schizophrenia [fanficts - short stories] || PAUSED ||

psychopathy (?)

(KokuDouma again because I just love them so much)

I had seen him before, wandering the streets, perhaps as a normal citizen. I never took the time to analyze it, I really never had any reason, but it was something obvious, what was going through his mind. I mean, it was not clear what was happening to him, and perhaps those doubts would never be clarified. I don't know if I still have time to clarify them, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that I generally know what was going on.

I remember going out for lunch one day. Thursday I think. Leaving the Mayo Clinic to walk around Rochester, maybe eat something. It rained. I sat under a bus stop, even though I wasn't planning to go anywhere. A few minutes passed and he sat next to me. I looked at him awkwardly. He looked back at me and smiled. He did that, got up, and left.

I asked for the rest of the day off. I felt watched, persecuted, as if something inside him had stayed with me.

I don't really know when he was diagnosed, but his friends, who sure aren't dumb or lazy, brought him to my job right away a day or two after I saw him looking so eccentric around. “Whatever it is, deal with it” I was told, and then my boss told me that too, when he was assigned to me.

There are people who say they do it just for friendship, it's not new. What is new is the little despair with which they came. I have seen people walk in, shaking their siblings, crying over their friends, out of sheer despair and anguish about what their future could be.

They simply wanted to ensure his safety, not even Douma's sanity. This already brought me indications that he could be dangerous, that his disorder could reach an irreversible point that was going to hurt him and everyone. But I didn't care.

Some people may say that their patients do not speak in the first session of talk therapy. He wouldn't stop doing it. At first, I thought he wasn't saying anything interesting; some facts about butterflies, buddhas and crystals. He seemed to just want to talk, even if it didn't make sense, which kept me annoyed and somewhat tense. Then I realized that he was too smart. He was distracting my attention, trying to make me forget about my job. And he was archiving it.

The truth is that it really caught my attention his ability to think quickly and devise something so desperate (although ingenious) to get out of there.

     "Don't worry," I told him as he gave me a monologue about the crow migration, "I don't want to dig into your mind. I want to help you. I'm not saying stop talking, just stay focused."

There he started talking to me about his friends.

     "We were very close… Now they decided they wanted to get rid of me. That is why I am here. With you." He sighed, "I guess they couldn't stand my sadistic and strange personality."

For him to admit something like that was already rare, but he didn't give up in the face of a challenge.

     "And what is strange to you?"

     "And what is digging for you?"

He looked at me with bright eyes, full of pity. I sighed and grunted.

     "It's fair."

He sat down next to me, something he'd never seen anyone do before.

     "I would like to help you understand me, but I don't even understand myself. You should see someone with a different perspective, perhaps one of the ones who brought me here." He said.

Douma rested his head on my shoulder. Previously, I had assumed that he was uncomfortable or mistrustful, but no one in my twenty-two years had shown that closeness to me. He made me feel wanted, although that feeling of hostility did not leave the place.