ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE: Two of the dreams Kristeva describes in this part of the story--the playroom one, and the darkness one--are based on recurring dreams of my own. The dream about the light coming in the door is the basis for my older short story, "A Crack Of Light," which overlaps with this story and explains some of what's going on.
Kristeva hated long silences, but even more, he hated needless talking. So the long silence seemed to go on forever, though he knew it couldn't have been more than a minute or so.
The smartly dressed woman sitting opposite him bobbed one foot as if listening to music he couldn't hear. She always held a clipboard and notes on her lap, but wasn't writing on it at the moment, because of the silence. He didn't like staring at her, since it seemed like a challenge, and so let his eyes wander along the walls with their annoying wishy-washy watercolor paintings that he sensed were meant to have a calming effect but which he just found...annoying.
As if he'd forgotten, he suddenly remembered that his ex-wife had painted watercolors, watercolors which he'd liked, and he looked away from them, feeling the heat rise in his face.
He inadvertently ended up looking back at the smartly dressed woman instead. As if taking his eye contact as a cue, she spoke.
"You know...sitting and saying nothing doesn't accomplish much."
He gave a halfhearted shrug. "I get the feeling that sitting and talking doesn't accomplish much, either."
"I don't know about that...I was under the impression it'd helped, at least somewhat. You haven't physically assaulted anyone else, have you?"
Kristeva winced. "Physically assaulted...no."
Her foot stopped bobbing and her pen hovered over the paper, and he tried to keep the wince from turning into a grimace. "I take that qualifier to mean something else happened, instead."
"Just some minor car damage. Nothing that can't be fixed." When she said nothing, he spoke up just to fill in the silence before it could take over again. "I'll probably be getting the bill for it sometime soon, and I'll go ahead and pay it. And no, I'm not making a new habit of destroying other people's property. So we don't need to plan for the next time it might happen, because hopefully it won't."
"This person whose car you damaged, they instigated the incident at all--? Physically accosted you, maybe?"
Kristeva paused a moment, then said, "Accosted, no." Another pause, then he propped his foot up on his knee, just to give his hands something to do. "He didn't do anything that warranted it. Like I said, I'll cover the damage, lesson learned."
He heard her jotting something down, and looked up instead at the degrees on the other wall, the name KATHERINE APPLEGATE and various acronyms whose meaning escaped him emblazoned on each one. The police department had no in-house psychologist, and so he'd had to see a private one, which he'd thought might be for the better, except that everyone at the station seemed to know about it anyway. Thus the silent treatment he'd been getting for weeks now. He couldn't help but suspect that a similar reputation was what made everyone in the station so standoffish toward their lieutenant. He mulled over the nickname Kooky Kincaid and wondered how long it would be before he earned that title himself, if he hadn't already. Kooky Kristeva. Mad Max...? He made an unpleasant face.
"Well, aside from that," Dr. Applegate said, "how have things been going? I know you've been working on a particularly difficult case, is it going anywhere...?"
"Not sure. One of those one step forward, two steps back sort of things. Comes with the territory."
"You'd mentioned some odd dreams you'd been having, is that still going on?"
"I think it comes from the environment. I'm betting you have dreams about treating patients all the time, don't you?"
"Clients. And we're talking about your dreams, not mine." She looked up from the note she'd been taking, as Kristeva had said the sentence aloud along with her. He gave a dismissive wave.
"I know...I know. Just that I figured all this dream stuff went out around the time of Freud or whatever."
"I wouldn't call myself a Freudian, but dreams can have their uses, especially if they help figure out the mindset underlying somebody's actions. You never have come up with a decent explanation for why you assaulted that suspect the way you did."
"I said I didn't like him touching me, I figured that's good enough."
"And you generally don't like people touching you."
Kristeva looked ceilingward and let out a heavy sigh. "I'm not the touchy-feely sort...and no, I wasn't neglected as a kid."
Dr. Applegate pursed her lips. "But you can't be 100% positive of that, can you...?" The look on his face must have grown unpleasant again without him being aware of it, for she flipped through her notes and changed the subject. "So you'd say that the dreams you've been having lately tie in with your work. You dream about the cases you're investigating? People you've questioned? That sort of everyday thing?"
