johnnyfire
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I had to write a piece of psychologal fiction for english class and this is what i wrote, i was honestly suprised at the result.
I. September 27
The day began like any other. The sun had not yet risen, and the birds did not sing, all was quiet and all was still. The doctor woke up to his alarm, set for 5:15 A.M, with a groan. “Shut up,” he muttered as he shut off the alarm. He arose still half-asleep and half walked, half stumbled on his way to the bathroom. As was his routine every morning, he looked in the mirror just to make sure, of what he didn’t know. Or rather, he told himself that he didn’t know what he was looking for, when in fact he was making sure that he was still sane. Sanity, at least in his view, was somewhat fragile. He began his shower as he thought of all the patients, one in particular, he had taken, from those of the genuinely disturbed to the slightly troubled. He wondered whether or not he should shave. He nodded his head, agreeing with himself that he had to. After he had finished, he looked in the mirror felt his jaw line and was proud of the nice, clean shave he had just accomplished. The doctor then proceeded to cook his own breakfast, for he loved to cook, of a two egg omelet with cheddar cheese and bacon. The sounds and smells of his own cooking consoled his fears that he, like the patient, was undeniably insane.
The fear had not always been there, but instead had started about two months ago when he had interviewed a new patient, one who had come in unexpectedly. Despite the time and energy he had spent to cook the food, he proceeded to eat his breakfast quickly. In truth, the doctor’s cooking was just another attempt to assure himself of his own presence of mind. I should, he thought. He picked up a piece of paper off the table with a look of recognition and walked over to his piano, playing the music. It starts slow, quickens to a shrill disorder of 32nd notes and ends with a deep sadness of 4 notes, as if some knell was struck. The impression left is only disorientation. The doctor paused, needing time to reflect. After a few minutes the words, “Of course,” burst from the doctor’s mouth. He then looked at the clock, 7:00 AM. “Almost time to go, I should get dressed,” he told himself. He put on his shirt, a clean and ironed white shirt. He put on his pants, a light khaki also clean and ironed. Now was time for him to choose a tie, red was the obvious choice to go with his shirt and pants, yet that color reminded him of the patient, who had seemed so reasonable yet was utterly insane. He had tried to help the patient, tried. Not wanting to waste time, he decided to wear a plain black tie instead of the preferred red one. Fully dressed, he walked out the door, feeling the crisp but still warm morning air. He locked both house locks, got in his car and drove to work.
II. July 10
The doctor arrived at the psychiatry office wearing his standard white shirt, today with a red tie, 15 minutes early, at 7:45 A.M. He put on his nametag, which read Dr. Mark Anderson, and was greeted by his secretary, a nice lady of small stature with red hair and slightly pale skin that made her look a bit sickly. After they had exchanged greetings, she quickly, but not hurriedly, told the doctor, “Ok, there is a small file of paperwork on your desk dealing with the new patient who has requested therapy. He is also scheduled for an interview at 9:00. Also, the new janitor hasn’t shown up for work in two days, I told you I didn’t like the look of him.”
The doctor replied, “First, I had forgotten that we had a new janitor, but if he’s not showing up, tell him that he’s fired next time he does decide to show up. Second, a new patient? When did he request therapy? Why is he starting so early?”
“He arrived about an hour ago. The paperwork came yesterday. He seemed rather desperate, so we put him in for 9:00.”
“Where is he waiting right now?”
“In the lobby.”
The doctor was indeed curious about this new patient, it is not everyday that someone requests to have therapy, much less so early. “I’ll look over his file, and can you send him in at 9:15 instead of 9:00?” The secretary nodded and left the room to attend to her duties. The doctor then proceeded to look over the patient’s file. According to the file, the new patient was an electrician and an amateur pianist. It appeared that the patient had a strange obsession with the color red since childhood. He always wore red, whether it was a shirt, a tie, shoes, or simply a handkerchief. Upon reading this, the doctor wondered whether his red tie was appropriate. Yet, the doctor didn’t see anything besides a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder from the file, so he decided to continue wearing his red tie. However, the file didn’t tell the whole story.
As the doctor was looking through his file, the patient nervously paced around the lobby, rubbing his left sleeve. He looked around and didn’t see it, the color. He needed the comfort, the safety, the security that the color provided. He tried to tear himself away from the present reality, then like a light straight from heaven it seemed, though it was a red light more likely from fires of hell, he saw the color. A pen, sitting in a cup near the sign-in desk. He wondered why he didn’t notice it before, and then remembered that it was the same pen he had used to sign in. Strange, he thought, to forget such an important thing. The sight of the pen calmed him down as he stopped pacing and took a seat near the sign-in desk.
