Bigger

“This is progress,” Karl strokes his chin after he utters these words. Caroline is undecided as to whether this is an affectation or unconscious habit. Either way she does not like it. He did something similar and once the association was established she was haunted by the act.

“I don’t think you’ve heard me,” Caroline’s tone is hard. Karl does not pick up on this, as she is often harsh in the delivery of her words. There was a point early on in the sessions where she was charming, but that time is long gone and lingers only in Karl’s notes. Notes he expands at the end of each day when he revisits the therapeutic environment and considers what it is that he has witnessed as his clients attempt to relate to themselves via him.

Karl smiles, “would you care to summarise. As you know, I’m a fan of repetition. Further understanding is to be had as we reconsider that which we thought we already knew. We are never in the same river twice.”

Caroline scowls at him. Karl knows that she begrudges her time with him. Sees it as a necessary evil. He’s gently probed at that necessity. Moved carefully here and there. Nonchalantly browsing whilst wearing a poker face so that the store owner will not pounce upon his naked interest. He’s aware that he will always be behind the curve when it comes to such artifice. Finds solace in his inability to immerse himself fully in subterfuge. Eyes the veil between his own condition and those around him. Mental health is a fragile structure. The crumbling bones of a long dead song bird kept intact with hope and a smile. There are no muscles that can be built around those bones. All one can do is cup their hands around the treasure of the mind. Or bury it and pretend it does not exist. There is however a strength beyond the mind. Karl increasingly believes in that force that lies beyond. But that is a place for his musings and it does not belong in this room.

“He frightens me!” she spits the words at Karl like shards of glass exploding from an act of wanton violence.

“This is a theme to our sessions,” observes Karl.

She’s shaking her head with yet more violence, “no it isn’t!”

“What’s changed?” Karl is steepling his fingers. Another behaviour that is not taught in the thinking professions, but adopted all the same. Everyone needs to belong. Safety in numbers. Even when the adopted role is conducted solo.

Caroline sighs and Karl is reminded of dragons as the heat of her demeanour signals her ever present anger. Her eyes are cold as she reads him. She is calculated and guarded. A lifetime collecting coping mechanisms has left her heavily armoured and dangerous. Karl understands that there is danger here. Knows that the worst of the danger that his clients represent is invisible until after the fact. He has never shared with anyone his excitement at the prospect that he is dancing with a monster. Hides his wanton darkness behind his worthy pursuit of helping others. As the years have gone on, he has specialised in the more intriguing cases and his excitement has grown. He suspects that this is how he copes with exposure to the radiation of the darkness of the human condition. Amuses himself with the comparison between himself and the pen pals of death row inmates.

The lingering silence signals the expectation that Caroline should answer the question. Karl is used to Caroline ignoring such signals. She subverts the sheet music of conversation and plays her own tune instead. They sit in feigned comfort. Two relaxed adults enjoying the moment. At times, Karl finds maintaining the calm of the therapeutic environment exhausting. Fancies that his energy is being sucked from him. Of late, he has this recurring image of a fly. Sullying him with the vomit of its tawdry life. Stomping its violence into his tender flesh and then sucking upon the mess of him. The buzzing in his ears is a novelty become regular in sessions such as these. The pads of his steepled fingers press hard against one another. A prison betwixt two combatants.

“You have talked about the fear he provokes in you in a number of our sessions,” Karl decides to provide some clarity, “the ah… quality of this fear seems different now though?” He feigns something approaching disinterest which is quite the opposite of how things are right now. There is a potential breakthrough here. One that Caroline seems intent upon retracting. Only later will Karl be in a position to assess whether his stating they had made progress was sheer idiocy or a master stroke of his genius. He has her on the ropes though and that which he has suspected for some while has revealed itself at last. An addictive glimpse of the truth of her. A rare sighting of the monster only amateurs have previously sighted.

She trips over herself and attempts to close the door she has inadvertently opened, “he’s just got to me more than usual this week.”

Karl stays calm. So near and yet so far. He knows the answer. Could supply the words. But that wouldn’t count. There is no victory in his being drawn out and crossing boundaries. That’s how it goes wrong for so many people. “And why do you think that is?” he asks her.

She shrugs. The sigh that follows is tepid, “just been a hard week really.” She then reels off a preprepared shopping list of occurrences. All of which Karl is aware of. Most lives are a trial by repetition. Eat. Sleep. Rage. Repeat.

The session peters out into mutual disappointment. Another thing off the to do list. Karl knows that Caroline is window dressing. Following the consequences of her life choices, therapy is a natural go-to for a decent and well-meaning person. He’s long suspected that she’s anything but that. Ensnaring someone like her and spying upon her secrets is a rare and difficult thing. There are plenty of people like Caroline in the world. More than most would care to admit. Few go to therapy. And when they do they attend for the sport of it. Their true nature is never revealed. Instead they walk back out into the world with a clean bill of health and more equipped to deceive and destroy.

