All in Your Head

Dr. Ingram cocked his head. “That hasn’t always been a priority for you? I mean, you had your very own newspaper article in the Georgetown Tribune two years ago for graduating at the top of your class at only sixteen years old...was that just by dumb luck? Talent? Very impressive nonetheless. I remember reading it, your family comes from a long line of very talented and prestigious people, so I wasn’t too surprised! And then you attended one of the best Ivy Leagues in the country, and I presume you’ll be going back soon? I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to have you back.”

“What it sounds like to me is...that ‘learning’ was used to please and gain the admiration of other people? Maybe that wasn't truly everything to it, but for the most part, right? Is that the only difference now? You are learning...for your own good, this time?” He glanced at the clock, they had already made a good amount of progress here in just fifteen minutes, at least, that was in his opinion.
 
"I think you are answering a lot of your own questions, Doc," Damien said in a level tone, giving Dr. Ingram's knee a stern look. "In fact, you sound so sure and well-versed, I think I will leave you to have a conversation with yourself. Enjoy the last ten minutes you have left on the clock."

He sat back and looked at the clock, watching it tick around. How incredible it was that a random group of people five thousand years go decided to count based on the number of fingers and knuckles on the fingers, thereby giving humanity the division of the clock, defining how people viewed time thousands of years later. What trivial thing might humanity do today that would define the world thousands of years into the future? Would "google" no longer be a number at all but, in fact, a word meaning "to look something up?"
 
Dr. Ingram stared at Damien's eyes that had been avoiding his gaze the entire time they sat across from each other, not even when he was speaking directly to him would he even give Ingram so much of a glance. Damien's gaze was either high or low or at the clock above the door.

“I understand.” Ingram finally spoke with a sigh. He stood to walk over to the small, wooden coffee table hugging the wall beside the door of his office, and grabbed a plain, white mug and tea bag off of it.

“Care for some tea while you wait, Mr. Richards?” He asked, his face still turned to the wall, pouring hot water from the water dispenser into his mug. He added a tiny bit of milk and a single sugar cube before stirring it up to his liking.

“One more question, and don’t let me answer it for myself this time-- Do you always avoid eye contact? I expect that from maybe an insecure person...but not an upstanding, pontifical young man like yourself.” He said, lifting the mug to his lips and taking a sip. Ingram was going to keep poking until Damien's shell was cracked.
 
Damien didn't answer about the tea, meaning no, he did not want tea. Why would he take tea? He didn't know this man. Sure, he was a doctor, but he still did not trust him. He stiffened at the question, his jaw tightening a bit.

"Did you just call me pompus?" he asked instead, focusing on that. "That does not seem conducive to getting someone to like and trust you enough to tell you their innermost secrets and problems. I would suggest you try again."
 
Ingram took this lack of response as a no and brought the cup of tea back to his leather chair across from Damien. He set the mug down on the end table beside him and began to get comfortable again by sitting with his leg on his knee.

“Oh, I didn't mean to offend, Mr.Richards, I forget how sensitive you kids are today.” He set a hand on the ankle on his knee and grabbed the mug with his other, “Hmm, maybe ‘confident’ is the more conscientious word for you. Yes, confident. That is what I mean.” He nodded in confirmation. “It’s interesting because it seems to come out with your words, yet your body language does not say the same,” Ingram added. “I am not sure what is going on in your thoughts right now, whether they are shooting me with lasers or counting every second that passes by, but I am sure that you are not thinking about giving me any notion of trust. And that, well, that is the most normal thing you have done so far.”
 
Damien stared at the clock and breathed deeply. In. Out. In. Out. His head was beginning to hurt again. He wanted out so badly! But he was trapped here. He put a hand on his knee, and one finger started scratching at the rough fabric, slow and deliberate. Trapped... no, no, he wasn't trapped. This was reality. This was as much of reality as he could achieve, and he wasn't trapped. The door wasn't locked. He could run out, but social convention did say he was stuck here until released. Trapped... he didn't want to be trapped again! His heart thudded in his ears, amplifying the throbbing of his head. A faint whooshing sound gradually grew. He knew if he did not head it off, he would be hearing a roar. Nothing but the roar!