Such was the state of the patient when the red-haired secretary entered the lobby and called the patient’s name, “Williams, Trevor.” The patient stood up and followed the secretary, once again nervous to be separated from his beloved color. He thought of the irony that what is called red hair is in fact orange, and could not satiate his deep longing for the color. The nurse guided him down a short hall, lengthened in the patient’s view by the absence of the color. The silence of the walk pierced the very soul of the patient. The nurse did not say a word and the patient could not hear the sound of their footsteps. The nurse opened the door and motioned for the patient to go in. He read the door of the doctor he was about to see, “Dr. Mark Anderson,” he muttered to himself, wondering if this doctor would be sympathetic or not. The patient took two or three steps and stopped in his tracks. However, this fear he now felt had nothing to do with the color he now saw on the doctor’s tie. The patient looked at the doctor’s face and was struck at how familiar it looked; the realization hit him, it was the same face that he saw in the mirror every day, it was his own. Straight black hair parted to the right, with a long, thin nose and close set eyes, green in color, the only difference would be the straight, solemn demeanor of the doctor as opposed to the desperate, nervous demeanor of the patient.
The doctor was always concerned with the details; yet in this moment, he failed to notice the physical resemblance of the patient because of his fixation on the patient’s nervous behavior. He politely told the patient, “Sit down, so that we can talk.” The patient did what the doctor told him to, but could not help but stare at his own likeness, himself unhindered by the red compulsion. “Trevor Williams, right? Nice to meet you I’m Dr. Anderson.” The doctor held out his hand, which the patient, after hesitation, shook. The doctor, taken aback by the patient’s overwhelming display of anxiousness, began to rethink his former position. “So, why have you decided to check yourself in today?” the doctor asked.
The patient stuttered, “Um… Well… a few days ago…”
He doctor’s misgivings about his former view were partly confirmed by the disoriented state of the patient. “Does it have anything to do with the color red?” the doctor inquired.
The patient nodded and replied, “A few days ago, I was sitting at my desk composing a song, it’s not finished, and I noticed that it wasn’t there.”
“What wasn’t there, the song?”
“No,” the patient quietly said as he began to compose himself, “the color, the color red. I looked but I couldn’t find it. I guess I had all of it in the other room, but I froze. I couldn’t move, except to do this.” The patient pulled up his left sleeve, revealing one small, shallow cut that had scabbed and was starting to heal. “I needed to see the color right away, and the knife was right there so I cut. When I finally saw the color, I came to my senses and realized what I had done. I had lost my mind to desperation. I bandaged it up and resolved to come here.”
“I see,” the doctor pensively replied. He saw how reasonable the patient could be when consoled by the color. However, he also saw the depths of the patient’s need for the color. The doctor looked at the clock, 9:56 A.M, almost time for the next patient. Not yet able to make a decision regarding the mental state of the patient and limited by time constraints, the doctor said, “Come back the same time next week and I can give you a longer session to decide what to do with you, I hadn’t intended on having to spend that long with you. Just do me a favor, if red is what keeps you sane then for God’s sake keep something red near you. The doctor paused, “Here,” he started to take off his tie, “take this and don’t lose it.” The patient, once again back to his senses, gratefully took the tie and started to leave. “Don’t lose it,” the doctor repeated.
“I won’t,” the patient said as he left the office.
Though sane again, the patient couldn’t help dwelling on the face of the doctor, his face transferred to another. He walked to the bus stop, waiting for the bus and contemplating on his obsession to the color. He began to wonder why he needed to have the color at all. He even began to think that he didn’t need the color. As he got on the bus, he threw the tie to the ground. Finally, it seemed to him that at last he was free of his mindless desire. At that moment he smiled, a very smug smile, because he felt that he had just defeated his demon.
III. July 17
The doctor woke up this morning. The sun had not come up yet, an unfortunate consequence of working early, he thought. As he rose, he paused noticing for the first time the ever present silence that permeated his being. He tried to end the silence by adding some sound, but the radio was broken and the TV conspicuously absent. The silence was there… just there to disturb this poor, tortured soul. The silence was only interrupted by the whispered mutterings of the doctor. “It was that patient,” he said, “he was trying to give me the red madness.”
