﻿1
[Prologue]
♪ Lascia ch'io pianga from Handel's Rinaldo ♪
[Chapter One: Grief]
Hey.
How are ya?
Didn't we just talk about that?
That was yesterday.
Today is Tuesday.
So I've been here long?
A month.
Wayne says that...
...my grief pattern is atypical.
Yeah.
Got to talk with Wayne.
I think he gives too much medication. Way too much.
Stop it, please.
Trust others to be smarter than you.
He's straight out of medical school; he doesn't know what he's doing.
I've treated ten times as many patients as he has.
But you're not a doctor.
No, I'm not.
And I'm proud that I'm not, when I meet a doctor like him.
There is nothing ...
...atypical about your grief.
It was my fault.
What about me?
I was there too.
I could have stopped him.
No.
You didn't know that he...
...had started waking up lately.
I was aware that he would sometimes ...
...wake up...
...and crawl out of bed.
And walk about...
...just as he thought that you were soundly asleep.
He could open the baby gate.
He ...
He woke up ...
And w...
...was confused.
Hey.
Dr. Wayne says he won't be back up.
You couldn't leave it, could you?
Had to mettle.
This place leads nowhere.
On the contrary.
Grief.
It's not a disease. It's a natural healthy reaction.
You can't just remove it. You mustn't.
Wayne knows you're a therapist.
He said you shouldn't treat your own family.
In principle I agree, but...
But you're just so much smarter...
...aren't you?
I love you.
Nothing hurts more than to see the one that you love...
...subjected to mistakes and wrongs.
No therapist can know as much about you as I do.
It hurts. I know.
There's no way around it.
I want to talk to...
Nah, I'm not gonna let you do that.
Will it just go on and on?
No.
No, it'll change.
Will it get any worse?
Yes, it will.
You've always been distant from me and Nick.
Now that I come to think of it...
...very, very distant.
Okay.
Can you give me some examples of this?
Hell, that's not that difficult to understand.
Like, last summer for instance.
You were terribly distant last summer.
As a father...
...and as a husband.
And that was Nick's last summer you missed out on.
Too bad.
I never interested you.
Until now...
...that I'm your patient.
Perhaps I'm not supposed to talk about these things.
There is nothing you can't talk about.
You're indifferent to whether your child is alive or dead.
I bet you have a lot of clever therapist replies to that.
Haven't you?
Well, actually...
It was to honor your wish.
You wanted peace to write.
Perhaps I didn't mean it.
What I understood ...
...is that you wanted to write alone.
That you and Nick, were going to go to Eden;
just the two of you.
That way you could finish your thesis.
But I didn't.
You didn't?
You see?
You didn't even know that.
Why did you give up? That's not like you.
The whole project just seemed less important up there.
As you said, when I like talked to you about my subject...
"Glib".
I never called your subject glib.
Perhaps you didn't use that word, but that's what you meant.
And all of a sudden it was glib.
Or even worse... some, some kind of lie.
I see.
No, you don't see.
You see a lot of things, but not that.
Inhale, on the count of five.
Calmly, calmly.
Just... Follow me. Do it with me. Inhale.
Inhale, on a count of five.
Inhale... Two.
Stay with me...
Stay with me. I'm gonna teach you how to breathe.
Inhale...
2, 3, 4, 5, hold.
2, 3, 4, 5, exhale, 2, 3, 4. Good.
Imagine...
Imagine you're blowing on your...
...thistle blooms.
Calmly, quietly...
Yes, yes, that's good.
That's good.
That's very good.
I told you there would be a change.
You're still mourning, but you're in a new phase.
What phase? Anxiety.
Anxiety?
Yes.
This is physical.
It's dangerous. No, it's not dangerous.
Just as your grief wasn't dangerous.
A main part of anxiety...
...is physical,
dizzy spells,
dry mouth,
distorted hearing,
trembling,
heavy breathing,
fast pulse,
nausea.
Hey!
Easy. Never screw your therapist.
No matter how much your therapist may like it.
I know that distracts you, but...
...it's not good for us.
Do the breathing.
Hold.
Exhale.
Do you love me?
Yes, I do.
Then help me.
That's what I'm doing.
Exposure.
That's the only thing that really works.
Everything else is... just talk.
You have to have the courage to stay in the situation that frightens you.
And then you'll learn that fear isn't dangerous.
Let's make a list of things you're afraid of.
At the top you put the situation you fear the most.
But I don't know what I'm afraid of.
Just... take your time.
I'm thinking.
Okay.
I'm thinking ah, but I...
Can't I just be afraid without a definite object?
No, no!
Calm down.
Come on. Calm down.
This won't do.
Stup... Stupidest thing I could do to you.
If you can't tell me...
...what you're afraid of, maybe it would be easier for you to tell me...
...where you're afraid?
Where would you feel most exposed?
What would be the worst place?
