Write 1000 - Monsters Only Entry

I find myself in a scantly furnished room; it is draped drably in sterile colours.

Noise scratches the edge of my vision, forming into words between pounding thuds in my head.

‘How long,’ it begins, ‘has it been a problem for you?’

I first encountered the monster at an age younger than most, the words battering my senses; my eyes close. I’m shunted back to the memory of my first encounter.

‘Not long,’ I lie.

A wrinkled brow follows a sharp exhalation of warm breath from the nose; his tight lips frown ever so slightly.

Silence, and an irreal ringing in the ears, both precede a sigh of disappointment.

‘Alright.’

The nib of his pen scrapes hard against the lined paper of his notepad, ‘and how long is that?’

I have painted myself as a questionable figure, if I wasn’t already.

He no longer has any reason to believe me, it might only be a disservice to myself to tell him the truth, now.

 

In reality, our introduction was amongst friends. I was only fourteen, but out of some vague fear of exclusion I partook.

She was so beautiful, curves only further accentuated as I spent longer with her, and she made me feel beautiful, too.

The memory, now, is muddled; thanks in no small part to the abuse in years that followed. As recollection fades, I return apprehensively to the present.

 

My tongue wets my chapped lips, he notices the thirst immediately.

He prods, ‘Thirsty?’

Perhaps he believes he is helping; I only feel ashamed to be so easily read.

I attempt to shock him, with glib admission, ‘Why else would I be here?’

Professionally, he cannot roll his eyes, but I sense a consternation in his gaunt face that suggests he had expended considerable energy not to do so.

‘You’re here,’ he responds clinically, ‘because you have people that care about you.’

Recalling the staggered, bleary-eyed, and lonely walk to the annex I respond.

‘And where are they?’

In that moment, I wanted more than anything for him to have a real answer to that question, despite everything, I wanted to be proven wrong.

 

‘Well,’ he began, already clutching at straws, ‘how can you expect people that care to show it as you are now?’

He says, in as delicate a way as someone in his position can, that he finds you repulsive.

You are grotesque, in his eyes. How could someone love you?

Uneager to continue this line of inquiry, words crawl out of my mouth to change the subject.

‘It numbs the pain,’ I admit.

‘It causes the pain,’ he responds with immediacy.

I no longer felt human, to this man. Where was his pity, his empathy?

I grit my teeth, ‘Does it make you feel good, to talk down to people that need your help?’

Shuffling in my chair, curling my toes, I continue.

‘I bet you feel like such a big man,’ the time for holding back feelings has passed, ‘I make one mistake and I’m forced to talk to you.’

He moves to talk, waves his pen to conduct me, I persist.

‘And you get some bizarre power trip out of it instead of helping me,’ the words flow like bile rising up my throat, ‘fuck you.’

His eyes widen, as if the way he had been behaving didn’t demand this satisfaction.

 

The air is still, but a tension permeates the atmosphere between us, it is as though some unseen barbed wire exist between us and it feels as though if I were to react, I would lose.

‘Whether you like me or not,’ he eked out every word, going to great pains to exaggerate their meaning to me, ‘I am the person that has to decide if you’re fit to return to society.’

Somehow, he acts as though this conversation is as laborious, if not worse, for him than it is for me.

‘I want a drink,’ I tell him.

He responds, ‘That’s why you’re here.’

I stare at him.

‘I can get you some water.’

I continue to stare, holding one hand back from striking him, with the other. It is an arduous process.

Through gritted teeth, I reply, ‘Then get me some water.’

 

He walks to the door, keying a code into the handle, he has his back to me to prevent me from seeing. He either thinks of me as stupid or dangerous, maybe both.

The thick wood frame graciously accepts the ajar door back silently, the sound of mechanical suction assures me that the room is secure once more. I waste no time in my attempt to leave.

Staggering to my feet, I wrap my hands around my chair, and heave it upwards. I am thwarted by screws that dig it into the ground, a precautionary measure I hadn’t noticed yet.

‘Shit,’ I speak, to the silent room.

Lacking an alternative, I smack my clenched fist against the window. I am rewarded with disappointment and pain in equal measure.

I sit and wrap my knuckles with the sleeve of my jacket, cursing under my breath.

The door opens once more, with that same gasp of air.

He re-enters, holding a plastic cup full of no doubt tepid water, and a bandage.

‘What’s the bandage for?’

Almost imperceptibly, the sides of his mouth curve upward.

‘You’re not my first patient.’

Pulling back the sleeve, with which I coyly attempted to hide the injury with, he admires my handiwork.

‘Look at it,’ he commands me.

I refuse, stubbornly, childishly.

He presses his thumb down, I wince. I instinctively turn to see if he dared to hurt a patient.

‘Look at how hard you tried to leave this place,’ he exposes the injury further.

‘I believe that if you can put that level of motivation into leaving here the intended, healthy, way,’ he begins to wrap the bandage around me, ‘you will never, ever, need to come back.’

And, for the first time since we'd met, I started to believe him.