The paranoia of the doctor began to increase as he looked in the mirror, “Why do you look so filthy and disheveled?” he inquired of the mirror. He didn’t like what he saw and began to frantically get ready. He rushed through a shower, didn’t shave. He threw on a pale blue shirt, unironed and slightly stained and put on his black pants. The choice comes up, never before a problem. The red tie or the blue tie? A simple choice for a sane doctor, but this doctor is losing his mind. “No problem, no problem, no problem,” he repeats. He can’t resist the pull that the red tie has on him. The red tie teases, taunts, and laughs in his face, but the doctor puts it on. He starts for the door, running to his car even though there is no rush. He stops abruptly, “My own car is that horrible color,” he mutters. He looks at his tie, the one he chose to wear, and can’t remember how it got there. He leaves the car and runs to his office, all 5 miles! All along the way he is reminded of it, the color. The red of the stop and don’t walk signs fuel his desire to run faster and hide in his office. Finally, after what seemed to the doctor like an eternity, he arrived at the hospital. Ignoring the red-haired nurse, he runs to his office. To his horror, it is already occupied by… himself!?
“Ah, Trevor you’re right on time, although you didn’t need to run,” the Dr. Mark Anderson said, having not yet noticed the state of the poor patient. “Are you all right?”
“How?” the patient, his confusion and frustration mounting, says that one word and passes out.
IV. August 14
“What happened to that patient who collapsed in your office?” the secretary asked the doctor a few weeks later.
“The patient was sent to a mental institution. They gave me a chance to talk to him, although he couldn’t make much sense. Apparently, he thought that he was me because of our physical similarities. The reassurance that he found in the color red turned to anger when he noticed that it didn’t bother me. He thought that it shouldn’t bother him either, but he needed the color to function,” the doctor replied. After telling the nurse about what had happened, the doctor, disturbed by the speed at which the patient’s mental health deteriorated, began to wonder if his own would do the same. He now had a better appreciation for how fragile his own sanity was.
Left in his office, the doctor found a copy of the composition that the patient was working on crumpled on the floor. Written at the top was 18-5-4, which he, at first, thought was only a description of the measures, 18 slow, simple ones, 5 sharp, fast and complex ones, 4 low whole notes. He thought about what it meant, not just the composition but the entire ordeal. Yet, it was weeks later before he realized that the title was code for RED. The color that seemed to deeply sear the very soul of the patient. Small consolation for the doctor’s new dread.
Just tell me what you think!
I. September 27
The day began like any other. The sun had not yet risen, and the birds did not sing, all was quiet and all was still. The doctor woke up to his alarm, set for 5:15 A.M, with a groan. “Shut up,” he muttered as he shut off the alarm. He arose still half-asleep and half walked, half stumbled on his way to the bathroom. As was his routine every morning, he looked in the mirror just to make sure, of what he didn’t know. Or rather, he told himself that he didn’t know what he was looking for, when in fact he was making sure that he was still sane. Sanity, at least in his view, was somewhat fragile. He began his shower as he thought of all the patients, one in particular, he had taken, from those of the genuinely disturbed to the slightly troubled. He wondered whether or not he should shave. He nodded his head, agreeing with himself that he had to. After he had finished, he looked in the mirror felt his jaw line and was proud of the nice, clean shave he had just accomplished. The doctor then proceeded to cook his own breakfast, for he loved to cook, of a two egg omelet with cheddar cheese and bacon. The sounds and smells of his own cooking consoled his fears that he, like the patient, was undeniably insane.
The fear had not always been there, but instead had started about two months ago when he had interviewed a new patient, one who had come in unexpectedly. Despite the time and energy he had spent to cook the food, he proceeded to eat his breakfast quickly. In truth, the doctor’s cooking was just another attempt to assure himself of his own presence of mind. I should, he thought. He picked up a piece of paper off the table with a look of recognition and walked over to his piano, playing the music. It starts slow, quickens to a shrill disorder of 32nd notes and ends with a deep sadness of 4 notes, as if some knell was struck. The impression left is only disorientation. The doctor paused, needing time to reflect. After a few minutes the words, “Of course,” burst from the doctor’s mouth. He then looked at the clock, 7:00 AM. “Almost time to go, I should get dressed,” he told himself. He put on his shirt, a clean and ironed white shirt. He put on his pants, a light khaki also clean and ironed. Now was time for him to choose a tie, red was the obvious choice to go with his shirt and pants, yet that color reminded him of the patient, who had seemed so reasonable yet was utterly insane. He had tried to help the patient, tried. Not wanting to waste time, he decided to wear a plain black tie instead of the preferred red one. Fully dressed, he walked out the door, feeling the crisp but still warm morning air. He locked both house locks, got in his car and drove to work.