An apartment?
On the street?
A store?
The park?
Listening to someone, maybe.
The woods.
The woods?
The woods, yes. It's funny because...
...you were the one that always wanted to go into the woods.
What scares you about the woods? What frightens you, there?
Everything.
Tell me what you think is supposed to happen in the woods.
Is...
Is it any woods in particular?
Eden.
Eden?
Well, what do you say we put...
The garden around Eden at the top of the pyramid?
No.
Not quite at the top.
No.
Don't you...
Stop it! Stop.
Okay.
Ow! Ow.
It's okay, it's okay. I'm sorry. It's alright.
I don't know what...
We can start by working on your expectations.
Close your eyes.
Feel the seat underneath you.
Feel yourself sinking down into it.
Enfolding you...
It's a nice feeling.
All you feel is a pleasant warmth...
...and heaviness.
Your breath... is deep,
regular, easing.
Now...
...imagine you're at Eden.
Imagine you arrived at Eden through the woods.
Tell me what you see.
I'm at the bridge.
It's evening.
Almost no birds can be heard.
The water is running without a sound.
Darkness comes early down here.
I walk into it.
The little deers are hiding among the ferns, as usual.
Is it difficult to walk there?
No, not really.
In fact, it's almost okay.
In among the trees,
on the slope,
there's a big old foxhole.
How do you feel there?
I can't really tell.
It should be easy...
...passing.
And yet...
It's like walking through mud.
The trunk is thick.
The tree rots so slowly.
It has some strange kind of personality.
I've always felt that.
And now?
Where are you? Are you, are you heading for the cabin?
Yes, I am.
I'm walking up the path,
through the tall grass.
Then don't go in.
Don't go in.
It's the outside you're afraid of.
Now look around.
No.
Lie down on the green.
You want me to lie down?
Lie down on the grass.
On top of all the plants? Y... yes, lie down on the plants.
Are you lying down?
Yes.
Good.
What is everything like around you?
Green.
It's all very green.
Good.
Now will you do what I ask you?
Yes.
What do you want me to do?
I want you...
...to melt into the green.
Don't fight it.
Just...
...turn green.
No matter what happens, you were there. You did it.
Let fear come, if it likes.
Remember, what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.
What's wrong?
The ground is burning.
The ground is not burning.
Gotta go.
I want to lie down.
Just for a minute.
Sure.
Yeah, We'll take a rest.
[Chapter Two: Pain (Chaos Reigns)]
Shouldn't we go on?
Yeah.
Yeah, we should.
Start.
Stay with it.
I know it hurts.
Stay! Stay in it.
It's just the stupid acorns.
What are you doing?
I'm just...
...setting up a little exercise.
It's... it's like a...
It's like a game.
You cheated me yesterday.
Running's no good.
You have to really feel the grass.
I want you to go from this stone...
...to this stone.
Pretty scary, huh?
You ready?
Here,
I'll give you a ride.
I'll put you on the first stone.
Just stay with it.
Here we go.
Now put your foot down. I got you.
I got you! I'm right here.
I can't do this.
Yes, you can.
You can and you will.
Just like I will.
We're gonna walk together.
We're gonna walk together, okay?
Nope.
Alright, now breathe.
You're gonna step off the rock.
You're gonna step on that grass.
Step down.
Safe. What happened? Nothing.
Keep breathing. Kee... keep breathing.
I've got you.
You're really doing great.
You okay? Keep breathing.
Five, five and five.
You're almost there.
You're doing great.
You're doing fine.
We're there. Gee, we're there.
There you go.
You did it.
You learned something.
Didn't you?
You did beautifully.
I miss him so much.
I've been afraid up here before.
Yes, it seems likely.
I just didn't know it was fear.
I became afraid... ...and I stopped writing.
What was different... the last time?
I heard a sound.
[Baby crying]
Nick?
Nick!
You didn't hear Nick screaming.
Apparently not.
And because you experienced something that you couldn't explain rationally,
you placed Eden very high on the pyramid chart.
Eden was the catalyst that triggered your fear.
You jumped to conclusions...
...and tied the emotional event with the place.
When you feel threatened it's natural to react.
If the danger were real, your fear would save your life.
Because your adrenaline will be used for fight or flight.
But what you're experiencing is panic, nothing more.
The scream wasn't real.
Stop!
Ca... Calm down.
You shouldn't have come here.
You're just so damn arrogant.
But this may not last.
Ever thought of that?
Oak trees grow to be hundreds of years old.
They only have to produce one single tree every hundred years...
...in order to propagate.
May sound benal to you, but...
...it was a big thing for me to realize that when I was up here with Nick.
The acorns fell on the roof then too.
Kept falling and falling.
And dying and dying.
And I understood that...
...everything that used to be beautiful about Eden...
...was perhaps hideous.
Now I could hear what I couldn't hear before.
