I pulled out a stack of paper that smelled of disinfectant and there it was – a complete record of my former condition:

HI NIUNIU-MEDICAL RECORD

(1) General Information: Name: Ni Niuniu

Sex: Female

Marital Status: Single

Nationality: Han

Place of Birth: Beijing, China

Religion: None

Education: University

Present Address: Suite 1105, Bldg. 2, Houguaibang Street, Beijing

Date of Admission: 15/4/91

Commencement Date of This Record: 16/4/91

Informants: Yu Shui (patient's neighbor), reliable.

Tong Li (university deskmate), reliable.

Ni Wen (patient's father), not reliable.

(2) General Observations:

For several months patient has been impulsively writing and drawing. Hears and converses with voices. Suicidal tendency.

(3) Family History:

Patient's uncle, mental breakdown at 40. Wouldn't leave house. Feared arrest. Afraid to meet people. Passive. Talked to himself a lot. Hanged himself after five years. No other mental illness, idiocy, epilepsy, suicide, alcoholism, unusual behavior, or addictions on mother's or father's side for three generations.

(4) Personal History:

Mother's pregnancy normal, but she suffered mental pressure and tension because branded a capitalist roader. Pregnancy full term, birth free of complications, but patient frail in childhood. Development normal, walked at one year, talked at 18 months (liked talking to herself, called her arms and legs the "Misses Do" and the "Misses Don't," conversed with them often). Entered primary school at six, good student, always near head of class. Continued on through middle school and university with excellent grades.

Began menstruation at 14. Irregular (4-6 days/28-35 days).

Born to a cadre family, only child. Parents' relationship strained, both involved in work. Home life lacked warmth. Patient introverted, thinking patterns unusual, even startling. Behavior often involuntary and strange. Once cut legs off father's new trousers with scissors. Doesn't relate well with classmates or teachers, prefers own company, shuns conversation with others. Given to fantasy, relates having seen people on the street turn into a pack of wolves, which then surrounded her. Sporadic passion for drawing. Quiet and uncommunicative as a child, dubious intimacy with an older female neighbor. Grown up, still finds it hard to mix, couldn't adjust to dormitory life at university, lived at home. Few close friends. Indecisive, reverses decisions repeatedly. Likes walking, connects it with personal evolution, insists her personal action has overturned Darwin 's theory of evolution.

(5) Past Illness:

Contracted measles and double pneumonia at age three, frail in health since then. Ho record of epilepsy, tuberculosis, external injuries, poisoning, or other infectious diseases.

(6) Present Illness:

Illness likely induced by loss of a number of relatives and friends. Refuses to face the truth. Before this, no obvious abnormality. Recently patient has been unable to sleep, eats little, is inactive and indifferent, ignores people for no reason, and is unable to attend her classes. Compulsive urge to write and paint, thinking incoherent and disordered. Claims there are instruments controlling her, such as atomic piles, and voices that talk to her; that we are all, herself included, substitutes for our true selves. At night, too excited to sleep; unable to feed herself.

PE: Heart, lung, liver, kidneys-normal

Temperature – 37

CHS: Patient refused to cooperate

ME: Mind clear, but patient disoriented

(7) Behavior:

Denied she was ill, hospitalized against will. Pays no attention to her appearance, thin and weak. Ho interest in food or drink. Incapable of managing her own daily life. Unable to sleep at night due to agitation. Refuses to be examined. Frequently throws away prescribed drugs. Cooperates occasionally with nurses. Has nothing to do with other patients, refuses to participate in group activities, staying in room by herself. Talks to herself, says she is surrounded by enemies.

(8) Cognitive Processes: Language fragmented when agitated. Disconnected comments such as: "What am I doing in a planetarium?" "I might as well die, civilization is a fraud." Believes one of her hands is controlled by outside forces. Asked which hand, she replied, "Right hand." Also claims she is held in tight bonds.

Memory fragmented. Says her name is "Miss Nothing."

(9) Intellectual Ability:

Able to explain the apparent contradictions of such phrases as "opposition through agreement," "the poverty of golden dreams," "witching for water to quench your thirst," "rebellion through submission"; can explain such things as why those born deaf cannot learn to speak, why the soles of running shoes are always so uneven, why ice floats on water, and why railway trains cannot run on highways; recognizes the different connotations of such terms as "modesty" and "self-abasement," "fantasy" and "ideals," "respect" and "flattery," "liveliness" and "frivolity"; clearly understands the different implications of the phrases "a wolf in sheep's clothing" and "a sheep in wolf's clothing," and illustrated this rather humorously by picking up a writing brush made of wolf hair with a core of sheep hair, saying that it was a sheep in wolf's clothing. But patient's responses to mathematical questions slow and inaccurate. She was unable to count down from 100 in sevens, and could not figure what the change on a dollar would be when purchasing three eight-cent postage stamps.

(10) Emotional Processes:

Largely keeps to her own thoughts, showing no interest in what goes on around her. Pays no attention to others. Sometimes will not even answer doctor's questions.

(11) Motivation and Behavior:

Generally inactive, spends much time in bed, makes no effort to communicate with others, doesn't look after herself well. Once in a while her old energy returns. On one occasion she suddenly embraced one of the doctors and said, "Yin Han, let's get married." (Yin Han was name of patient's former boyfriend.) When her father unexpectedly came to see her, behaved as if she did not know him, saying, "Leave me alone, leave me alone" – nothing else.

…

Patient's first hospitalization; light care.

Doctor: Qi Luo

I began an intense scrutiny of these records, digging deeply into every entry and taking copious notes.

One day as I was working away at this, I got all excited as I recalled Nostradamus's prophecy. I started figuring the time left.

It was already the spring of 1992, with seven years to go until 1999. I really like the number seven, and nine was my absolute favorite of all numbers. But that wasn't important. I did a little figuring – seven years is 2,555 days, only 61,320 hours, and I had to straighten out all these questions before I died.

Time was pressing, and I didn't know if there were any shortcuts.

Not long after that, I had a perfectly normal dream.

The character in the dream was my then self, but the time was pushed back to when Mother, Father, and I were all still living together. It was at the time in my childhood when we lived in the house with the huge date tree in the courtyard. The wet courtyard was carpeted with lush green leaves blown down by the wind, the branches of the tree stretching like great long arms, the longest arms in the world, from the east wall right across to rest firmly on the west wall of the courtyard, and the ground was sprinkled with sweet dates as fat and round as little pigs.

That opportunistic cat that I had so hated in my childhood also put in an appearance, strutting self-importantly back and forth in front of me.

Everything in the scene was from my childhood.