What is the question?

The chair creaked ever so slightly as Adam relaxed back into it. John was still talking. Undisturbed as it by his surroundings. Surprisingly content. Explaining his own life, mostly to himself. It was difficult to keep track exactly what he was talking about. Jumping from topic to topic with the agility of a type of therapeutic monkey.

A smirk flitted across his face at the thought. Just for a second he felt lifted out of the monotony. A guilty sort of pleasure. He felt bad really. He knew he wasn't supposed to judge his patients. Still, sometimes it turned out more ideal than reality. John was in full flow now. With many minutes left on the clock Adam could do little but lean back. John hadn't noticed him zoning out. Not yet. Too busy with his own thoughts. Totally immersed within himself.

Adam considered to just leave the room. Evade. Flee even. Just let him talk it out among himself. "The question, the question. The question is what is the question." Adam tried the best he could to keep himself engaged. Faced with a continuous stream of data designed to explain away John's pain. How it was all that bad. How he wasn't afraid. Not really. And all Adam could do was listen. His own thoughts were now beginning to wander somewhat. In circles ever so wide. He thought of home. The smell of coffee in the morning. His wife smiling. His marriage.

Hmm. But why the association? Why think of her, right this minute. It was odd enough to be interesting. And with nothing to distract him, he found himself stepping into the rabbit hole, just a little deeper. Ignoring the dangers, that which we do not yet perceive, may well include.

It came to him that this was not too dissimilar. At home, too, he'd also only ever just listen. Only listen. Never speak. A word here or there, left unheard. He'd just never quite thought about it that way. Is that why he chose this profession? Because he's interminably doomed to listen? Entirely stripped of his expression. Unseen. Unheard.

Adam had now forgotten John, too. Just as well. Both occupied internally. Joint only through dissociation. John aloud. Adam in his head. Close in a twisted sort of way. Did he want to leave? The thought shocked him. Leave his wife? It startled his entire body now. John almost noticed, had he not been so busy sorting abstract from concrete in his ever expanding question-verse. But really, Adam didn't care much. For his indifference for John, it was beginning to turn to hatred.

Should he? Should he, behold, get divorced? "Is this how I find out," he thought, "in the middle of a therapy session with someone hell bent on not just simply shutting up?" He wanted to say: "No! Of course not! Leave John, you leave. Leave my life and take these my thoughts with you!" But it was no help. He knew how the calm before the storm announced the impending doom that is the crushing defeat of deep realisation, cutting all the way to the core. Trembling at the thought. He hated it. Hated John more than anything. "Please John, leave. Leave me!"

He had, once loved that woman. His wife. More than anything. He still did. Tears beginning were flowing down his face. In sickness as in health. And still, throughout the years. She had changed. And with her, so had they. Not in a terribly toxic way. But she would talk so much. Complain really. So much. Still, the talking wasn't even the issue. It's that over the years he had turned into the one thing he never wanted to be. Not for her. Never! He had promised. A therapist. Unclear exactly how it began or who instigated it. He wanted to help the woman he held so dearly. Wanted to do good by her in the ways he knew how to so well.

Is that irony? That through acts of love your relationship turns into something you hate. "Oh!" He was shocked again. "No, no, no! Hate!? Do I hate my wife!?" He was increasingly beginning to wonder if John was his patient or if it was the other way around. Is that why he chose this path? Not to help others, really, but to arrive at a state where he might be able to finally help himself?

John was quiet now. Adam did not know for how long he had been. An ear deafening silence had beset the room. Tears all across Adam's notes. How much he would have done for John to continue. "Please, please, continue. Say anything. Don't leave me alone with these thoughts of mine."

"Don't leave."