Subconsciously, he'd begun to rock slightly, the finger digging into his leg. His fingernail pressed into skin, and the pain brought him back. He blinked and looked at Dr. Ingram's chin disdainfully.

"That is where you are wrong, sir," he said coldly, trying to hide the fact that he was struggling to keep it together. "Nothing I do is normal. Nothing anyone does is normal. There is no such thing as true normalcy. There is no true way of 'how things are done.' Things just happen, and we deal with them, and society finds the most common method of dealing and labels that as 'normal' and 'proper.' Then there is the case of those who try to 'buck the norm,' as they call it. They are not really bucking anything. They just join a different group of a different mindset known as their normal, and if they choose to be different from this new normal, they are considered weird once more and cast out from that group. It is all just a bunch of groups with different ideas of normal, and not a single one of them is different because their idea of individuality is copying a style they liked on someone else."

He stopped and rubbed his temple. He had no idea where he was going with this or even what his point way, but he'd ended with such a note of finality, it sounded like he considered his point obvious. And now his head hurt. But the good news was that meant time was almost up. Only two minutes left.
 
He was impressed with Damien, Ingram knew he wasn’t just saying this out of spite of Ingram’s pressing questions, there was truth to it. Damien was harboring something, he knew something, whatever it may be, Ingram was interested. He wished he could get to the root, but that would take time, and time is not always promised to us. He could see how frustrated Damien was, he was like a broken, taped-up piece of china that was ready to collapse with the slightest touch. Ingram could feel the tension, the last nerve ready to be pinched. He set his mug down and untangled his legs, setting both feet onto the floor now and leaning out of his chair with his hands crossed in front of him.

“I want to thank you for your time, Mr. Richards. I know I may have been… a bit touchy, and nobody likes strangers to poke in their business and try to size them up with questions, I myself certainly don’t. I ask these things not to exploit you, but to understand you. Everyone is worth being understood, and don’t think out of the seven billion people in the world, you are the one that can’t be.” He paused to look at the clock. “You may leave, and if you never wish to meet with me again, you are a grown man, you can tell me now and I can cancel any further sessions, your mother has no say in it.” Ingram would be sad to see him go and his mother would not like to hear that he gave Damien the option to cancel sessions, but he could not force someone to receive his help, he wouldn’t want that for himself or his patients.
 
"If you think I have the option to quit just like that, then you truly do not understand my mother," Damien said as he stood. "And seeing as my mother is fairly easy to understand, at least that far, then I doubt you can understand me. No, I am not saying I am the only person on the planet who cannot be understood, merely that I am a touch more complicated than most." He turned to go. "I am sure you have another appointment after mine. I do not desire to keep you any longer than necessary." He gave the shrink a tiny bow as he opened the door and stepped out, trying to cut Dr. Ingram off before he could continue.

With his eyes on the floor, he did not notice anyone else in the waiting room. His mother was not scheduled to arrive for five more minutes, and she would not arrive one second before or after. He chose a chair on the edge and hunched over. There was at least one other person, but he didn't notice who it was.
 
Damien huddled down in the unfamiliar chair, staring at the bland pattern of the carpet. So boring. So bland. So uninspiring. So... safe and probably not going to trigger anyone. Unless they had an issue with carpet to begin with. Or the colors green and brown. He scuffed the carpet a bit with the toe of his shoe. He missed his comfy pants. He'd forgotten how much these slacks pinched his waist. That was almost as irritating as his head these days.

The glug of the water cooler attracted his attention and he looked up. Perhaps he'd get a-

"Edith?"

The name was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He stared at his old friend, quickly dropping his eyes.
 
Dr. Ingram did not say a word. He sighed once Damien left the room.