II. July 10
The doctor arrived at the psychiatry office wearing his standard white shirt, today with a red tie, 15 minutes early, at 7:45 A.M. He put on his nametag, which read Dr. Mark Anderson, and was greeted by his secretary, a nice lady of small stature with red hair and slightly pale skin that made her look a bit sickly. After they had exchanged greetings, she quickly, but not hurriedly, told the doctor, “Ok, there is a small file of paperwork on your desk dealing with the new patient who has requested therapy. He is also scheduled for an interview at 9:00. Also, the new janitor hasn’t shown up for work in two days, I told you I didn’t like the look of him.”
The doctor replied, “First, I had forgotten that we had a new janitor, but if he’s not showing up, tell him that he’s fired next time he does decide to show up. Second, a new patient? When did he request therapy? Why is he starting so early?”
“He arrived about an hour ago. The paperwork came yesterday. He seemed rather desperate, so we put him in for 9:00.”
“Where is he waiting right now?”
“In the lobby.”
The doctor was indeed curious about this new patient, it is not everyday that someone requests to have therapy, much less so early. “I’ll look over his file, and can you send him in at 9:15 instead of 9:00?” The secretary nodded and left the room to attend to her duties. The doctor then proceeded to look over the patient’s file. According to the file, the new patient was an electrician and an amateur pianist. It appeared that the patient had a strange obsession with the color red since childhood. He always wore red, whether it was a shirt, a tie, shoes, or simply a handkerchief. Upon reading this, the doctor wondered whether his red tie was appropriate. Yet, the doctor didn’t see anything besides a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder from the file, so he decided to continue wearing his red tie. However, the file didn’t tell the whole story.
As the doctor was looking through his file, the patient nervously paced around the lobby, rubbing his left sleeve. He looked around and didn’t see it, the color. He needed the comfort, the safety, the security that the color provided. He tried to tear himself away from the present reality, then like a light straight from heaven it seemed, though it was a red light more likely from fires of hell, he saw the color. A pen, sitting in a cup near the sign-in desk. He wondered why he didn’t notice it before, and then remembered that it was the same pen he had used to sign in. Strange, he thought, to forget such an important thing. The sight of the pen calmed him down as he stopped pacing and took a seat near the sign-in desk.
Such was the state of the patient when the red-haired secretary entered the lobby and called the patient’s name, “Williams, Trevor.” The patient stood up and followed the secretary, once again nervous to be separated from his beloved color. He thought of the irony that what is called red hair is in fact orange, and could not satiate his deep longing for the color. The nurse guided him down a short hall, lengthened in the patient’s view by the absence of the color. The silence of the walk pierced the very soul of the patient. The nurse did not say a word and the patient could not hear the sound of their footsteps. The nurse opened the door and motioned for the patient to go in. He read the door of the doctor he was about to see, “Dr. Mark Anderson,” he muttered to himself, wondering if this doctor would be sympathetic or not. The patient took two or three steps and stopped in his tracks. However, this fear he now felt had nothing to do with the color he now saw on the doctor’s tie. The patient looked at the doctor’s face and was struck at how familiar it looked; the realization hit him, it was the same face that he saw in the mirror every day, it was his own. Straight black hair parted to the right, with a long, thin nose and close set eyes, green in color, the only difference would be the straight, solemn demeanor of the doctor as opposed to the desperate, nervous demeanor of the patient.
The doctor was always concerned with the details; yet in this moment, he failed to notice the physical resemblance of the patient because of his fixation on the patient’s nervous behavior. He politely told the patient, “Sit down, so that we can talk.” The patient did what the doctor told him to, but could not help but stare at his own likeness, himself unhindered by the red compulsion. “Trevor Williams, right? Nice to meet you I’m Dr. Anderson.” The doctor held out his hand, which the patient, after hesitation, shook. The doctor, taken aback by the patient’s overwhelming display of anxiousness, began to rethink his former position. “So, why have you decided to check yourself in today?” the doctor asked.
The patient stuttered, “Um… Well… a few days ago…”
He doctor’s misgivings about his former view were partly confirmed by the disoriented state of the patient. “Does it have anything to do with the color red?” the doctor inquired.
The patient nodded and replied, “A few days ago, I was sitting at my desk composing a song, it’s not finished, and I noticed that it wasn’t there.”
“What wasn’t there, the song?”
