A Twist Of Noir 510 - Phil Beloin Jr.

AN UNTREATABLE CONDITION - PHIL BELOIN, JR.

“I hear voices in my head, doctor,” I said.

He nodded, but I wasn’t sure I could trust him. It was our first appointment.

“I used to think everybody did,” I said, “and I wondered how they seemed to handle it so, you know, easily.”

“Let’s just worry about you, John.”

“Sometimes the voices tell me to do things.”

“Like what?”

“To hurt.”

“Yourself?”

“No. Never.”

“Your classmates, though.”

My parents had briefed him. I should have known. They’re all in it together.

“They took me out of school, yesterday,” I said. “My parents and the principle.”

“Tell me what happened, John?”

“They were making fun of me, doctor. Yesterday in the hall. They saw me talking...with myself, and they started laughing. They musta thought it was pretty damn funny so I threatened them, these cheerleader bitches.”

“Let’s not use that word.”

“You sound like my parents.”

“It’s not helpful right now.”

I looked away, stared at the walls, at the pictures and colors designed to calm the inner beast, but that monster lived in my head, right between my ears, pushing me, pushing me.

“They made me come here,” I said. “My parents. Or they were going to commit me.”

“We won’t go that far. Okay?”

Maybe this guy wasn’t so bad after all.

“What do these voices say exactly?” he asked.

“You really want to know?”

“I can’t help you if I don’t know everything.”

“And it goes no further than you?”

“Absolutely.”

It seemed like he was on my side. I needed an ally. “It told me to stab those bit...those girls from school. But I didn’t do it.”

“I heard you verbalized that.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t like I had a knife or something.”

“You could have gotten one from the caf or the science lab, John. You must of thought of that?”

I squirmed a little. “Yeah, I did,” I said, “because the voices needed to be...I don’t know the right word.”

“Satisfied is what you’re trying to say.”

Yes! That was it!

“They hounded me to stab them, doctor, to gouge the smirks off their faces.”

“But the voices have stopped now.”

“Of course.”

“That’s good then.”

“When my parents told me that I was coming to see you, I got so tense I couldn’t fall asleep.”

“Trouble sleeping is very common.”

“When they came downstairs this morning I was already up.”

“And what did you say to your mom and dad?”

“Nothing,” I said. “The voices told me to mutilate them, to take a butcher knife and cut their hearts out.”

“John, listen to me carefully,” the doctor said. “This is not your fault. You can’t control this thing.”

“I know, doctor, but I still had to silence the voices or they would have driven me crazy. Don’t you see that?”

“I understand, John. I do. You have an untreatable condition.”

I let out a long, slow breath. Finally, somebody got me.

“I think that’s enough for now, John. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, doctor.”

I reached over and shut out the light. Then I laid down on my futon and closed my eyes.

I’d clean up the mess downstairs tomorrow.

BIO: Phil Beloin Jr. writes stories with a twist. His novel, The Big Bad, is published by Hilliard and Harris and available on Amazon.com. This is his third story on A Twist of Noir.