“Well, that went well.” He said quietly, rubbing his face and running a hand through his hair. He stood from his chair and stretched, heading to the sink to clean his mug and put it back on the coffee table. Afterward, he sauntered over to his desk and checked to see who had him scheduled for three o’clock. He skimmed through his planner and let out an “Ah.” when he found it, then furrowing his brows when he read the name, “Edith Cromwell”. He had completely forgotten that he scheduled her for this time, she usually came in the morning. He knew that Damien and Edith were most likely going to cross paths out there and he groaned, he did not intend for that to happen. If that meeting alone didn’t hinder Damiens's experience, knowing that Edith came here as well and talked about Damien to him, definitely was. But perhaps not, the kid seemed to not care about much of anything anymore. Maybe he was wrong, maybe it really was going to be Edith that was hindered. This was not good either way.

»»————««​

Edith parked outside the psychiatry office and checked the time, it was two fifty-eight, but it usually took an extra five minutes for patients to leave and for Dr. Ingram to get ready for his next one, and she didn't want to wait in her car with the blistering sun shining right down on her, so she grabbed her phone and headed inside to wait. It was cool and light, soothing music played through speakers in the corner of the rooms. She was met with the receptionist and was directed to the lobby, just like usual, and sat in her regular spot that was never taken, a gray armchair. She got some water and a magazine to skim through to pass the time, but was a bit distracted. She couldn’t stop thinking about Damien, she wondered if he truly wanted to see her again or if he was just being polite when he said he did. She shook it off and began wondering what she wanted to tell Dr. Ingram first, she knew she was going to explode the second she walked in there, unable to contain herself of everything she wanted to say.

Suddenly she heard the door click and someone dashed quickly out of Dr. In Ingram's room and out into the lobby, she was curious to see who had the afternoon sessions with Ingram, hers were usually in the morning so she saw everyone in the morning who came before and after her. She tried not to look their way but at the same time catch a peek without them noticing as they walked by, but instead, they sat across the room in a chair. She had her magazine in her hands and pretended she was just turning the page as she eyed the stranger going to grab a cup of water. But this was no stranger, she could not mistake that shaggy black hair with white streaks with anyone else. She slams the magazine down in surprise. He looks at her confused, calling her by her name.

“Damien?” She exclaimed at quite loudly for how dense and quiet the room was, she looked around to make sure she did not disturb anyone then looked back to him. “I...I wasn’t expecting to see you here…You had an appointment with..” She gulps “..with Dr. Ingram?” Edith didn’t know whether or not she should approach him, he looked awfully agitated.
 
Damien swallowed hard, shaking a little as he tried to get things under control. He'd been prepared to see and talk to one person, not two, but Edith was... well... Edith! He should talk to her. She seemed as shocked to see him as he was to see her. Was it a bad thing to be seeing the same therapist? Probably, but if Edith trusted this guy... not that Damien intended to let down his guard, but perhaps he did not need to be quite as suspicious. Maybe. But what to talk about now?

He pointed to the door. "My first appointment with the shrink... I mean... Dr. Ingrain... Ingram..." he mumbled uncertainly. "My mother... you know." He realized he was still pointing and lowered his hand. "Talking is... good. I suppose." He stood awkwardly, trying to figure out what to do or say. For once, he couldn't wait for his mother to show up! He didn't know how long he could take this ear-scratching noise that was supposed to be soothing, and now he was trapped in a social situation he couldn't imagine going more awkward.
 
He heard a shout coming from the lobby and almost jumped, nobody was ever that loud or excited in his office before. Ingram realized what was yelled, was a surprised “Damien?” and figured that was Edith meeting Damien in the lobby just as he intended not to happen. He was going to give it a moment before he went out to rescue Damien from Edith’s emotional nature and relieve the situation.

»»————««​

She decided to get up, she was going to have to go into Dr. Ingram's room in a moment anyway. She nodded, understanding his short mumbles.

