Young Writers Society

I enter the room. It is a big room, yet it feels small, enclosed, and frightening. I am here to get help. Paranoia engulfs me. I am suffocating. I sit in a red chair. There are two red chairs and a black table. I feel a sudden chill in the air…

“Tell me what’s wrong. Please? Tell me?”

It occurs to me that there is no table. It’s black, the room is black, the table ceases to exist. It disappears. But where is the doctor? What’s keeping him? The tears rolled down her face, and I touched her cheek.

“I…”

I got the doctor’s address from an ad in the paper. I walked three and a half blocks until I found the building. I didn’t go in. I waited outside. Wordless, I waited outside.

She came out to get me. The nurse, that is. The nurse knew I was coming and she looked out the window and saw me. She said it’s cold and I said I know and she touched me and said have a seat inside? and I smiled and said I would like that.

“How are you feeling today, David?”

I’m okay. I mean, I’ve been better, but I’m okay, all things considered.

“Your name is David Adams, correct? That is your real name.”

That is correct.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

I’m here so you can write me a prescription for these god awful headaches I’ve been having.

“Okay, David. It’s important that you listen to me. It’s important that you listen closely to what I say.”

I am. I am listening.

“Given your… condition, it’s difficult for me to communicate to you and for you to communicate to me, but we’re going to have to work with each other.”

What are you talking about?

“We’re going to have to work with each other, aren’t we?”

I sat there a long time. There were pictures of children on the wall. I felt something in my chest, but I didn’t know what it was. It was hard to breathe. Suddenly, a hand touched my shoulder. I looked up. “I’m trying, honey. I’m trying to change.” I love you and you don’t even know.

“David, you are being held here on suspicion of involvement in the killing of Melinda Adams. Do you understand that?”

I don’t know who that is.

“Now David, it’s going to better for both of us if you cooperate. You’re in a lot of trouble. But if you make it easy for me, I’ll make it easy for you. Understand?”

But I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who Melinda Adams is.

“You’re being difficult, David. I don’t like difficult people. Melinda Adams was your wife.”

No, it can’t be. I was never married.

“You were married to her for two years, David.”

You must have the wrong person. I have no recollection of this.

“Listen to me, David. Melinda was stabbed. She was stabbed seventeen times.”

What does that have to do with me?

(You stabbed her seventeen times.)

No, I didn’t. I would never do that to a human being.

“Her skin… it was peeled off in strips and wrapped around the rafters of your home.”

That’s disgusting. This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be telling me these things.

(You peeled her skin off, you sick, sick fuck.)

I didn’t do that. I’m not the person you think I am.

“Her head was severed from her body and placed in the freezer.”

Stop it. Just stop it.

(You cut her head off. Jesus Christ.)

You can’t do this to me.

“There were also traces of semen found on the scene.”

No.

(You had sex with her corpse. You had sex with a dead body.)

I am not David Adams.

“Do you want to know what we found next, David?”

Do you really want to know?

“The doctor is ready to see you.”

I enter the room. It is a big room, yet it feels small, enclosed, and frightening. I am here to get help… but I am not David Adams. The doctor stands over me. He looks at me, but he doesn’t see me. He doesn’t see me, because I don’t exist. There are two red chairs. There is a black table. Red and black. Red and black. Her face was red and black.

“I can’t help you unless you help me, David.”

I don’t need your help.

“You only need to say the words. Then this whole thing will be over.”

It’ll never be over. It’ll never be over.

“Where is Melinda?”

I don’t know.

“She’s late for her checkup.”

What?

“It’s important that she see me, David.”

Why?

“Something could go wrong. These last weeks are crucial. You know that as well as me.”

Oh. She… she must have forgotten. I’ll be sure to tell her.

There is something else in this room. It’s a bed, and a woman is sitting on it. I walk up to her and touch her face. She clasps my hand.

“I love you. I wish it didn’t have to end like this.”

I let it fall away.

“Just tell me. Tell me how to fix it.”

You can’t.