Excerpt: Within Death's Sight

Everybody had secrets. Life would be boring without them. An unending parade of dull and predictable events that left little to the imagination or your psyche’s need for excitement. Excitement, like that ever happened to me. My life couldn’t be any more predictable if I held a script and my aunt shouted action and cut at the beginning and end of every scene. But I was about to change that. If I could get out of this meeting without revealing my secret.

I sat on a familiar black leather couch, surrounded by familiar taupe-colored walls, boringly decorated with flat scenery images, plastic plants, a few small bookshelves and one degree framed in dark oak proclaiming the source of the dull droning I was ignoring a doctor of psychiatry.

Doctor my ass. Shrink is definitely more appropriate. But I had to pretend. Seven years of this and I was almost free. If I could focus on his words enough to give the appropriate answers and responses he wanted. I had gotten really good at reading him and providing exactly what he was looking for. He was so proud of himself, having helped me overcome my horrors. Seven years of hard work he had put into me to make me normal and able to cope with going off to college. That’s what he was droning on about right now. Praising himself, ignoring me. You did a swell job doc, now let me go.

“I’m proud of you, Jordan. I know it hasn’t been easy for you or your aunt. You’ve made amazing progress. You’ll have to deal with this the rest of your life, but you’ll be fine,” he said, finally addressing me directly.

I smiled at him. “Thank you, Dr. Davis. I never would have been able to do this without everything you have done for me and Aunt Ellie.” I should be a damn actress.

I hadn’t always faked it though. Actually, the first four or five years I really gave therapy a try. I believed my aunt and my doctor that it would help. Combined with the medication that sent me to la-la land and beyond, it would help. Drown out the pain and the memories so I could get on with my life. I bought the lie for a while. I decided to start lying back somewhere around the time when my aunt decided that I couldn’t finish my senior year in public school and I couldn’t apply to colleges because I still wasn’t better.

Better. Right. Like anyone truly gets over watching both of their parents die. I could deal with that…had dealt with it. It still hurts to know they’re gone, that it was my fault and I’ll never get to see them again, but after almost seven years, the pain had dulled to being bearable. What I had trouble with was the other quirk that concerned my doctor and aunt and scared the hell out of me. The reason for the medication. The reason for the continued therapy sessions and the lack of outside world contact. My hallucinations.

They were horrible and over-powering and crippling. At first. They’re still horrible, but they don’t cripple me anymore. No, it’s not the power of the drugs or the therapy. As if. If it were, then maybe I’d actually feel the gratitude I was expressing to my shrink. Nope. Remember the lying? I haven’t had a hallucination in almost three years. It’s a miracle.

It’s bullshit, but they don’t know that. My medication diminishes at the appropriate intervals and I go to therapy regularly. But my medication takes a trip in the swirling flush of a toilet and I grit my teeth and fake it when I have a hallucination. Fortunately, I know what triggers them and I can usually avoid them without being too obvious about it.