“Yeah, it is good to talk. I talk here because usually everyone else won’t listen.” She laughed, but then realized how sad that sounded. “He’s an alright guy for a shrink, ain’t he?” He stared blankly at this comment so she changed the subject.

“Is it alright if I come to see you later?” She asked, but then quickly added “Don’t invite me just because you think you have to, though! I understand if you are busy, it’s no big deal.” She tried to reassure him. “Maybe we can go for a walk, it’s nice out today.” Edith felt like she was pushing it with this so she quickly stopped herself. Luckily, Dr. Ingram stepped out and called for her.

“Miss Cromwell?”

“You can get back to me on that, if you’d like. Text me. You still have your phone, right?” Edith began to walk to the door, still facing him and waiting for his response, if he was going to make one.
 
Damien shook his head numbly. "I got rid of the phone," he mumbled. "Call the house. Um. If you want to. My mother would be happy to have you, and... me too." He nodded as if to back up his own words. "Yes."

Mrs. Richards walked in then, selectively blind to anyone else in the room as she approached her son. "Damien! Did you have a good time?" she asked pleasantly, as if he was at a playdate. "Come along, it's time to go home. You don't want to be late for your medicine."

"No, Mother," Damien said quietly. He glanced back at Edith once then retreated with his mother bustling around him. She was wearing the polka dot dress today. He liked that one. It reminded him of black cherries. He looked back at Edith. Would she come? He dropped his gaze.
 
Edith wondered why he no longer had his phone, the thing used to be like an extension of his body. Using it to always keep tabs on his social media and talk with usually, important people. She shrugged, she couldn’t question someone who’d suffer so much as he did.

“Okay...I will.” She replied with a smile. She heard the Richards conversation as she headed back to Dr. Ingram’s room and was surprised to hear his response to her question, she was going to press Ingram to tell her what exactly happened between the two.

Ingram held the door open for her and closed it as she entered. “Good evening, Miss Cromwell.”.

Edith plopped onto the couch across from his chair and sighed, “It’s been a while.”.

“It sure has, what have you been up to since we last met?” He inquired as he made his way to his chair to sit down.

“Not much. I’m not taking those anti-depressants anymore, all they do is make me tired.” She admitted.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not then. It wasn’t really in your best interest anyway. Your parents were worried about you and insisted I prescribe them to see how they work.” Ingram explained. “But, that’s not what you came here to talk about.”

“So...what happened just now? I may have heard..that..it didn’t go so well, at least from his perspective.” Edith looked over to the door then back to Ingram.

He sighed, “Maybe so. But I’m not going to share private information, if you really want to know, try to talk to him about it. I didn’t intend for you two to have sessions so close.”

“Hmm, for some reason I don’t believe that.” She smirked.

“Honestly! As a licensed practitioner, I am liable for malpractice. If I said that the sky was green, you could take me to court if you really wanted to.”

Edith laughed at the last part, “Fine. I’ll be seeing you in court once I find credible evidence. What’s the big deal, though? Yeah, it’s probably going to be awkward, but…” Edith began to think about it. “Maybe it would be for the best, can’t you switch me back to eleven?”

“I don’t think so. You haven’t been here for so long and I have new clients reaching out to me every day, I have to fill in these slots. This is the only time you fit for.”

Edith was quiet for a while. “Huh. Well. Since I’m not really taking the medication anymore, your work here is sort of...done. I could be transferred to a regular therapist now.”

“Not necessarily. I still need to make sure you come off of them properly.”

“It’s been weeks since I took them and I only took one dose, I feel fine.”

“Well, if that is how you really feel, then yes, you can stop seeing me. But, I will leave that up to you.”

“I’ll….I’ll think about it.”

...​


When she came out of the office, feeling a bit disoriented and dejected, the sun had gone down a bit. It was still warm, but the light breeze made it feel comfortable. She got into her car and pulled out her phone, dialing the Richards home phone.

