“You can’t stay a saint in the city for long.” That was the last sentiment spoken to my fractured soul. As the sweeping black doors slammed closed, my warm breath fogged up the rear view mirror of my life. Brown locks of hair fell in front of my jewel green eyes, blocking the last sight I was to see of my enclosed rural town. Oh, how I would miss it. The scent of the chrysanthemums, the miraculous colours of the sunset. The falling of the soul in the endless meadows of cotton and lilac. Oh, how I would miss it. The sun-warmed dirt road fell behind the constant turning of the wheels. My life would lose its’ meaning with every rotation. I was leaving the life I had always known, my soul, my sentiment. And I was leaving it behind for what? To go to some snotty private school in New York? This wasn’t-isn’t my decision. It never was. Now all I have to do is watch the cards play out, and hope for the lucky 21.

~ ~ ~

Sterile and hostile, it had the makings of world domination, and was awfully close to what the head office would look like. Yet, the scent of the linoleum floor was masked all the secrets held by the ears of the walls. Office after office, chair after chair. The pattern of the rooms gave a false sense of security. Sitting down in one of the redundant lounges, I was realizing the cold hard truth. My brain was to be picked, prodded and punished. I was to scream my spirit to the ceiling, expose my inner being. And to top it off, on a weekly basis. Gray walls covered your trail, the blatant overhead fans cut your scent. I kicked at the lining of the floor, and waited patiently for my name to be called from the thinning lips of the receptionist. The clock ticked slowly, each second seeming like an eternity. The world was rolling by without missing me. It was a parallel of my present life. Taunting me. Reminding me I was no one, nothing, almost…non-existent. I was just a part of the sea of eyes. Another drop of rain. But, being nobody suited me. I had lost all my opinions, thoughts, everything. Each turn of the bland alloy wheels left me another inch of lost hope.

“Brendon Kelley?” A voice rang out of the glassed-in booth, housing the records of all the patients. “The doctor is ready to see you, room 6.” I got up stiffly, and walked quietly through the dauntingly horrendous hall. Room 1, 2, 3, I was 10 steps in and already it felt like a rollercoaster you had ridden one too many times. 5,6. Here I was. 2 steps away from fulfilling the pay check of the standard doctor. I took a deep haunting breath and let it out. It was go time. I turned around the corner, and sitting in a high backed chair, capable of rolling, was my worst enemy. The fully American, psychiatrist. I looked around, the room was identical to that picture on television. The camera was my head and it caught the perfect frame of the gray haired, sunken eyed man, as he turned his chair around slowly.

“Brendon Kelley?” he asked, already tired of my name. But, I was used to hearing it. My life seemed to revolve around those two words. Every new class, new school I attended seemed to only care about two things. Money, and my name. I took an unfortunately audible, sharp breath in.

“Yes?” I asked, my voice quivering. The gray eyes of the old man were intensified by his navy suit, but lit up at the freight in my voice.

“Come in, and sit down. We don’t have all day, do we?” I panicked. Was the question rhetorical or not? A head nod would suffice as I shuffled my feet across the barren desert of the carpeted floor.

“So Mr. Kelley, what brings you here?” A simple question. A responsible answer.

“I don’t know…” Mumbling doesn’t help a lie. Especially when your scuffed up sneakers are the focal point of your immediately present attention.

“Okay then, let’s start from the beginning,” the shrink began to shuffle through some oddly loud papers in a folder…labelled “Brendon Kelley”…in big bold letters…across the front. Man, these places should learn to be more stealthy.

“Born in rural Virginia, and you moved here, 2 weeks ago. Why?” The question was typical, nothing out of the ordinary, hell, I’ve been asked that question near daily for the past fortnight.

“Parents’ job.” Lie. I moved here because my parents were worried I was becoming introverted in such a small town.

“I see,” the nonchalant scratching of his fountain pen caused more anxiety than it should have.

“And how are you liking it here in New York?” I realized this would just be another stupid game of twenty questions. What else is new? I, again, have been playing the game since the moment I stepped off the luxurious commercial plane, and onto the falsely heated connection of the state-of-the-art airport and the equally modern flying vehicle.

“Fine.” Lie. I hate it here. Everything it filled with smoke or smog. And the people here are all the “pretty, perfect rich kids” who get their precious Mommies and Daddies to buy them everything. From the second I walked in that door I was labelled “Farm Boy”. At least in my imagination. In reality, I still don’t know if “they” even acknowledge my existence.

I shut my eyes for a calming blink. When my eyelids popped back open, I was faced with a blank, yet expecting stare. I missed the question. Shit.

“I’m sorry, but could you please repeat the question?” Almost a bluff. Almost. I don’t want to hear the question. I just want to go home, not to my new suite, but back to my run down cottage, with the never ending violet skies. I want to go back home to my friends, my dog, my family, and most importantly, her.

“Mr. Kelley, I don’t want to be here as well. But we must go through the question, and answer process before we can start any of the real work. Now, I asked, do you like your school, and are you fitting in?” So mutual feelings? Is he doing this just for the money, like everyone else I know? Or is he actually doing a good job. I scolded myself for letting my mind wander to the corners of the universe again. Why am I asking these questions? And why do I even care?

