slip into the brambles by the stream.

Juno grinned sheepishly and bit her bottom lip, pulling her striped scarf up higher over the lower half of her face. What silly thoughts; they were sweet now, but she could feel the sour undertones creeping in. Her footsteps seemed inhumanly loud on the stone floor, though she knew in truth they were quite quiet. The empty terminal seemed to swallow the sound with ease and the vaulted ceiling towered over her, the cracked paint giving it a sad, austere quality. She pulled her winter coat tighter around her and moonwalked across the dirty floor, almost tripping over a bit of debris. Astrid paced languidly beside her, ignoring her companions antics.

She was there to scavenge, or at least that was her excuse. Honestly she knew better than to go into the tunnels alone, or at all for that matter, but there was something about this place that enchanted her. It may have been the movies she saw as a child, when it was full of people and life, but standing there in a ragged beam of post-summer sun, she hardly felt alone at all. She was standing in the same spot as so many people before her, and she hoped many people after.

With a spin she headed for the old ticket seller desks, to look for anything someone else might have missed in the many combings this place must have had over the last fifteen years. Bending down to inspect something on the floor, Juno stiffened when she heard a shuffle and a faint rustling sound. Crouched behind the booth, Astrid pressed against her side, she peered out at the room, the sunlight suddenly so much less inviting.

Referral
An ad on The Devils Soldiers, posted by Alexander

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I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this was one of the best read's I've had the honor of looking over.