City On Fire

3

Dr. Nicholas Meer, an over weigh thirty something with a pudgy face, sat behind his cluttered desk and stared at Ella over the rim of his glasses which tightly squeezed the sides of his face. She on the other hand stared past him and out the window. She would much rather be outside under her tree. After all, she knew how this would go. Maybe she should break the ice, you know, get this over with as fast as possible.

“Do you have today’s newspaper?”

Dr. Meer took two newspapers from his briefcase and placed them on the opposite end of the desk. Ella grabbed the top one and hastily paged through. She knew what she was looking for and by now she had learned how to look for key phrases to find it fast. “What are you looking for Ella?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she threw down the newspaper and took the other. The doctor expected as much. He sat patiently waiting for her to finish and watched as she nervously put both newspapers back on the desk. The doctor had a small figure of werewolf on his desk and she sat staring at it as she pulled her legs up against her chest. “Were you looking for something like this?”

Reaching into the file on his lap he placed one of her drawings on the newspapers and although reluctantly she did look down at it. It was of a line of people standing before a firing squad. She had seen it and drawn it, there was no need to look at it again so she turned it over.

“I heard you had another episode last night.”

Ella didn’t speak, she was there after all, she knew it. The doctor removed his glasses and placed them on the table with a sigh.

“Why don’t you want to tell me what you saw?”

“You know why.”

Her voice was hardly a whisper but he heard and nodded as he fished out another drawing from her file. Attached to it was a newspaper article. Her eyes welled up when he placed it in front of her and she read the headline, she remembered it. Two weeks ago she had woken up screaming. She had seen, that is she had dreamt of a car veering violently and crashing into a river. The driver had fallen asleep behind the wheel and the car with the unconscious driver along with two small children sank down to the bottom. The next day when she had asked for the newspaper, like she did every day, Dr. Meer had refused, which he never did. When she finally got her hands on it the headline read ‘Car pulled from lake, driver and two children dead.’ The article said what she already knew and it also told her that the accident happened an hour after she had woken up screaming. She had been near catatonic when it happened. Didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t talk and this had all happened before.

“I looked, there was nothing. Not anywhere.”

Ella looked up at him not with relief but with the opposite.

“Are you afraid that this will come true?”

He tapped the drawing with his finger and she nodded.

“It can’t happen again. I won’t survive this.”

Dr. Meer looked down at the scars on her wrists. He knew very well she wouldn’t. He placed all the drawings back into the file and put it aside.

“Ella I need you to listen to me very carefully. I understand how much this upsets you, but all this...”

He tapped his index finger on the file.

”This is not your fault and it is not your responsibility.”

Ella shot upright, almost knocking over the old metal chair. “If it isn’t, then why in the high holy hell do I keep seeing this!?”

The doctor didn’t as much as flinch at her outburst. Honestly he was just happy he got any kind of reaction out of her at all. That in its self wasn’t easy to begin with. “Why don’t you tell me what you think this is?”

Ella shut down again. She wasn’t going to say it, she would die before she said it out loud, and unfortunately for her the doctor knew it.

“Clairvoyance, perhaps?”

The word scorched her to the bone. She hated it. It felt wrong, like it made her even more of an outcast, a freak.

“Ella, perhaps it’s time to address the elephant in the room.”

Ella sat staring at her feet, that one word having defeated her.

“How long have you been having these nightmares?”

Ella remained quiet.

“You have had them the all your life and all your life you have been drawing and documenting what you have seen but the thing is that it’s just a dream. Just a nightmare.” She hated the clairvoyant talk but she hated this one just a little bit more.

“Don’t you think that maybe the reason the nightmares are not going away is because you hang on to them so tight? Or maybe it’s even simpler than that.” Ella looked up at the shrink feeling just a little confused.

“Do you perhaps think it’s a lack of sleep? Perhaps not eating right? Stress? Expecting the nightmares to come back and then inviting them in?” Ella didn’t say another word. A part of her saw sense in what she was being told but the majority was in denial and she knew why. Believing any of what the doctor said meant that there was really something wrong. Something, if true, she wasn’t ready to admit. “Ella I think that maybe you’re getting worked up over nothing. I know you have been refusing you medication.”

Beaten down to the ground and ready to surrender Ella redirected her attention to the figure on the desk. Dr. Meer had never been this direct before. The doctor noticed she was upset and being this harsh on her was difficult knowing her situation but he did feel it was necessary. Trading in the seat behind his desk he walked around and sat on the chair next to her. “Why don’t you just try? See if what I say is true.”