“Mrs. Richards? Is this a good time? If I may, I’d like to come see Damien again.”
 
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. "Yes," Mrs. Richards said with only a hint of a sigh. "You may come whenever you wish. We are both at home. Just please do not tire him."

~~~

Damien was working. When was he not working? But now he was working with a feverish pitch despite the dull throbbing in the back of his skull. He erased everything he had and faced his literally clean slate.

"Okay, let's start again from the beginning. Let P be a problem. Assume that given a solution, it is easy to check P is correct. I need to show that P then is easily solved. Assume P is not easily solved. Then we must show the solutions are not easy to verify. Equivalently, we have to show that there is a problem that is hard to solve, but easy to check. Which means we have to show every possible means of solving it. But that is completely absurd, at least in first-order of logic. So that line of proof seems for the moment to be impossible..." He scribbled down the line of proof in the corner of the board and slashed an asterisk next to it. "Later. Come back to this later."

He stood back from the board and crossed one arm over his torso, the other hand picking at his chin stubble fretfully, his brow furrowed. Then he leaned forward. "But is it impossible? Let us try attacking it in a different way. Assume that such a problem exists. Then every algorithm that solves P..." he trailed off for a second, thinking, "is of nonpolynomial time. Let A be the algorithm that varifies solutions of P that has polynomial time, and let A1, A2, A3, and so forth be all the algorithms that solve P."

He stopped, chalk dangling from his fingers, and pondered the white mass on the blackboard. "This is two more assumptions that I need to prove that I can make. First, is it true that a problem that has an algorithm that can check solutions must have an algorithm that can solve it? Secondly, Would the set of those algorithms be countable?" He stared for a moment longer.

In a sudden fit of frustration, he threw the piece of chalk at the board. "More questions! More assumptions! I cannot get anywhere without unearthing more! Every time I think I am getting close, it seems every answer dissolves into three more questions." He ran his hands through his hair in frustration and paced in the room within a room he had created by setting up the blackboards in a square. "What am I missing?"
 
“Okay, thank you. I’ll see you soon then. Goodbye.” Edith set her phone down and rummaged around in her pockets for the key to her car. She jumped at the sound of tapping coming from her window, and quickly turned to see a man standing there, waiting for her to roll the window down. She didn’t though, she grew tense and instinctively went to lock the car doors.

“I..I don’t mean any trouble, sorry to bother you, I just--”

“W-What do you want?” Her voice cracked with nervousness, she couldn’t make eye contact with him, she looked away and grabbed her phone, feeling her heart race. It was never a good feeling to be a young woman in a parking lot alone with a stranger.

“Edith, right? Edith Cromwell? My name is Landon Carver, I was the driver that crashed into you that night, I wanted to apologize to you face-to-face but I never had the chance. I know what happened to your friend and I--”

She had her eyes on the floor, listening to him, she suddenly rolled her window down to look at him. He was an older, somewhere in his forties, dark-skinned man with a trimmed afro and a solemn face.

“Is that true, that was you? Why aren’t you in prison?” She was untrusting of this man so she didn’t let her guard down, but if he was who he really said he was, she wanted to hear what he had to say.

“I’m on house arrest. I’ve been escorted to therapy every day this week, as a part of my sentence, and if you ask me-- it has been a blessing. I’m slowly learning how to treat my alcoholism. This way I will never hurt anyone else with it again. It has been a wakeup call for me, I thank God that I didn’t take anyone’s life that day, but I still left a great deal of damage to all of you-- and the very least I can do now is apologize, I hope someday I can do more.”

Edith listened to the man’s speech, he spoke with such a heavy heart, a burden too large for him to carry.

“Thank you, thank you for having the courage to do this. I wish you the best of luck with your recovery.” Was all she could think to say.

“Thank you. Have a blessed day, Miss Cromwell.” He went to leave, but she yelled for him to stop.

“Wait! Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Did you see...anything weird that night? Anything unusual?” It was a long shot to ask about a memory someone had while drunk, she felt stupid after asking.