“No,” the patient quietly said as he began to compose himself, “the color, the color red. I looked but I couldn’t find it. I guess I had all of it in the other room, but I froze. I couldn’t move, except to do this.” The patient pulled up his left sleeve, revealing one small, shallow cut that had scabbed and was starting to heal. “I needed to see the color right away, and the knife was right there so I cut. When I finally saw the color, I came to my senses and realized what I had done. I had lost my mind to desperation. I bandaged it up and resolved to come here.”
“I see,” the doctor pensively replied. He saw how reasonable the patient could be when consoled by the color. However, he also saw the depths of the patient’s need for the color. The doctor looked at the clock, 9:56 A.M, almost time for the next patient. Not yet able to make a decision regarding the mental state of the patient and limited by time constraints, the doctor said, “Come back the same time next week and I can give you a longer session to decide what to do with you, I hadn’t intended on having to spend that long with you. Just do me a favor, if red is what keeps you sane then for God’s sake keep something red near you. The doctor paused, “Here,” he started to take off his tie, “take this and don’t lose it.” The patient, once again back to his senses, gratefully took the tie and started to leave. “Don’t lose it,” the doctor repeated.
“I won’t,” the patient said as he left the office.
Though sane again, the patient couldn’t help dwelling on the face of the doctor, his face transferred to another. He walked to the bus stop, waiting for the bus and contemplating on his obsession to the color. He began to wonder why he needed to have the color at all. He even began to think that he didn’t need the color. As he got on the bus, he threw the tie to the ground. Finally, it seemed to him that at last he was free of his mindless desire. At that moment he smiled, a very smug smile, because he felt that he had just defeated his demon.
III. July 17
The doctor woke up this morning. The sun had not come up yet, an unfortunate consequence of working early, he thought. As he rose, he paused noticing for the first time the ever present silence that permeated his being. He tried to end the silence by adding some sound, but the radio was broken and the TV conspicuously absent. The silence was there… just there to disturb this poor, tortured soul. The silence was only interrupted by the whispered mutterings of the doctor. “It was that patient,” he said, “he was trying to give me the red madness.”
The paranoia of the doctor began to increase as he looked in the mirror, “Why do you look so filthy and disheveled?” he inquired of the mirror. He didn’t like what he saw and began to frantically get ready. He rushed through a shower, didn’t shave. He threw on a pale blue shirt, unironed and slightly stained and put on his black pants. The choice comes up, never before a problem. The red tie or the blue tie? A simple choice for a sane doctor, but this doctor is losing his mind. “No problem, no problem, no problem,” he repeats. He can’t resist the pull that the red tie has on him. The red tie teases, taunts, and laughs in his face, but the doctor puts it on. He starts for the door, running to his car even though there is no rush. He stops abruptly, “My own car is that horrible color,” he mutters. He looks at his tie, the one he chose to wear, and can’t remember how it got there. He leaves the car and runs to his office, all 5 miles! All along the way he is reminded of it, the color. The red of the stop and don’t walk signs fuel his desire to run faster and hide in his office. Finally, after what seemed to the doctor like an eternity, he arrived at the hospital. Ignoring the red-haired nurse, he runs to his office. To his horror, it is already occupied by… himself!?
“Ah, Trevor you’re right on time, although you didn’t need to run,” the Dr. Mark Anderson said, having not yet noticed the state of the poor patient. “Are you all right?”
“How?” the patient, his confusion and frustration mounting, says that one word and passes out.
IV. August 14
“What happened to that patient who collapsed in your office?” the secretary asked the doctor a few weeks later.
“The patient was sent to a mental institution. They gave me a chance to talk to him, although he couldn’t make much sense. Apparently, he thought that he was me because of our physical similarities. The reassurance that he found in the color red turned to anger when he noticed that it didn’t bother me. He thought that it shouldn’t bother him either, but he needed the color to function,” the doctor replied. After telling the nurse about what had happened, the doctor, disturbed by the speed at which the patient’s mental health deteriorated, began to wonder if his own would do the same. He now had a better appreciation for how fragile his own sanity was.
Left in his office, the doctor found a copy of the composition that the patient was working on crumpled on the floor. Written at the top was 18-5-4, which he, at first, thought was only a description of the measures, 18 slow, simple ones, 5 sharp, fast and complex ones, 4 low whole notes. He thought about what it meant, not just the composition but the entire ordeal. Yet, it was weeks later before he realized that the title was code for RED. The color that seemed to deeply sear the very soul of the patient. Small consolation for the doctor’s new dread.
Just tell me what you think!
