I got my lips pursed kissing the mascarons

"No, I don't know why I'm here. I mean, I technically know why because I've been told. But I don't know what happened." He told the stranger claiming to be a psychiatrist. The man had eyes like glass marbles in a dead doll's face. "I'm not depersonalizing. I just can't remember anything about that day. Not even waking up."

"What is the last thing you do remember? Clearly remember?"

"Ah. Hm. Taking an Ambien to fall asleep."

"And what's the next thing you remember?"

"A nurse asking me if I wanted my catheter removed."

"Those memories are nine days apart."

"Okay."

"Does that bother you?"

"What? Does what bother me?"

"Missing nine days and not knowing why?"

"I know why." Gareth said and stepped away from the outside world to a safe distance down a long hall from where his eyes were. "I'm fucked up. And that's something you can't fix."

Dr. Azzawi came to see him and he pretended to trust her. Although he no longer did. He wasn't sure why but his instincts told him that she was fake and so he should be too. He had this disturbing mental picture of her sitting there smiling while holding a butcher knife behind her back. It was getting very strange. His disastrous attempts at self-medicating were beginning to look like the better road. Therapy and meds had put him here with no way to remember just what had happened to cause it.

They kept contact with Zeus limited. Too limited. The problem was that he wasn't quite sure if anything he thought he knew was actually true. Whatever they had him on kept him from dreaming and he could sleep all night and still wake up exhausted. He hadn't been able to explain the scars on his feet other than that he'd hurt himself. Somehow. Doing something he probably shouldn't have.

.

"You have no medical records before this last year. That's unusual."

"I grew up poor."

"So you never were under a doctor's care? At any point?"

Gareth looked at Dr. Dead Doll and wondered if the man heard what either of them said. He actually wondered more if the man had an actual face behind the mask he always wore. The man had a wedding ring. Maybe his wife was the only one allowed to see that face. He himself didn't want to know who, or what, this man really was. Because if he found out and it was bad he had no escape.

He had made the mistake of saying that he thought he might be in Hell but the only way he'd know for sure would be to try killing himself. If he couldn't die, then this was Hell. The therapist asked him if he'd really considered suicide. Gareth said that everyone did. Because that was true. When asked how he'd do it he'd just said "Trains seem a foolproof way."

That made him 'a danger to himself'. Then, in a common area he'd offered to blow a nurse for a joint. Because the meds were fucking up his mind and he just really needed to relax. Get high. Mellow. Melt the world a bit. Sexual advances towards staff was an infraction. He hadn't thought of it as sex. It was just payment for something he really wanted.

.

"You seem agitated. This isn't progress. Do we need a new regimen?"

"No. I need....it's just one of those days."

"Tell me more. Please."

"Okay. Sure. You work here. But me? I'm stuck here. 24/7. You wanna try being on my side of the table?" Gareth told Dr. Dead Doll and it was very weird. He wasn't agitated. He was furious but didn't really feel it. "I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of this bullshit motherfucking nonsense of asking me shit that you know and I don't. You know what this feels like? It feels like being hate-fucked and having to say thank you to you after you cum. I can't think properly I can't fucking sleep properly everything you feed me tastes like sawdust and you expect me to have a pleasant and fruitful session when this is how I feel? Fuck off. Go fuck yourself. You think this is helping me? Please! Just fucking please!"

"This hostility is inappropriate. You know this and yet you do it."

"This place is getting a small fortune that grows bigger the longer you keep me." Gareth said and felt himself grinning although he didn't know why. "I'll be 'better' when the money becomes problematic. Don't even pretend that you actually give a shit about me. I'm insane. Not stupid."

"You actually think that I would do this, come here and deal with all of the anger and abuse patients like you inflict, just for money?"

"Absolutely. That and the rush you get from the power of deciding who's sick and who's well." Gareth said and didn't look away from the man's glass marble eyes. "This isn't a free clinic. You aren't helping people like me who are poor. Tell you what. Donate your salary to charity. The whole thing. Show me the proof. Maybe then I'll believe that you're not a fucking fake."