The cry of all the things that are to die.
It's all...
...very touching,
if it was a children's book.
Acorns don't cry.
You know that as well as I do.
That's what fear is.
Your thoughts distort reality.
Not the other way around...
Satan's Church. Satan? Jesus!
Nature is Satan's Church.
What?
Well, there you have him.
That was his brother.
Nick.
He drifted away from me the last time.
He was always out and about.
He might have made more of an effort to be there for me.
You look like you slept well.
Thanks, I did.
I just wanted to say how happy I am that you're here.
I love you darling.
Did you have a good sleep?
I've just been having a lot of...
...crazy dreams.
Dreams are of no interest in modern psychology.
Freud is dead, isn't he?
Yeah.
What are you doing?
Look!
I'm well again.
I'm cured!
I say, clever.
I'm fine.
You cannot just be happy for me, can you?
Chaos ... reigns!
[Chapter Three: Despair (Gynocide)]
I'd like to do one more exercise.
It's like role-playing.
My role...
...is...
All the thoughts that provoke your fear...
Yours...
...is rational thinking.
I'm nature.
All the things that you call nature.
Okay, Mr.Nature.
What d... what do you want?
To hurt you as much as I can.
How?
How do you think?
By frightening me?
By killing you.
Nature can't harm me.
You just old greenery outside.
No, I'm more than that.
I don't understand.
I'm outside, but also...
...within.
I'm nature of all human beings.
Oh, that kind of nature.
And the kind of nature that...
...causes people to do evil things against women.
That's exactly who I am.
That kind of nature interested me a lot...
...when I was up here.
That kind of nature was the subject to my thesis.
But you shouldn't underestimate Eden.
What did Eden do?
I discovered somethng else in my material than I expected.
If human nature is evil...
...then that goes as well...
...that the nature...
Of the women.
Female nature.
The nature of all the sisters.
Women do not control their own bodies.
Nature does.
I have it in writing in my books.
The literature that you used in your research...
...was about evil things committed against women.
But you read it as proof of the evil of women?
You were supposed to be critical of those texts; that was your thesis.
Instead, you're embracing it.
D... do you know what you're saying?
Forget it.
I do not know why I said it.
I... I can't work anymore now.
Hit me.
What?
Hit me so it hurts.
No.
Hit me, please!
No!
I can't stand it!
I don't want to.
Then you don't love me.
Okay.
Maybe I don't love you.
Yeah.
Again.
Again!
The sisters from Ratismith...
...could start a hail storm.
I'm not gonna continue this if you don't listen to me.
Good and evil...
...have nothing to do with therapy.
Do you know how many innocent women were killed in the sixteenth century alone...
...just for being women?
I'm sure you do. Many.
Not because they were evil...
I know.
It's just sometimes I forget.
The evil you talk about is an obsession.
Obsessions never materialize. It's a scientific fact.
Anxieties can't trick you into doing things you would do otherwise.
It's like hypnotism.
You can't be hypnotized into doin something you wouldn't...
...normally do. Something against your nature.
Do you understand me?
Yeah, I think so.
You think so? Well, you don't have to understand me; just trust me.
What's this?
It's from the medical officer. It's a copy of the autopsy report.
The autopsy?
Did they perform an autopsy?
I didn't wanna tell you, because you weren't feeling well.
Well...
...what did they find?
Nothing that would have any...
...bearing on the case.
The only abnormality...
...in the victim is a slight deformity
of the bones in his feet, of an earlier date.
We do not attach any significance to this.
You aware that you put Nick's shoes on wrong in this picture?
So, I had.
How weird.
Slip of the mind that day.
I wish.
Herself.
Oh!
Ah!
Bastard! You're leaving me! Aren't you?
You bastard!
You're leaving me!
I'm not.
I'm helping you.
You're leaving me, aren't you? No, no!
I love you. I don't believe you!
Aagh!
I don't believe you!
I don't fucking believe you!
Aagh!
Where are you?!
You bastard!
Where are you?!
Where are you?
You bastard!
Where are you?!
How dare you leave me?!
You said you wanted to help me!
Where are you?!
You bastard!
Get out!
Get out! You bastard!
Get out!
You bastard!
Get out!
Come out!
Get out!
You bastard!
Come out!
[Chapter Four: The Three Beggars]
I'm sorry.
You gotta get this thing off... my leg.
I can't find the wrench.
Did you want to kill me?
Not yet.
The three beggars aren't here yet.
The three beggars?
What does that mean?
When the three beggars arrive ...
...someone must die.
I see.
The crying woman is a scheming woman.
False in legs. False in thighs.
False in breasts, teeth, hair and eyes.
Hold me.
There's no such constellation.
But none of it is any use.
None of it is any use.
No!
Aagh!
Ye-aagh!
[Epilogue]
♪ Lascia ch'io pianga from Handel's Rinaldo ♪