The images of Det. Singer in the courthouse with his throat slashed open, and of him jabbing a syringe into Kristeva's arm, and of him and Sgt. Kincaid, both soaked in blood, standing behind him in the restroom, flitted through his head and then disappeared. "I guess," he said. "That sort of everyday thing."
Flip-flip. "You'd briefly mentioned a couple of other dreams that didn't sound like they have much to do with your work, but you've been having them repeatedly anyway. Would you mind going into more detail on those? Only if you feel up to it."
Kristeva sighed again, not really feeling up to it, but it was better than sitting in awkward silence, or pondering why he'd felt like breaking somebody's mirror. "The one with the playroom and the one where everything goes dark--right?"
"Those are the ones."
"There isn't really much to elaborate on. Number one, I find this weird little playroom in the attic* of my house. Looks like any kid in their right mind would love such a place to get away to. But I'm obviously not in my right mind, else I wouldn't be here talking to you, plus I'm not a kid, so I just want to get the fuck out."
"The room itself is that disturbing to you--?"
"Well." He lifted a shoulder. "Not really. It's just that the place smells bad, I guess. Not like the kind of place somebody would like to hang out in."
"Can you describe that smell at all?"
It smells like dead people, Kristeva thought, but didn't say this aloud. "Just this sickening sweet smell. Like something going bad. That's all."
"I know you said these dreams didn't seem to have much to do with your work," Dr. Applegate said, "but have you ever smelled something like that before? Maybe in your job?"
A pause. "Once or twice," Kristeva said, not elaborating.
Jot-jot. "And number two...?" she said.
He let out a small breath, grateful that she didn't ask for further clarification. "Nothing that interesting...I'm just outside, doing I don't know what, and suddenly it gets too dark to see. It isn't nighttime, the sun is still out, but it's just this useless yellow disk in the sky, it doesn't light up anything around it. I guess it's better than nothing, though. I try to get back inside our house but the wind picks up and it's hard to breathe and I can't really figure out where I'm going."
"Do you ever get back inside the house?"
"Not that I recall. Usually wake up before then." He held up his hands. "Is there some magic you do with stuff like this--? Because, no offense, it just seems like there are much more useful things I could be doing with my time, and that you could be doing with your time, rather than sitting here talking about what I dreamed last night."
"Did you have any of these dreams last night--?"
A sigh. "It was a figure of speech."
"You mentioned in the first dream that you're not a kid so you don't go in the kids' playroom, right? You're grown up in that dream?"
Kristeva frowned. "Yeah, I guess."
"What about this dream where everything goes dark, are you grown up in that dream, too?"
"I figure I am. I mean, I'm grown up in real life, aren't I?"
"You said you were trying to get in the house..."
"That's right."
"...Only you said, 'our house.' You currently live alone, right? Whose house are you trying to get back into?"
Kristeva opened his mouth, blinked, then shut it. Stared at her for a minute. "My old house," he finally said, after a very long pause, and his brow furrowed a little. Details of the dream had always varied, and had always been vague, but when he focused on what little he could make out of the mental images, the dim lights shining in windows, he realized it didn't look at all like the two-story house he currently occupied in a residential neighborhood just outside the city. It was far too big...too many windows...too much open space.
"Your family home...?" Dr. Applegate said, and he nodded. "When's the last time you lived there?"
"I moved out as soon as I graduated high school. Eighteen. Haven't gone back."
"Is there a possibility you're younger in this particular dream? Not grown up like in real life?"
"I guess."
Flip-flip. The psychologist paused on one page further back in her notes and stared at it for a moment or so; he did his best not to fidget, but couldn't stop himself from peering at the clock. Time here always seemed to drag itself along so glacially, yet every time a session ended, it felt like he'd barely been there a few minutes.
"I'd almost forgotten something you brought up in our second session," Dr. Applegate said, and he looked at her again. "There was another dream you mentioned, do you recall it?"
"I think you'll have to jog my memory."
"Something about a light appearing at your door."
Kristeva bit the inside of his mouth. It was the most inane dream, he couldn't even remember why or in what context he'd brought it up, and in fact he'd almost forgotten it himself, but now that she mentioned it, it came rushing back into his thoughts, and along with it the same weird panicky feeling that it had induced when he'd started having it. "I guess," he said again, hoping she'd move on to something more productive.
"Do you think you could describe that one again?"
