“If you're in danger of losing yourself, you've simply joined the wrong group of people”.
He steepled his fingers and, leaning back in his chair, tapped them gently against the superior smile that had provoked me from the start of our consultations. If my resolution had wavered before, now it was firm.
“But you put me in that group, doctor. Self-Actualisation for the Borderline Sociopath. You felt that the sessions might stabilise me”.
He pursed his lips and frowned.
“So what happened?”
“It was bedlam. Everyone shouting the odds. Chairs turned over. A window was broken. No-one in charge. I felt like I was drowning...”
He smiled wryly.
“It’s as well the session was held in the garden studio, then. A space in which no-one can hear you scream.”
He looked away and typed a few words onto his laptop. The room was silent save for the clicking of the keys. I eased the flap of my briefcase open.
He looked up, this time smiling brilliantly.
“I’m going to give you some tablets. Just to calm things down a little. Give you time to get to grips with the feelings of alienation”.
He pulled a pad across the desk and tore off a page. Clicking a gold Parker into action, he began to scribble rapidly.
“What tablets?” I asked.
He glanced up as if assessing my clearance status for classified information.
“They’re called nitrazepam. One of the benzodiazepine group. They’ll sort out this ‘no-man-is-an-island-entire-of-itself’ preoccupation of yours. Get you back on track”.
“I am an island, entire of itself”, I corrected him patiently, reaching into my briefcase. “Or I shall be in a moment”.
He steepled his fingers and, leaning back in his chair, tapped them gently against the superior smile that had provoked me from the start of our consultations. I stood up with the knife in my right hand.
