“What do you see?”
His breath smells like whiskey. That can’t be allowed; I must really be going crazy. Maybe that’s why I’m here. It’s probably just a high-alcohol content mouth wash. Uptown therapists like to be fresh for their patients, right? The guise of cleanliness is always good for telling someone what they don’t want to hear. That explains their calm, cashmere coated exteriors and perfectly manicured, but furrowed brows. Well, that and the buckets of money I’m wasting on this mother–
“Ralph, are you ok?” I said. “What do you see?’”
“Yeah, sorry Doc. I’m sorry, I really am, but do we have to do another one of these paper messes? I’m seeing spots over here.”
“Ralph, I’ll have you know that these ‘paper messes’ as you refer to them are well-thought out psychological assessments. Now please, just take a look.”
Why is his forehead beaded with sweat? He’s leaning too close now. I don’t like him that close, he’s stealing up all of my air and spewing it back out in warm polluted waves like the toxic breeze wafting out of a sewer grate. I always get shuffled around by the city crowds and end up walking over them. Happened this morning too. Most certainly will happen tomorrow too. Always does.
I’m sighing. That’s all I do here now.
“Alright. I see…well, it appears as if there are two bunnies in the middle of it. In the grass or something. Butt to butt. Kind of cute really….almost chubby. I imagine they’re out for a spring rumpus.”
“Ralph, be serious please! If you want to have an intellectual debate over the affectivity of the Rorschach test, we can do that. But don’t waste my time and your time here, ok?”
He almost raised his voice above the level of a nibbling bunny himself there! I’m actually shocked. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a stirring emotion here, besides anger, since I sat on this crushed velvet couch in office C4, third floor, hang a right after the elevator past the orthopedist.
“I am being serious!”
My voice squeaked. Am I intimidated? I can’t tell, but I’m sweating now too.
“Look, Doc, I swear. I, I even see something that looks like a broken rainbow on the top, with a sloppy looking heart in the middle of it. The ends have fluffy clouds and everything. It’s like what I drew as a kid or something…”
He’s furiously taking notes. What could he possibly be so fervently commenting on? Maybe it’s a just a prescription for all of the pain killers and anti-depressants in the pharmacy and I can stroll home and sedate myself enough to forget the three months of my life I’ve wasted here.
“Hmm. ‘Broken,’ you say? How would it break?”
“Well, I don’t know, I didn’t make the stupid blot. Maybe the artist’s hand was twitching.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, I mean I don’t know. Nothing violent I suppose. There does appear to be a giant smile at the bottom of it. Actually it looks strained. Bunnies and rainbows aside, it’s kind of a strange inky scene after all. Who knows, maybe the rainbow just got tired of showing all of its, er, beams of color and light to the world. Maybe it gave out in the middle and was worn down by that pointy heart shape. By love. I don’t know, Doc, you analyze it with your Ph.D.”
What am I saying? I need a nap, or a drink, or…to rip up this blot into a thousand pieces and run out the door down the block to her apartment. It’ll be over soon. Only three minutes till I can stroll out this door and pass her place, buy a newspaper at the stand in front and casually stand about pretending to be engrossed in whatever political scandal is afoot. Maybe she’ll be coming back from a run, or skipping down her steps, off to brunch, sweetly smelling of her trademark lavender perfume. The kind she’d lightly dab on each wrist before we’d go out to eat with anyone of any importance.
It never happens. It’ll never happen.
“I think you’re doing just a fine job, Ralph, just fine. Say more about that smile though, if you please?”
“The smile? It’s mocking me the more I look at it. Its eyes are weighed down by those fat lumps of fur stealing up all of the rainbows light. It wants to frown. Go on, get something from that reading. Tell me I’m negative.”
“You know I wouldn’t do that, Ralph.”
“I know my own name; stop repeating it to me like a kid learning the alphabet!”
“Ralph, I’m sorry if it offends you, but it’s the way that I speak.”
“Then don’t speak at all. Look I have places to go and time’s up….”
He sighs more than me, maybe.
“Any last thoughts on the blot, then?”
“I hate it.”
“Fine, then, Ralph. Just fine.”
“Same time next week?”