"It's in your notes, isn't it--?"
"Of course, but maybe you've remembered more of it since then?"
"I really doubt it, since there isn't much to it to begin with."
"Maybe just humor me a little."
He sighed and again looked toward the ceiling, twiddling his fingers around each other. "It's nothing much...just I'm lying in bed, it's dark, I hear my door open, I see a little crack of light shining in, and somebody says it's time to go. The end."
"You omitted a detail this time."
"I did?"
Dr. Applegate nodded, not looking up from the notes. "The first time you described it, you said you were a child in that dream. Not grown up."
"Well...I suppose. No other reason for somebody to be peeking in my bedroom, seeing that I live alone and all. This really helps you at all--?"
"A moment ago you were insistent that you're grown up in your dreams, because you're grown up in real life, but this is two recurring dreams so far where you seem to be younger than you currently are, and you're back in your childhood home. I can't say what it means, but you have to admit it must mean something, right?"
He wanted to say No, but bit the inside of his cheek again, instead. Another thing his ex-wife had found odd about him was his habit of describing the dreams he'd had to her in the mornings--he was a cop and she was an artist and yet she seemed more down to earth than he was. Go figure that this odd habit would come back to bite him in therapy.
Fortunately, Dr. Applegate didn't pursue this line of questioning, instead flipping back toward the most recent notes and halting there. "One more thing on this subject before I stop pestering you about it," she said, and he felt his ears grow hot, as if she'd read his thoughts. "There was a new detail you offered in this dream where you're outside and it gets dark. You said it gets hard for you to breathe. Can you describe what that feels like at all--?"
What do you think it feels like? he felt like asking, but what came out of his mouth instead was, "Like I'm drowning." And then he blinked again, because he hadn't intended to say that, hadn't even been aware he was thinking it. Yet when he thought about the dream, that was exactly how it had felt, like the air had turned to water and his lungs had filled up. He'd never consciously realized that, until now.
Dr. Applegate didn't seem surprised to hear this, though she did write something down. "It might sound trite," she said, "but have you ever had any personal experience with drowning? An accident maybe, or anyone you know, or something in your line of work--?"
"You mean like me personally," he said, and finally she looked up at him. "Right?"
She lifted a shoulder. "Preferably, but it isn't necessary."
"Well, I guess I'm going to make your day, because according to my parents I almost drowned in the bathtub when I was little."
Again she didn't seem surprised, and again she wrote something down. "Really?"
"I don't know the details and I don't remember it at all. Just what they told me later on. Now maybe you can share why this is so fascinating to you."
"I was just thinking," Dr. Applegate said, "how that must have felt for you, compared to how it must have felt for that suspect whose head you shoved down a toilet."
Kristeva didn't even bother trying to hide the annoyance he felt now, staring up at the ceiling and deliberately letting his breath out his nose. He happened to glimpse the clock again, saw that it was a few minutes to the end of the session, and stood up; she glanced up at him as he reached for his jacket, hearing the rain still pattering outside.
"I really doubt there's anything else we can cover in three minutes," he said, even though he felt he shouldn't have to explain his eagerness to leave.
"I doubt it," Dr. Applegate said, and he paused, not having expected her to agree. "I'd like to ask you to do one thing for me, though, before the next time we meet."
He fought down another sigh and turned to face her, lifting his hands a little--anything to get out of here with at least a shred of his dignity intact. "Yes...?"
"This childhood incident you say you don't recall. I don't suppose you could ask your family for further details--"
"No, I couldn't. That bridge is burned, sorry."
"If that's the case, then perhaps you could try remembering it for yourself?"
He furrowed his brow. "And how do you propose I do that?"
"Sometimes a sensory prompt is all that you need. A visual cue, a sound, a physical sensation. Something that has to do with the memory."
"And how do I know what sort of 'cue' would have to do with the memory when I don't even have the memory--?"
Dr. Applegate shrugged. "You said you were told it happened in a bathtub...that's a start."
Kristeva stared at her for a moment, made an odd face, then left the office. "In another two weeks," she called after him, like always, and he made a vague gesture but stopped long enough at the front desk to get an appointment card.
On the way through the lot to his car, he wasn't sure why since it had never been an issue before, but the raindrops starting to soak him through were particularly irritating today.
No comments:
Post a Comment