Black Pen

"What, in your opinion, speared you from the herd?" Doc asked, sipping on a steaming mug.

 I was on the second hour of therapy. The second hour of my slow demise.

"I have a powerful thirst." I scoffed.

"What about? For what do you yearn?"

Oh, dead Jesus Christ.

I rolled my weary eyes in frustration. This useless bag of old skin flaps has been prodding me for weeks, trying to get a morbid glimpse inside of my mind.

"Hmm, let's see...", I sat up straight in my chair and pushed invisible glasses along my nose.

"I suppose I yearn for this painstaking hour to be up. That seems like an unquenchable thirst to me, Doc." I mocked, exaggerating the S's in my sentences.

"I'm here to help, Yates. Now, I need you to cooperate if you ever want your privileges reinstated." Doc Hilliard spoke with a warmth that made my stomach churn.

"Oh, yes! My yard time!", I said, sarcastically, "Do you really believe I care to congregate with those hoodlums, sir? I'd rather dig my eyeballs out of their sockets with a rusted spoon! That sounds like a grand panoply, right? Right! That is what I yearn for sir! An exhibit of a lifetime!"

Doc perked up like he'd witnessed an experiment take an unexpected turn. He focused keenly on said experiment and wanted, selfishly, to poke at it's innards.

 "Why, in your opinion, do you continue to be drawn to violence, Yates? Why do you have an incessant need to do harm? Have you no remorse for the lives you took?"

 I laughed a good hearty laugh; a boisterous, nearly maniacal chuckle. I could hardly control myself, heaving back and forth in my chair.

Doc observed my hysterics intently.

Doc sat patiently, waiting for me to catch my breath occasionally jotting notes on a yellow legal pad and taking hefty gulps of his cooling brew.

 Finally he said, "Okay. Now that you've gotten that out of your system, take me back to your childhood. What was your mother like? Your father?"

I could have killed him right then. I could have grabbed him by his crooked nose and jammed his clicky-clacky pen into the side of his neck.

I breathed.

"Hmph." I curled a smile, crossed my arms in my lap and slouched back into my seat.

"What about your childhood? Who or what inspired you to take on the duties of a psych, Doc?"

"We're not here to talk about-"

"To talk about you?", I interjected, "Oh, but why do you help the weak, Doc? Let me guess..."

 I sucked my teeth, stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the long, polished wooden desk that separated us.

"You lost a family member to the ol' dead time when you were young?" I stroked my chin and lowered my invisible glasses. I continued, "A parent? Sibling? Perhaps, you caused this grief and have to fill that restless void? Am I warm?"

Doc was fidgeting. Clicking his clacky pen.

"You need to have a seat or I will have to call-" 

"Ah-ha! That's it! Did you poison dear ol' Mom?- No! You killed the family pet! A hound dog! I'm right, aren't I?"

 Doc's face turned a beautiful shade of crimson red like a sun dried tomato. A vein seemed to appear in his neck and throb like magic. A single bead of sweat rolled down his wrinkled cheek.

"I said sit down or-!"

I sat with a loud plop, unable to suppress the excitement.

"Sitting! Done, sir!" I saluted like a soldier and grinned a toothy grin.

"Yates, I don't suppose you are taking this treatment seriously. Now, if you intend on achieving reformation, I will need you to cooperate in a way that is beneficial. We all want to see you heal." He said, sternly. He wiped away the remnants of nervousness.

"Oh, how considerate, sir. Your robotic compassion is electric. The truth is, and oh-- how I know you love the truth, you are just like myself! You too, have a terrible past. Although hidden from view, it's there and it's not dissimilar to my own. The difference between you and I, Doc, is that I became reckless in my pursuits and subsequently, am forced to live out my days within these six walls." 

"Six?" he asked, looking away from his clacky pen and yellow pad and peering at me from behind his bifocals.

"Yes, sir. Six. Can you see the sky from this room or feel the grass beneath your feet? Let us not veer from the facts, sir. I'll spend the rest of my life here, within these walls but you will be confined within your own mind. That's the worst prison of them all, is it not?"

Silence fell between the Doc and I. He stared into my eyes and held a fiery gaze. His face no longer reddened but a pale pearly white.

"Of course, I could be mistaken," I said, breaking the pause, "You, yourself, could be a reformed man. Be it boredom or exhaustion, crime doesn't always continue the course of satisfaction."

Doc held a confused gaze. He'd forgotten to scribble notes or swig from his chilly mug. I think he'd forgotten to breathe at all.

"Don't you remember me, Doc?" I whispered.

I pressed my crossed arms into my breasts, squeezing them against my chest and leaned in closer. He glanced down at the bulge rising toward my throat.

"I was only a child." I laughed. "Fourteen years old and a whole life of violence ahead! Oh, what little I knew! The naivety of youth. You see, sir, my childhood was a dream. A fairytale, even. I could've grown to become an actress of a film writer! I could've been a doc like you, Doc! After the insidious crime you acted upon me, I was shown a new world. A childhood not robbed, but enlightened! Ha! What a twisted world in which we live! What a random bunch of nonsense!" The excitement grew wider and wider in the pit of my gut.

Doc's expression had fallen. His now sunken eyes screamed out in agony and his pen jostled in his shaking hand. Sweat beaded and fell in unison on either side of his brow like tears. His skin was turning an exquisite shade of green. He gasped for air, clutched his chest and fell onto the carpeted floor. His swollen tongue muffled his cries.

"Oh, how terrifyingly poetic." I said.

I rose to my feet and hovered over his seizing body. His old, scruffy jaw lay slacken and only the whites of his eyes were visible in their sockets. Coffee colored foam stained his white pressed button-down and seeped into the carpet beneath him. 

He struggled for one last rattling breath of of air; an unquenchable thirst for life.

He fell limp.

I picked up the black clacky pen from the floor and clicked it twice. I watched as the ballpoint ducked in and out of it's casing, then slid it into the pocket of my prison uniform.