text: April 28th, 2015 Jack hated coming here. The chairs were too stuffed and too high off of the ground to support himself with your feet, so he was constantly struggling not to fall off. It smelled like Pinesol and old people. The air conditioning blew from a vent in the ceiling a few degrees too cold and a few decibels too loud. Jack was sure he could hear the fan rattling almost imperceptibly. The fact that he couldn’t tell if it was actually rattling or all in his head made it all the more annoying. But mostly, Jack hated living. “Good morning, Jack!” the too-chipper psychiatrist greeted him as he finally opened the door and strode through. Jack had no idea what time it actually was, but he was fairly confident that it hadn’t been morning for quite some time. It felt like he had been waiting for hours. Come to think of it, he couldn’t even remember the exact time he entered the room. There was no clock on the wall. Jack glanced briefly down at his watch, but the hands stood still. He mentally swore at himself for not even noticing that it had died. “Morning,” Jack mumbled half-heartedly. He didn’t have the mental energy to debate the proper term for whatever time of day it was. “And how are we feeling today?” the psychiatrist inquired. “Any improvement?” “Honestly, doc, I still feel like shit,” Jack replied, “Those pills you gave me haven’t done anything, or not anything positive anyways. Sure I don’t cry anymore, but I don’t get happy either. I’m just numb all the time. I thought you said those pills were supposed to make me feel better?” The doctor peered at Jack intently before scribbling something illegibly on his notepad. “Those pills were for getting rid of the suicidal ideations,” he said gently yet rather abruptly. “They won’t make you happy. You have to do that for yourself by resolving your own issues. I’m more than just a prescription pad, Jack. I’m here to help you work through what’s troubling you.” Jack knew exactly what was troubling him, but he’d be damned if he’d ever tell it to this quack. He just wanted to get the pills that would let him move on with his life, and mostly he just wanted to forget. But, he supposed, he would probably have to oblige the doctor at least a little bit, if he wanted any chance at getting the stronger medication. He sighed a sigh of feigned resignation. “Well what am I supposed to say?” he asked, hoping to prompt the doctor into asking an easy question. No such luck. The doctor didn’t miss a beat, cutting straight to the chase. “We still haven’t talked about what happened overseas.” Jack winced. This guy was obviously sick of beating around the bush. Maybe he was getting just as sick of this back and forth as Jack was. It wouldn’t be surprising. After all, he was only human too. “I don’t see how that’d help,” Jack replied defensively, “It’s over. I’m back here now. You obviously deal with people like me every day. I’m not some special fucking case for you to crack. Just write me a prescription for whatever you write the other guys. Some shit to make me sleep, some shit to make me happy, and some shit to make me forget.” He knew that he shouldn’t have lost his cool by the rapid scribbling going onto the doctor’s notepad. He cursed himself again. The fucking shrink would have a field day psychoanalyzing every little tidbit of that outburst on his tape recorder later. Still, he was hopeful that maybe the outburst would at least convince the doctor that he really did need some better pills. This time, he actually found himself in luck, as the doctor sat his notepad down and leaned back in his chair. “I think maybe you’re misunderstanding me, Jack,” the doctor said in a tone too overly nice to be genuine but not quite overly nice enough to be patronizing. “I’m not going to try to get you to talk about anything you’re not ready for. We’re going to take this at your pace, and I want you to be comfortable.” Jack’s excitement rose as he saw the doctor reach for his prescription pad. Finally, he thought. The doctor scrawled a drug that Jack wouldn’t have been able to pronounce even if he had been able to read the handwriting, and signed it with a flourish. “I want you to come back and see me in two weeks,” the doctor admonished him, “These pills should help you stay calm. We’ll reassess and hopefully talk more then.” Jack muttered a half-hearted thank you, snatched the paper, and walked out of the door as fast as he could without seeming like a total jackoff. *** Two weeks later, he found himself in the same office. The past two weeks had been a blur. He knew he had experienced the passing of time, but would be hard-pressed to pin down any specific memories from that time period, at least of his waking hours. His nightmares, he remembered well: The sand, the cracks of machine gun fire and the even louder cracks of shattering bone. The screams haunted him, and he always screamed along as he awoke. Except he didn’t remember waking up from them these past two weeks. Obviously he had woken up, because now he was sitting here, but he couldn’t remember waking up any more than he could remember falling asleep. It must have been these new pills. The office was even more annoying today. Whoever was in charge of cleaning clearly wasn’t responsible for the cleaning supplies budget, because they had gotten even more generous with that goddamned Pinesol. The fan had stopped rattling, but now there was this odd clicking sound coming from somewhere that he couldn’t place. His ears were ringing too, but that wasn’t a by-product of the room. The hinge clearly wanted for lubrication as the door creaked open at a frequency perfectly out of key with the ringing in his ears to make him cringe. “Hi there Jack,” the doctor greeted him, “Good to see you”. It sounded like he really meant it. Jack shifted his weight uncomfortably in his chair. Something was unsettling about the doctor today, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something in his face made Jack’s skin crawl, but he had no idea why. He again mentally blamed the new pills. He definitely needed to get off those and onto something better. “Good morning,” Jack said, feeling anxious to actually get down to business today, “Those pills you gave me two weeks ago... Something isn’t right with them. They’re fucking with my head. I can barely remember anything about the last two weeks.” “Hmm, let me take a look,” the doctor replied as he diligently took down his notes, “Some short-term memory loss and confusion is a rare side effect of this