“Before we can begin, can I have your consent to tape this session?”
“You record every session.”
“Jimmy, we can’t begin until you give your consent.”
“If I don’t consent, does that mean we can’t have the session and I get to go home?”
“Do we really have to do this every time?”
“I just want to know what happens if I don’t consent. Jesus.”
“You know the answer, Jimmy. If you don’t consent, you will be taken back to your room. If you are taken back to your room, we won’t have a session today. If we don’t have a session today, you are one more day away from completing your therapy. And you can’t go home until you’ve completed your therapy.”
“If I consent, will you promise this is my last session?”
“No promises. I can’t sign off on your therapy until I believe you’re fully rehabilitated. You know all this.”
“Fine. Fine. Yes, Dr. Weil. I, Jimmy Matthews, consent to having the recorder on as you and I play this nonsensical, never ending, pointless game you like to call therapy.”
“Thank you, Jimmy. For the record, this is Dr. Sarah Weil. This is my twenty-fourth session with Jimmy Matthews. It is the fourth of March…”
“Today’s my birthday.”
“Oh, look at that. You’re right. You’re… Twenty-two today. Happy birthday, Jimmy.”
“Thanks.”
“How has your day been?”
“Fantastic, Dr. Weil. I’m feeling super-dee-duper, tip-top, ship-shape. All better and ready to go home.”
“Did you do the homework we discussed last session?”
“You mean the homework you assigned? I don’t remember discussing anything.”
“Did you do it?”
“So, when we started this whole Cognitive Behavioral crap…”
“Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. You’re in therapy, Jimmy. Is it difficult for you to admit you are in therapy?”
“No, Dr. Weil. It’s not difficult to admit that I’ve been forced into ‘therapy.’ Anyway, when we started all this Cognitive Behavioral ‘Therapy,’ you said I would get to pick my own homework assignments. Something about the autonomy of the patient.”
“I did say that.”
“So why don’t I get to pick my own homework assignments anymore?”
“That was over a month ago, Jimmy. And we’ve talked about this. Your homework selections were not productive. So, I’m guessing this diversion means you didn’t do the homework we discussed.”
“I went for a walk? They gave me twenty-five extra minutes of outside time for good behavior, because I did extra chores. So I got to have time in the yard alone. It was nice. I got to watch the sunlight dance in with the leaves. That was some pretty good homework, in my humble opinion.”
“That wasn’t your homework.”
“You say po-tay-toe. I say po-ta-toe.”
“The sunlight danced?”
“With the leaves. There’s a big oak tree on the other side of the fence, and the wind was blowing, and the sunlight peaked through between the leaves. Like they were two dancers. Spinning and twirling together. It was… Amazing.”
“You like watching the sunlight and the leaves dance.”
“It reminds me of this one tree, across from the gas station where I fill up my car on my way to work. There are these places where leaves are so dense you can’t see through them, until the wind blows. Then the leaves and the sunlight twirl and spin together. Have you ever watched leaves in the wind? Probably not. You’re probably like everyone else. Staring at your screens. Missing everything.”
“You think less of people who stare at screens.”
“I don’t think less of them. They just make me sad.”
“Why do they make you sad?”
“Because they miss the magic of the sunlight dancing with the leaves.”
“What do you think you’re missing by not looking at the screens?”
“You ever watch the tide come in? Wave after wave, rolling to the shore? Water folding in on itself, like a kid doing a summersault, and then retreating back into the deep. It’s pure joy. The definition of play. Right there. Free. For everyone to see.”
“I haven’t been to the beach in a long time.”
“I went to the beach for my last birthday. Me and… Me and some friends. I watched the waves play. They watched their phones.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Sad.”
“Can you elaborate on that feeling for me?”
“You ever wonder why they put windows in cars?”
“Why would I wonder about that?”
“Well, no body uses them anymore. People get in their cars, type in their destinations, and then start staring at their screens again. Why are there windows if everyone is staring at their screens?”
“That’s a good question. What do you think?”
“I think they still put windows in cars so we won’t realize that we don’t use them. If they took them away, we’d notice they were missing. But as long as the windows are there, we can ignore them.”
“You think people should look at screens less, and out the window more.”
“Yep. That’s what I think.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I’d like to hear you say it. What’s wrong with looking at the screens?”
“They suck the life out of you.”