He was quiet for some time. “I keep having dreams...nightmares, if you will, about that night. And each time, I feel as if, a higher spirit was with all of us that night. I can not tell if this spirit is good or evil, just that it was present. I...I don’t know if that information is of any use to you, but take from it what you will.”

Edith was taken aback by this, she did not know what to say. It unsettled her greatly.

“T-Thank you...I’m going to go now. Goodbye, Mr. Carver.” She rolled her window up and left.

...
​
Edith couldn’t stop herself from having a cigarette this time, she smoked it in her car right before going up to the Richards home to ring the doorbell. The stench of the nasty tobacco still lingered in her hair, breath, and clothes and she considered going back to her car to spray on some perfume, but was too late, as Mrs. Richards had opened the door.
 
Mrs. Richards' nose wrinkled, and she leaned back as if someone had shoved a dead octopus under her nose. She looked Edith up and down and looked ready to shut the door in her face, but with visible effort, she stopped herself and instead opened the door wider. "Come in, please," she said stiffly. "He is downstairs as usual." She turned and led the way rapidly through the house and opened the door, doing everything she could to hurry Edith through without actually touching her.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Damien had finally taken a seat in an old rolling office chair without arms. "Must all algorithms be written down? Is writing universal?" he mumbled distractedly. "How-" He stopped, looking toward the stairway door. Someone was coming. He stood nervously and inched his way over to listen at the door. Who? Why?
 
The stench had followed her like a black cloud, her palms sweating as she was rushing to the basement door.

"Thank you." She smiled at Mrs. Richards who was very obviously repulsed by Edith. She nearly tripped down the steps this time around, shakily gaining her balance again and carefully descending the rest of the steps. She stopped at the door, hearing the same murmurs coming from within like last time.

I hope maybe this time, there is someone in there with him...

She knew this was unlikely. It was normal for a person to talk with one's self, but Damiens's manic, hushed grumbling was unsettling. Edith was determined not to get pushed out so easily and fast by him this time, determined to ascertain what exactly he was spending so much time down here on. She felt as though the closeness and bond that they once shared had diminished completely, it appeared as if he could not even trust her, but perhaps that distrust was not just directed towards her.

She knocked. "Are you decent?" She called out. "It's Edith...again." She looked to the floor as she waited.
 
Damien hesitated, debating within himself as he stood in silence. Edith... alright, he supposed she could be allowed in, but... did he trust her? She hadn't shown him any reason not to. Not ever, not once in the past. If anything, she'd proven that she was the one person he could trust no matter what. Okay. He would let her in.

He reached for the door then hesitated. Was he decent? He looked down at himself. Same worn, faded jeans as before, but his shirt was one of the souvenirs given to the top students at his old school. He couldn't really remember when he'd gotten it. Maybe his birthday or something? Whatever, he supposed he was grubby but decent.

His room was another matter. If anything, it had gained a new layer of filth. Maybe he should clean up a little...

He shook his head and cautiously opened the door. "Hi, Edith," he said slowly, studying her. Were their any changes to show she wasn't who she said she was? No, she appeared fine. Twitchy, stressed, and smelling of cigarette smoke, but fine.
 
"Hey, D. Can I come in?" She greeted him with a short smile. "Or, maybe, do you want to come out here? Nice weather today." Edith tried to always be optimistic, but based on their last interaction in the doctor's office and the way he was so hesitant to open his very door, made it clear that perhaps the whole point was trying to close out the outside world.

"Mind if I use your bathroom first, though?" She was going to use that time to find some mouthwash maybe and wash her hands from the stink, the appointment with Dr. Ingram and weird encounter with Landon Carver had her a bit disheveled. Which reminded her... "Oh, also, something really weird happened after you left..." She furrowed her eyebrows in a sort of frown and nervously played with her fingers at the thought of it.
 
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