“School is good. It’s just a little awkward.” Half a lie. It is awkward, just school is bad. Have you ever been the dinosaur in a room full of bunnies? Yeah, that’s what I felt like. I stood out so much. Different accent, different look, different taste in music. I hated how everyone in the school made me feel atrocious, by looks, brains and personality. Saying it is awkward is just an understatement.

“Um, excuse me doctor, but what’s your name? I haven’t heard it yet.” Without looking up from the chicken scratch in my seemingly paper thin file, he pointed to the front of his desk. There, I noticed an almost camouflaged slate grey name tag. In typical gothic lettering it plainly read: “Dr. Tamley”. I let my mouth form an “o” shape as my eyes dropped down to my dark green sneakers. I admired the dirt which had crusted around the bottom, and how it was imperfectly perfect. It was how everything was supposed to look. Average, and accepted. It was taunting me without even trying. It was screaming at me to change my life, and to find my place in the world. I lifted my head for a mere moment, just in time to see the doctors’ eyes flutter quickly up from my file, and scan over my face. My mismatched eyes, my evidently pointed nose, the bump atop my bridge, where glasses would rest, silently plotting their next illusion.

I let out a scream. It reached the heavens, and came back crashing down to earth. The world seemed to reverberate around me, like an auditorium reacting to the harmony of the notes singing out of the bass amp. My soul had erupted for those five seconds of blissful release.

“And that, Mr. Kelley, is why I had the room soundproofed,” Dr. Tamley explained matter-of-factly, still not looking up from my file. “Clients like you, well almost like you have had the same emotional outburst many time before.”

“Why should I care what ‘client before me’ has felt like I do?” I asked enraged at the psychiatrist in front of me. “No one, I mean NO ONE feels like I do. No one feels like they want to stick their head into a pool of burning lava. No one wants to just stick their hand in their chest and rip their heart out and throw it off the golden gate bridge! I don’t like it here, and that. Is. That.” And I stormed off. But just before I could wrench the door open with the unnatural adrenaline force behind my every movement, something stopped me. It was a squeak that sounded much like a “wait” from the high-backed chair positioned perfectly behind me.

“What?!” I asked. My hand was still on the door-knob, and I had no intention of letting go, just in case things took a bad turn. Correction, in case things got even worse than I had already made them.

“I have an…idea.” the taunting voice from behind me had grown soft and weak, like a tiny little mouse, scared because a ferocious cat had it cornered.

I made no sound. Waiting for the next words out of Dr. Tamely’s mouth was a torture in itself. He had no idea how much I didn’t want to put up with any of his crap anymore.

“It’s a new…procedure I invented,” mused the doctor carefully and quietly. “I’ll tell you more about it later. Our next appointment perhaps?” So this was his hook. He kept you wondering until a week later, when, who knows, this whole thing could happen again, and again, and again.

“Whatever,” I responded quickly, and was out the door so fast, I didn’t think it was humanely possible.

Little did I know, it was the perfect thing to say. That one word which had now become a constant part of my ever shrinking vocabulary, had left the professional wondering. The stares my file was experiencing, closely resembled those a gazelle would receive from a hungry fox. It wants something it cannot have. I might have just changed his life with that one word, but I certainly changed mine.

My penthouse flat wasn’t exactly what I would call heaven, but it sure wasn’t hell. I had the entire thing to myself, to do what ever I wanted with it. I could put up pictures of thunderstorms, and dark cracks in ancient books, or decorate the entire place head to toe with corn cobs. It was my surrogate home, and I guess I could deal with it. Nothing was unpacked. It was my life’s metaphor of not believing that all this was true. That I was a lowly surf in a kingdom of vanity and jewels, and I couldn’t be myself.

I dropped my jacket on the outreaching arms of the coat rack positioned cleverly by the side of the door.

“Might as well make myself at home,” my voice rang through the enormous apartment, reverberating off the walls, and exiting neatly out the windows. I sighed and trudged over the sparkling wooden floor to where all of my ignored, unpacked boxes lay, and sat down. It was finally the time to bring forth my memories to the light. I picked up the scissors beside the boxes, and began to slice. Layer after layer of tape was dismembered, and cube after cube of meaningless memoirs was opened, and immediately discarded. I stopped suddenly, my cutting machine mid-stroke.

“I-I-I cant do this,” a quiet whisper escaped my throat, it voiced everything that had been flooding my brain the last few days. I didn’t want to be here, and I certainly hated the way my life had turned one hundred eighty degrees. I wanted to be home. Not in these blank, lifeless walls which gave my nothing more than shelter from the storm.

I jolted up and ran to the door so quickly, it was like I was floating. The slam of my front door echoed behind me, as I took off down the staris. The beats resounding off the evenly paved steps were like snails compared to the rhythmic thumping of my heart. I burst through he stairwell door and into the dreary New York day; the rain kissing my skin. I bolted into the closest alley I could find, separating myself myself from the sea of eyes. And I Broke Down. I cried like I had never cried in my life.

The alley was silent except for my sobs, and the big drops of rain pounding the pavement. After a few minutes I couldn’t tell if it was my childish tears running down my face, or the water spilling from the clouds. My mind was overflowing with thoughts of home, and loating; my heart racing from all the activity. Water flooded my face for what seemed like an eternity. My eyes were fogged wen I finally retracted my head from the calming protection of my gentle hands. The rain had retreated at little; the dreary day brightening somewhat. I stood up and stretched, my soaking clothes weighing me down.

So that is about all I have so far, feedback?  I will add more as i type it up.