The Middleton File
by Scott Neighbour
The following interview was conducted by EXPLAIN Magazine at the Pineridge Asylum on December 3rd, 1956. Dr. Johnathan Bridgeson discusses the unexplained disappearance of a thirteen year old boy named Gordie Middleton from his locked room at Pineridge. [a click is followed by the shuffling of chairs and soft, inaudible muttering] Explain Magazine (EM): All right… I’m recording. Are you comfortable? Good… let’s get started then… please just speak into the microphone in front of you there. Dr. Bridgeson (DB): Is this good enough? (EM): Yes… yes that will be fine. Thank you for doing this, doctor. Now, could you please state your name and title within this facility for the record? (DB): I am Doctor Johnathan Bridgeson, head of the childrens ward here at Pineridge Asylum. (EM): And how many children are in this ward at the moment? (DB): Currently, there are five subjects… three male and two female, each with different degrees of psychosis. (EM): I understand you had a young boy by the name of Gordie Middleton in your care earlier this year. Could you tell us how he came to be in your care? (DB): Of course… Gordie came to us in the later part of March. He was exhibiting severe delusions… hearing voices and seeing things that weren’t really there. He had been in an adoption home and his caregivers had given up on trying to reason with him. After assessing him, we decided it was best to take him into our facility.
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(EM): You say he was hearing voices and seeing things. Can you be more specific? (DB): In the fall of 1955 he ran away from the Pleasant Hill Home. His abrupt disappearance from there was aired in mystery, too. He took no belongings with him. The night watchman said no one left through the only exit in the building and the windows were barred and secure. For five months Gordie was missing. The home had all but forgotten about him when, on the late hours of March 27, 1956, he suddenly reappeared. (EM): Wait… reappeared?… What do you mean? (DB): According to the Mistress at Pleasant Hill, on that night there was commotion in the sleeping quarters. She and the night watchman went to see what was going on. When they entered the room, Gordie Middleton was sitting on the floor surrounded by the other children. He was wearing strange clothes and babbling about another world. He had minor wounds and a fever, so he was brought to the nurses station. (EM): Was his babbling due to the fever? (DB): No… the next day his fever broke and he still went on about how he’d gone to visit a place he called Tween. He was adamant in that he needed to go back. That’s when we were called in. (EM): Did he further discuss this place he called Tween? (DB): Indeed… in great length. I tried to diagnose his condition but it was… difficult. He was extremely lucid and his descriptions were incredibly detailed. In his mind, he had, in fact, been to another world and trying to dissuade him of that
JAN.–FEBRUARY 2010
fact would be like trying to tell you that you weren’t really here doing this interview. Gordie was an artistic prodigy… painting mostly… and he sat one day and painted what he said was Tween. (EM): Really?… Did you keep any of his work? (DB): Yes, I did. [the shuffling of papers can be heard and after a short while, a gasp] (EM): … Oh my… incredible… (DB): Isn’t it? As you can see, we weren’t dealing with one who’d lost all contact with his reality. (EM): Let the record show that Doctor Bridgeson has shown me an incredibly detailed painting of a cityscape of sorts. Strange flying machines and huge towers with a sort of mix between medieval and futuristic buildings. And all this set in what appears to be the top of a vast mountain range. No words can properly describe what I’m looking at right now… . (DB): After Gordie painted this picture I sat with him and asked him more about this place. He told me that it was all around us but we couldn’t see it. He said our history was written in the words of the past and Tweens’ history was written in the spaces between those words. Between the tick and the tock of time was Tween. It was all very bizarre, but the conviction in which he told his stories was contagious. (EM): Tell us about the night Gordie disappeared. (DB): It was Halloween night. I remember the date… October 31st, not because of Halloween, but because I was listening to the radio as Britain and France invaded Egypt over the Suez canal fiasco. All through that day Gordie was withdrawn and when
I asked him what was wrong he’d said he was listening to what was happening in Tween. He’d told me he was going to be leaving that evening. (EM): Wait… he TOLD you he was leaving? (DB): Yes… he’d said he had unfinished business there and it could wait no longer. (EM): And what was your reaction to that? (DB): I had debated sedating him so he wouldn’t hurt himself trying to escape the room but, after a discussion with him, he agreed that he would spend the night in restraints. (EM): What kind of restraints? (DB): Standard leather wrist and ankle straps… nothing on the chest as he wasn’t exhibiting any violent behavior. After we strapped him in and as I was leaving the room he called to me. He’d said, “Thanks for everything Doctor B… maybe one day I’ll see you again.” He said it with such finality… that was the last time I ever saw him. (EM): Where did he go? (DB): Gordie Middleton was restrained in a locked room. That locked room was under watch and the whole building was set up for security. If I had to answer your question with what I know, if I had to answer “Where did he go?”… I’d have to say… Tween. [a long silence hangs in the air before more incomprehensible mumbles and sounds are heard… followed by a final click]