Encounters Anthology

Psychiatrist Six

Sam had changed psychiatrists five times. None of them had been able to help her decipher what her dream meant and every time she went to an appointment it felt as if she was spiralling more and more; as time passed the dream seemed to start to slowly consume her reality. At this point, she was desperate for an answer that no doctor had been able to give her. This was her last attempt in figuring out what her dream meant, so she sat in the waiting room until the secretary told her to come in.

The office smelled of fried food and candy but it was absolutely pristine; she was instructed to sit in brown, leather, long chair and wait for the doctor to attend her. She did, she lay down on the chair and waited, thinking about how she would explain her dream once again and about how the doctor would respond to it.

Hours seemed to pass, so when the doctor finally entered the room Sam was on the verge of sleep. She blinked her eyes open to the doctor sitting on a chair, observing her, smiling at her. He held a small notepad in his right hand and a bitten pen in his left. He wore a tie with circle pattern in what Sam could only think was an attempt to seem approachable- friendly, But as he moved it was revealed that the tie hid a small grease stain on his white shirt.

She went on about how she'd been having this recurrent dream that followed her into the daylight, how none of the doctors she'd visited had given her any answers, and she told him about the feeling that soon the dream would become her reality. The doctor listened intently and when she was done, he kindly asked her to narrate what she dreamt about.

Heavy rain outside. Heavier than blood. Thicker than oil. I'm sitting in a puddle of sorrow. The sky is painted by a misty murky green. I stand up and serve myself a cup of rain; I sip the liquid and feel as it runs into my body and into my blood stream; I feel the way it changes my complexion and the way it changes my senses. My legs start walking on their own; I beg them to stop but they won't. My stomach itches and my right hand starts to scratch it; it does so until my stomach starts to bleed; I can feel the way my skin gets stuck under my nails but what is scary about it is that I feel no pain, even though I know I should. The rain gets heavier and heavier until it abruptly... clears up.

I walk into what seems like a ritual. People are dancing and chanting around a pedestal where a milky white cow stands. Its horns are decorated with symbols and bells, and its fur has hands marks on it, as if before it was placed there everyone had soaked their hands in paint and placed them softly on the cow. Then I look down at my hand and I look at their hands and mine are the only ones dripping in paint.

An impulse fills my body and urges me to dance uncontrollably; my thoughts disappear and I know that the only thing that will save me is this white being that we all venerate. My heart is racing and my throat starts to get itchy from the chanting but I can't stop; I don't want to stop. Something sucks me into the ground but I do not emerge in another place, I'm in the earth and I can't move. My stomach is filled with dirt that was forcefully introduced into my mouth; I start choking when the maggots start eating my skin from my feet up to my face. Then, I wake up.

A tear glided down Sam's cheek as she finished the story; the doctor still thinking about what he had just listened to closes the notepad where he had written details of her dream; when Sam looked at him in the eyes she knew that she had told him for nothing. She thought that she hadn't found any answers; she was about to leave the office when the doctor suddenly said, "It's terrible that you've been having this dream so often, but don't worry, we can work it through. Would you like a glass of water?" Sam nodded. The doctor poured from a green jar into a clear glass and handed it to Sam, as the glass slowly approached her mouth she looked down and saw that the water was heavier than blood and thicker than oil. She drank.