Caroline has a weekly appointment with Karl and over the next few weeks she remains agitated. The change is subtle yet remarkable. Karl suspects this is Caroline’s one outlet for the fear she is experiencing, and that the fear is alien to her. Her prior references to this fear were artifice derived from projection. He wonders at how someone like Caroline can discover fear. What magnitude of event would wake them up to the reality of their vulnerability.

And yet the dance continues. Karl is bound to remain within the comparative safety of the boundaries required for him to practice therapy. Caroline retains her mask and lies and manipulates her way through the sessions.

The ridiculousness of their situation should frustrate Karl. To be on the brink of discovery and held back by rules that should not apply in such circumstances. He stays his hand and waits. Denies his urges and allows his excitement to grow. Believes that good things will come to him. Indulges his fascination of his patient and speculates often. Convinces himself that he is both safe and professional as he practices cerebral masturbation, his emotions spurting into fertile crevices. He’s venturing where angels fear to tread.

Her fear is palpable now. Born on the wings of confusion. What was projection has become real. Karl encourages her to express her chaos and experiences a thrill from the kind cruelty he inflicts upon her. A voice in his darkness mocks her; you can’t can you?! He marvels at her ineptitude and simple stupidity. A life wasted on lies. Now she is unable to speak the truth of her predicament. He sees that in a way, she understands the world better than most. She knows no one will come to her rescue and that if she were to cry for help there would be those who would turn their blades upon her in her hour of need. Karl wonders how many times she has witnessed this apalling aspect of humanity and how often she has been the engineer of the demise of others by these perverse means.

Caroline’s suffering becomes conspicuous despite her best efforts to mask it. It has been a long time since she felt pain. Numbed by a conquering and consuming anger. This new found fear of hers has fractured the protective shell of her anger and the pain is leaking out.

Karl knows that it is now only a matter of time before he exposes the dragon’s treasure. The week of waiting between each of their meetings is a necessary torture. He counts down the days as he dwells within the fantasy of his prize. Life is a distraction. His excited heartbeat pounds in his ears as he nears climax. He considers this to be his chrysalis stage. When he hauls the truth of Caroline out into the light he will soar upon the wings of knowledge so few possess. 

When it happens, Karl realises that it has already happened. That it was taking place for somewhile before he awoke to the full glory of its presence. His recollection of their sessions is blurred. He’s on autopilot. Awaiting the change that he knows is coming. The change that Caroline heralded with her experience of real fear.

He’s wanted to tell her for so long. Grown smug with his knowing. That she’s encountered a bigger and better bully. Tried her tricks on the wrong target. And he’s turned the tables on her. Met her with more than she ever bargained for. That for the first time in her adult life she is experiencing consequences. He wants to tell her this and so much more. Open the floodgates and drown her in the reality of her situation. Destroy her in order to create something far more worthy.

“Please, you have to make it stop!” her eyes are wide. Portals to a terror that goes beyond anything he has experienced. 

He feels the smile on his face and struggles to discern its meaning.

This is wrong!

He will never know who said these words. Believes that they bubbled up within him. The dying breath of the drowning man. 

He looks into unseeing eyes surrounded by a face gone slack. The mirror of his ambition. The consequences of his obsession. The eyes are an accusation, but he protests his innocence all the same. There was no agreement to hypnosis. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t have. A chill goes down his spine and a familiar excitement betrays and shames him. He has done this. He is more powerful in this moment than he has ever been.

The fear on Caroline’s face is all his. He savours it even as the last vestiges of who he once was sob and wail in mourning for his innocence. He tastes her fear and knows that he now owns her.

But where was his fear?

Throughout all this he has remained detached and dispassionate. Held himself at bay as something occurred in the space between himself and his patient. He was drawn into a playground with rules that were always concealed from him. 

Caroline’s fear was bait and Karl’s seduction was a simple affair once he tasted her. 

There’s a very good reason why they are never diagnosed. It is said that they use people to the point of annihilation, or they turn them into something resembling them. Droplets of truth fallen into the mud of ambiguity. 

There is a darkness that consumes. A power that goes beyond the mind. And if the mind ever looks upon that infinite absence, there is only collapse. Brittle bones shattering under the weight of a burden not meant to be carried in this life or this reality.

The thing that was once Karl laughs at the empty face of his patient. Spittle wets her left cheek. But she does not flinch. She does not blink. He looks upon his work with a strange curiosity. Then he turns his head right and then left. Scanning his new surroundings. 

He nods, “thers wull duh.” Grabs a hold of his jaw and waggles it. Tries again, “this will do.” He smiles. That’s better. This will do nicely. Blinking three times in quick succession, his obsidian eyes shrink and transform into something more suitable. There will be those who witness those obsidian depths. They will look into a darkness of complete loss and despair as they experience a fear beyond imagining. A fear that breaks all their bones.