.

"Love, you aren't helping yourself, or me, by creating an adversarial relationship with the staff here." Zeus told Gareth as they sat in the dayroom. "Dr. Azzawi has another therapist set up but she says you need to be a bit more stable and balanced. Because otherwise you could end up here again. We don't want that."

"But I think it will happen. No matter what we do." Gareth said and felt like the world was a poorly rendered sim. Nothing felt quite right. "I was better before I started all of this. You need to find someone to love who's worth that love."

"I've found that person. It's you." Zeus said and looked so earnest and yet sad that it hurt. "I'll talk to Dr. Azzawi and see if we can't get you released. It isn't a question of legality. It's more a matter of making sure you can continue treatment. I am with you and will remain with you. Period. Nothing will make me walk away from you."

"I don't know what they want from me." Gareth said and tried to actually think. Having to try to do that couldn't be a good sign. "They ask me questions when they already know the answers and I don't. Shit like 'Why do you think you're here? What might have triggered you?' and it's like, I have no idea and don't wanna know! If I knew, wouldn't it just happen again?"

"They aren't trying to harm you. They just need to know where to start!"

Gareth O'Shea was dumbfounded at the notion. If they had no idea where to begin, who the fuck would?

.

"It's in my file. In full detail. I don't see how me talking about it is going to accomplish anything!"

Siobhan Brody, a licensed psychotherapist and therefore, by the way of the world, superior to Gareth, gave him a look that said nothing to him. He wasn't cooperative enough. He was deflecting and caging. According to her. He repressed things that were harmful to his well-being and he wasn't honest when he described how he felt. Wasn't honest. Okay. Fine. Alright. He'd give her honesty.

"You know what I think? Even though I know it's wrong I think it? And can't stop thinking it?" Gareth said and felt his anxiety spiking. Oh well and whatever. "I enabled my abuse. Maybe he was right about me. Maybe I liked it. Maybe I wanted it. I let it happen for seven years. I didn't kill him. Or myself. Maybe I got what I really wanted. Maybe it was my fault that he couldn't resist fucking me. Because I stayed there. I stayed there and let it happen night after night. If I didn't like it, if I didn't want him to do it, why was I still there?"

"Because you were a child. He is the one responsible to know what is wrong and to not abuse you." Brody said and made a note. "You were powerless. He had the control. Not you."

"I didn't even try to run away!"

"Why do you think that was?"

"Because adults don't believe kids and cops can't be trusted and the courts send you to foster care or worse, but I should have tried!"

"Who did you have that you could trust?"

"My mom my...my mom." Gareth said but felt a strange ominous shadow growing as he said the words. "She was usually in prison though. She...she...she could...she..."

"She what?"

"She...she didn't want me. She thought getting pregnant would make my dad divorce his wife and come to her." Gareth said as the shadow became everything and colors fled.

"He didn't do it. He didn't care about me. I never met him. He didn't want me either. I'm not a person. I'm a dirty trick that went wrong. I'm a poor attempt at manipulation and emotional blackmail. And know what? Nothing you say can change that. No tool or coping skills that you give me can change that."

"But you aren't that child. You are a man and you have made more of yourself than the ones who hurt you could have ever imagined. You ARE loved now. You are valued. Despite what these others did to you. Despite what they told you."

"If you say so."

"Why do you think I'm not being honest?"

"The soil is very alkaline and the water table low and toxic. When the wind picks up dust stings the eye and throat. It can, in a day or two, blind an unprotected eye whether man or animal." I said and let my knowledge emerge as it would. That's always easiest for me. "No natural wildlife is to be found. Not even insects. The only thing that grows is a type of grass no livestock will eat. The blades are sharp edged, the taste very bitter, and very little nutrition can be derived from it."

"Is the gap natural then?" My companion said and gestured ahead beyond our oxen and the dust of the lead wagon. "You say the gap is only some twenty miles wide measured south to north? That poison soil to the north doesn't affect the area?"

