Hypnosis
by Thaddeus Rutkowski
She often stayed awake late; she was a hyperactive child. So I tried to hypnotize her to put her to sleep, using a method I’d seen on television. I had taken no classes in psychology. I was no doctor. I just fluttered my fingers in front of her face and chanted, “Your eyelids are getting heavy. You’re feeling sleepy. You’re asleep!” I should have had a pocket watch on a gold chain to swing like a pendulum in front of her face, but I didn’t have one.
On television, subjects receiving such suggestions would drop into unconsciousness. In their sleep state, they could be made to do things against their will, like lie between two chairs like a board. Once they were there, between the chairs, you could sit on them or jump on them, and they would not bend.
I didn’t want to paralyze my daughter or petrify her; I just wanted to put her into a peaceful state of slumber. I kept up my chant, my relaxing mantra, but she just looked at me. She met my eyes with her eyes. She didn’t waver, and she didn’t go under. When she saw my fingers fluttering in front of her face, she slapped my hand away.
Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of seven books, most recently Tricks of Light, a poetry collection. His novel Haywire won the members’ choice award from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. He teaches at Medgar Evers College and received a fiction writing fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Hypnosis”? Our daughter has given me material for writing from the time she was born. (Now, she has just graduated college.) “Hypnosis” takes place sometime in her early teens, when, like many people, she had trouble sleeping. I never expected to actually hypnotize her—it was a goof. The opening is like an unexpected move in chess—not proven to be good or bad—that might solidify with other moves later on.
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