drug, but it looks like it must have affected you this way. Bad news, that’s the only drug on the market right now that’ll work for what we’re trying to do. Good news, there’s another drug that should counteract those side effects.” That didn’t sound right to Jack, but the fog in his mind left him unable to reason why. He merely nodded his acquiescence, and the doctor started scribbling on his prescription pad again. “While you’re here though, I think you’re going to tell me a little bit about your time overseas,” the doctor stated authoritatively. Jack surprised himself by agreeing, not just verbally, but mentally as well. Maybe it was time he finally got some of it off of his chest. He took a deep breath. “What do you want to know?” he asked wearily. “Tell me about what got you sent back here.” Jack’s temper flared at that one. He couldn’t control it anymore; it often got the best of him. “I’m pretty goddamn sure you know what fucking happened,” he snapped, “I got blown the fuck up, or my convoy did at least. I’m lucky to be alive, or so they told me. It’s not fucking lucky to be the only one alive when all your friends are in pieces in the desert somewhere.” “Jack, you’re experiencing survivor’s guilt,” the doctor said comfortingly, “It’s a natural response when we go through something that we think we didn’t deserve to survive.” “I’m don’t feel guilty for what happened to my squad,” Jack shot back, “I’m just fucked up”. At that, he resolved not to say anything else, even if solely to piss the doctor off. It was about time he returned the favor; this shrink had been pissing him off since day one. But the doctor seemed unfazed, merely making a single-sentence reply before tearing off the prescription and handing it to Jack. “I think you are.” *** Jack was back for his next visit even sooner than scheduled. He hoped the doctor would have time to see him today, even those the annoying receptionist had told him that it wasn’t guaranteed. He didn’t care. He had to be seen today. The nightmares had gotten worse. It wasn’t just the flashbacks anymore. It was new. He would find himself in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night, with only a tiny sliver of a crescent moon for illumination. The stars were strangely absent. As he walked in a direction he hoped would lead to water, he could hear steps behind him, but every time he whirled around to face whatever was following him, they would fall silent. His eyes couldn’t make out anything behind him, but he knew there was something. Then it happened: A shriek, and a creature bounding towards him like a lion. Jack hauled ass, or at least attempted to, but all of his equipment weighed him down. He doubted that he could’ve outran the thing even had he been completely naked though. He would feel the weight of it slam into him before he felt the claws. It was moving so fast that it knocked wind right out of him, and he lied sprawled out on his back, gasping for breath and instinctually flailing his hands to protect his throat from a bite that never came. Sand was in his eyes and he could barely see, but through his blurred vision he could barely make out the face of a familiar girl with blue eyes and a light-brown complexion, no older than sixteen, on the body of a lion. She looked terrified at first, then sad. Then she opened her mouth with a scream, revealing vicious fangs, and lunged at his face. Jack woke up screaming every time. Jack started in his seat as the door slammed open. Apparently the hinges had gotten the grease that they so badly needed. The shrink entered purposefully, taking a seat directly opposite Jack, facing him with an uncomfortable amount of eye contact. “Jack, I’m surprised to see you here,” he said, “Our appointment wasn’t for another three weeks. What’s going on?” “It’s the pills,” Jack said, “They’re making things even worse than before. The nightmares are out of control, and they’re not helping my side effects at all. In fact, they’re making them worse. All I can remember for the past week are the nightmares. I can’t take it anymore, doc. I can’t live like this. You have to fix me.” “That’s not possible,” the doctor replied curtly, “Nightmares are not a side effect of any of these pills. Those are from your guilt, not from any pills that I’ve given you. We have to talk about your guilt first.” Jack had had it with this shit. Of course he felt guilty. He felt guilty for all the fucked up shit he had to see and do over there. He felt guilty for every round that left the barrel of his rifle. But not for the goddamned IED that blew up his friends. He hadn’t set it, and he hadn’t driven over it. It wasn’t his fault. “I told you, I don’t have ‘survivor’s guilt’,” Jack spat. Calmly, the shrink put down his pen and notepad. “That wasn’t the guilt I was referring to,” he said in an even voice, “I was referring to Adra.” At the mention of that name, fear and adrenaline coursed through Jack’s veins. He thought he might have a flashback right there in the office, but he somehow stayed rooted to reality, and even managed to keep what he thought was an impassive blank face. The shrink, however, was having none of it. “Don’t bullshit me, Jack,” the normally professional doctor said, sudden venom in his words, “I know what happened that night. I know what you did.” Jack’s fight or flight response was firing on all cylinders. He didn’t know how, but this doctor knew his darkest secret, a secret that not even his exploded friends had ever known. Adra’s name burned his neurons to even think about, and here he was, being forced to think about her by this goddamned shrink. That bastard. Who the fuck did he think he was? And how the hell did he know Adra’s name? Jack looked fearfully right into the doctor’s eyes. The doctor met his stare, not blinking even once. For a moment Jack thought he saw something behind the eyes, something that terrified him to his core, and this time he didn’t write it off as simply a side effect of the medication. In that moment, Jack understood. Without a word, the doctor wrote a prescription for another drug, tore it off, and handed it to Jack, still unblinking. Jack numbly accepted it, knowing that it was unlikely to make anything better. He knew nothing would ever get better, not for him. The nightmares would continue, and he’d be back here again; he was sure of it. Things were only going to get worse, and he knew he deserved every minute of it. As he stood to leave, he had one flash of a thought, unburdened by the drugs. War is hell alright.