"Unvante's Gap has a border area roughly ten miles wide north of it that is barren but not yet as poisoned as the Ghostlands. Bedrock rises nearly to the surface there. Proper soil begins just south." I said and examined within my mind an old memory of an older map. "There are no rivers in the gap but many springs exist. I believe the water is kept clean by the thick shelf of rock on its borderlands."

"What is this town we head for?" Nigel asked and it was clear to me then that I was quite fond of him. Since I wasn't irritated by his inability to remember a name I had told him more than once. "Isn't this a bit of an awkward place to put a town?"

"Catcher's Springs is in a fertile basin and there are trade routes running in three directions west and then the eastern track as well." was my answer as I began to prepare myself, mentally and emotionally for returning to settled lands.

Because it's not just the echoes of the past that presa upon my will. As will next be explained.

.

"I know better, yes, I know the truth. But it avails me little. When others insist on being the fool." I said to Nigel and Thurlcroft as I holstered my pistol and sighed. The man before me upon the ground would not trouble us anymore. Or any. People so often test what they should not. That being my refusal to be a victim.

"I don't think the bastard expected that." Thurlcroft said and looked at the machete our would-be attacker had dropped as he fell. "Or maybe he did. Too late to ask him though."

"What is it you know better?" Nigel said rather loudly. More loudly than our now ringing ears required. "His comrades fled. Are we to be in trouble? There are no other witnesses left but us!"

"They were thieves. Nobody will mourn one less. I'm sure their nature was known already to others." I replied and for the first time in weeks wished for whiskey. "Violence is never an answer. It can be a suitable response but is only a solution of sorts in a world as bitter as this. We should be better than this by now. We should understand that hate and anger are what led us all to this. Love. Love creates. Hate? It only creates more hate."

"Well this one won't create more little thieves to plague the world." Thurlcroft said and seemed overly fascinated by what he saw. "I could say you've blown his brains out but I'm not so sure he had any to begin with."

"He chose his end. I gave fair warning, I did." said I as a weariness filled me. I have in my long years had too much experience with withered souls and empty hearts. "Reilen will understand the necessity of my act. This will sadden our lady Cysalla though. She never sees such as this sort though."

"Why would that be?" Nigel asked and moved closer until we were touching shoulders. I didn't mind that. At all. "Can she touch the heart of even that kind?"

"No. But they avoid her. They always do. Instinctively." I said and took comfort from Nigel as he took reassurance from me. "To be seen by her is to see the truth of yourself. That? That can a worse punishment than death for some."

"All that time on the plain and we killed nothing. We reach a proper town and the same day there's this." Thurlcroft said and looked around to see who would be responding to the shot. None did. "Well, Doc. I'm glad you're good with that pistol and not over slow to use it."

"I'll not allow any to be hurt by one who chooses to insist that violence be a necessary part of disuasion." I told him truthfully. I detest violence but detest the monsters in human form more. "I suppose we should find someone to tell. I have no intention of burying this fool. If it's needed I'll pay another for the deed."

"I suppose it would be bad to have a bloated corpse this close to town." Thurlcroft said and looked around again before continuing on. "With barely a couple thousand residents it's clear this lot preys upon travelers. And as you said, Doc, certainly those here know how this bastard made his money."

"As well as what to say to maintain a plausible deniability. I'm sure their lies are well polished." I said and wished, as I often do, that I had an ordinary life. "Let's go see about finding a digger."

.

Cysalla was, as I had foreseen, quite disappointed.

.

"They were willing, indeed rather determined, to kill us for whatever we might have in our pockets." I explained and accepted on behalf of my companions the burden of disapproval. "I'm quite certain that we would not have been their first. This world. It's a bloody stupid place! All this time and men still can't learn! We just get worse! The Original Beings should show us no mercy for what we've made of this place!"

"The innocent will suffer as well, Francois." Cysalla said in a voice laden with sorrow. "Must all be punished for the acts of a few?"