“You believe looking at screens sucks the life out of people.”
“You know I do.”
“You’ve said it before. It’s part of what I was hoping to talk about today. It’s what we like to call a cognitive distortion.”
“Sounds fancy.”
“It’s not. Everyone has them. They’re incorrect thoughts that negatively affect your emotions, and then work in harmony with your emotions to impact your behavior.”
“You think my belief that looking at screens sucks the life from people is incorrect. See, I can do it too.”
“When someone offers you a screen to look at, you think, ‘I can’t look at it or it will suck the life out of me.’”
“I don’t think it. I know it.”
“When you think that thought, how do you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think back to the homework. When the guard gave you the tablet, how did you feel?”
“Repulsed.”
“And because you felt repulsed, you didn’t want to look at it.”
“No. I didn’t want to look at it, because it is going to suck the life out of me.”
“How do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever looked at a screen before?”
“Sure. When I was little.”
“And you are still full of life.”
“Because I stopped.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If I’d kept looking at them, I’d be dead inside.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know. Okay? Damn it. I just know. I can see it.”
“But what evidence do you have? What evidence do you have that looking at a screen sucks the life from people?”
“Evidence? You want evidence. Open your eyes, lady. It’s all around you. People meaninglessly wandering, staring at their phones, and their tablets, and their watches, obsessing over who ‘liked’ their last post, and who left them a comment, and who shared their drivel with others, checking their stats, and reading ads, and buying shit they don’t need, and every second becoming less human, until they’re not even people anymore. They’re just part of the machine. They’re gears in the giant consumer machine. Meaningless cogs on the cultural assembly line, cranking out content for the masses to ignore. But they think they’re ‘creative individuals’ with ‘unique voices’ as they type with their thumbs their quirky half-sentences about the emptiness of life, feeling affirmed by the fifty thousand other zombies that half-read their half-sentences and gave them a meaningless gold star because the almost sentence almost made them feel something. That’s my evidence, Dr. Weil. That’s what I see. But you don’t see it. You don’t see it because you’re one of them. I can tell by your dead eyes. Shit, you’ve checked your phone twice while I’ve been talking. You don’t watch the sunlight dance with the leaves. You don’t see the waves play, because you’re too busy watching your goddamn, life sucking screen.”
“Tell me about Amanda.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Did Amanda have dead eyes too? Did she check her phone while you talked? Did that make you angry?”
“Stop it. That’s not fair.”
“I want to know about Amanda.”
“Fuck you. Don’t say her name. You bitch. You don’t get to say her name.”
“Is that why you lit her on fire? Because she was part of the machine? Because she checked her phone?”
“You’re an asshole. You know I didn’t do that. You know I didn’t.”
“You didn’t light your girlfriend on fire? I have a police report… Here. It says that Jimmy Matthews, that’s you, was arrested after…”
“Fuck you. It wasn’t like that. You don’t know shit. I was trying to set her free. I was trying to help her.”
“You believe that setting her on fire was helping her.”
“You bitch. You know I wouldn’t do that. It was her phone. I was only trying to destroy her phone. I didn’t know. I didn’t know she’d pick it up. It wasn’t my fault… It wasn’t… I didn’t know…”
“You lit your girlfriend on fire because you’re delusional, Jimmy. Your distorted thinking led you to kill the woman you love.”
“No. I… I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“I think that’s enough for today, Jimmy.”
“I was just… I didn’t know…”
“We’ll try again tomorrow. Again, tonight I’m going to have a tablet sent to your room.”
“Oh God. Mandy. Oh Jesus.”
“You’re homework assignment is to play one game on it. Any game you want.”
“Jesus. Mandy.”
“Spend ten minutes playing any game that looks interesting to you.”
“I just wanted her to see the sunlight dance with the leaves. She never looked up to see it. She was missing it. I just wanted her to see it.”
“We’ll meet again tomorrow to talk more. Guard, you can take Jimmy back to his room. We’re done for today.”
“I just… She was missing it. She was missing everything.”
“Happy birthday, Jimmy. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Jeff Elkins is a author, podcaster, and writing coach. He’s the author of eleven novels including Inside Outside and the Adventures of Watkins and Howe Detective Series. He helps authors as the Dialogue Doctor. You can find more of his work at https://jeffelkinswriter.com/
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