Darlene’s Creature Comforts.

Darlene pushes her cuticles down almost disconnecting the nail from the protective skin. The woman in the white coat holds a clipboard with pertinent information; DOB, name, blood type, reason for treatment, etc. (1998-08-17, Darlene C., AB -, depressive episodes and hallucinations). The silver non-smudged name tag reads Rebecca Sternly, Ed.S., L.P.C.C. indicating this woman is licensed, thankfully since she has been seeing Darlene for over six months.

Sternly settles into her plush leather chair and says, “So, Darlene, why don’t you tell me why you’re here today?”

“I saw it again, watching me.” Darlene sits in the chaise lounge, as Sternly once called it, but it was really just a fancy couch.

“Was it the same creature you have previously described?” Sternly crosses her legs and scribbles every twitch Darlene makes into her file.

Darlene knew Sternly’s disbelief of the reality of these creatures and hated her for it, “Gonna have to be more specific Doc, I see a lot of shit.”

“‘It has four legs and hair all over, but it still looks human and shit, like the face is exactly like my cousins,’ that one?” Sternly flips back to the index, as Darlene’s creatures spanned several shapes and sizes depending on the day of the week. “Or ‘it was mostly shadow, had no limbs, but its eyes nearly took over the entire body,’?”

Darlene shakes her head, she knew how crazy it sounded, how she sounded most of the time, but these creatures have been there her whole life. As a kid, she thought it was her imagination as her parents couldn’t see them until they were killed. Now, she sees them sometimes too. “No it’s a new one.”

Sternly nods, flips to a new page to scribe, then sighs to herself. She observes Darlene trying to be unbiased but rooted in reality. “Okay, tell me.”

“There is a beast, I do not know where it rests but it tracks my movements by the trail of despair I leave behind.”

Sternly jots it down, this one is different she thinks. Most of the creatures are rooted in trauma associated with a family member, but normally Darlene describes it shape without comparison to herself. “What does it look like?”

“Nothing…everything, the shape changes as I stare at it or when it knows I’m looking.” Darlene closes her eyes trying to picture it clearly for Sternly, she can’t.

“That’s not unusual,” though it is for you, “why don’t you tell me how you feel when you look at it?”

Darlene breathing kicks up as though she is running, a fear response Sternly notes, before her mouth opens a crack, “My mind traps itself, yarning a barrier around for a clothed protection, to hide the parts it could tear. I’m dawning a state of cocoon, becoming less of myself to be better.”

Sternly frowns, again a strange response, “Why do you think it makes you feel that way?”

Darlene wants to shout it doesn’t, but can’t stop seeing it in her mind forcing her to spew nonsensical words, ‘Time slows to a snail’s pace,’ I find myself rejecting that phrase/idiom. Not only does time move quickly but it is hard to pretend it doesn’t. So I reject it.” Darlene doesn’t know where this is coming from, she wants to say she’s scared.

Sternly puts everything onto the page without changing anything, making sure to note the crease of Darlene’s brow and the line of sweat under her nose.

“Time moves. Fact. I, on the other hand, move slow. No work, no job, no routine, nothing but copying my stride to that fast unstoppable force. It’s hard not to hate it, but I really hate myself. My brain supplies me with endless questions of why I can’t do better. I am filled with why, why, why? It’s endless, the self-hatred. People tell me it be nice if I was around—a nice sentiment, sometimes I can even convince myself of it.”Darlenewantstoscream, this isn’t her—she can’t warn Sternly—she can only speak.

“But a pendulum always swings staggeringly and stuttered everyday…I can control it and other days it is out of control.”