When high-heeled footsteps sweep through the vacant corridor, they always carry a gentle echo, somewhat like the trembles emitted by the keys of a piano.
With a "creeak," the sound of a door being opened echoed, Mrs. Miller, carrying a tray of tea, asked in surprise, "Professor Shearer, why are you standing so close to the fireplace?"
Then, her gaze moved to the firewood in Shearer's hand, she heaved a helpless sigh and said, "Sir, the wood in the fireplace has been specially processed, the fresh wood you've picked up from outside won't catch fire."
"Is that so?" Shearer, who was standing by the fireplace, casually tossed the wood into it, closed the metallic gate and walked over to the armchair by the tea table. Looking at Mrs. Miller, he asked, "Sorry, madam, who are you again?"
"Professor Shearer, in the four hours since you returned to the hospital, you've asked me this question six times. And in these four hours, I've only visited six times," Mrs. Miller said.
Mrs. Miller placed the teapot and cups on the tea table, looking at Shearer, she said, "I wish so much that you're just messing with me because if you really have prosopagnosia, my remaining years might be troubled by this question."
Having said that, she turned and walked towards the door. Yet, just as she went to pull the doorknob, she almost got hit by a door that was being pushed open.
Mrs. Miller raised an eyebrow, about to chide the person on the other side, but to her surprise, the perpetrator was Bruce, she immediately softened her expression and said, "Mr. Wayne, perfect timing, the tea is freshly brewed."
Bruce nodded at Mrs. Miller, cleared the way for her. Only after she walked out the door did he enter the room and gently closed the door behind him.
Shearer looked up at him, indicated the armchair opposite him, and continued to pour tea into his cup. After Bruce took a seat, he initiated the conversation in a rare proactive gesture, "Hello, erm, a new professor, how should I address you?"
"I'm Shearer," Shearer replied. After pouring himself a cup of tea, he filled one for Bruce and placed it in front of him, then said, "You don't have to differentiate, we are all Shearer."
"Alright, but I hope to understand more about, how different you are than the Professor Shearer I am most familiar with," Bruce said, looking Shearer in the eyes.
"You want me to evaluate him from my perspective?" Shearer gently blew the surface of his tea and said, "He's a meddlesome little fellow who likes to stick his nose into everything, just like most of me, talkative, melodramatic, and a bit noisy."
Bruce opened his eyes slightly, intuitively repeating Shearer's word, "....a little fellow?"
"Oh, didn't he tell you?" Shearer looked surprised and lifted his right eyebrow, then leaned on the armrest of the armchair, propping his chin with his thumb and forefinger. He leaned back slightly and said, "The birth of personality traits has its precedents. Generally, the earlier the trait is born, the stronger it is."
"The Professor Shearer that you know best is one of the earliest born original personalities. It underpins Shearer's persona and is a pillar of the Tower of Thought."
"The Shearer you know is Arrogant, perhaps, you also know Greed and Sloth, each personality trait has a name, and I'm no exception, I'm called Morbid."
"He should've told you that he is a mentally ill patient, and that's not a metaphor, he has a real mental disorder."
"Scholarly Autism?" Bruce asked.
Shearer nodded, then said, "You should know, the Tower of Thought in Shearer did not exist from his birth, but stemmed from an accident."
Bruce sank into memory, recalling what he once saw in Shearer's Memory Space. One day, Shearer's personality suddenly shattered, and those fragments formed the current Tower of Thought.
"Before the Tower shattered, Arrogant, Greed, Sloth, and other personality traits were not standalone states. Just like you can't converse with the Arrogant or Greed aspect of your persona, the trait doesn't exist independently."
Bruce seemed to understand somewhat, he looked at Shearer and said, "So, you existed separately at that time?"
"This brings up the dichotomy in Autism patients. Perhaps you know, many mentally ill patients share a common characteristic, that there's a huge difference between their state when they're ill and when they're not."
"Not only those with Dissociative Identity Disorder or Schizophrenia feel that there's another 'self' living their life, but almost all patients with dichotomic mental disorders also share this feeling."
"A mentally ill patient's life is divided into two parts, the normal part, and the part during their mental illness. A majority of patients can't control themselves when their mental disorder acts up, so what controls them then?"
"Mental disorder," Bruce reflexively answered. He then looked up at Shearer, "Morbid...morbid...so that's what it means."
"Yes. Opposite to the normal state, is the morbid state," Shearer nodded and continued, "Before the shattering of the persona, Shearer, just like any other mentally ill patient, had two states, one was the normal state, the other was morbid. So, I existed at that time."