“Jack, are you with me?” Julianne asked with a curious glance. Her eyes studied my face behind her glasses. She bent slightly over in her chair, still as a statue waiting for a response.
“Yes, sorry; I just spaced out.” Shit. I didn’t realize I hadn’t answered her question. I couldn’t help it. My mind was busy keeping my eyes closed.
Julianne was wonderful and talking to her helped, but she refused to take down her mirror, and she purposefully sat under it to invoke a reaction from me.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked. She was incredibly patient.
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“You mean to tell me you can’t get through our session without making eye contact with me for at least five consecutive seconds?”
“I will if you move anywhere else,” I promised. I couldn’t spare more than a quick glance at her. If I did, I would have run the risk of glancing in the mirror, and I couldn’t do that. He’d be waiting for me in there with his sinister snarl.
“You know I won’t do that, Jack.” There was a pause; I think she was waiting for me to agree to her terms. “ I’ve already assured you that I am here, and I’ve checked the mirror dozens of times. I’m actually looking into it now. There’s no one in there except the two of us.”
That was a tempting invitation. I couldn’t remember the last time I gave myself a long look in the mirror. I’d almost forgotten what I looked like, but the price would have been too great, so I kept to myself.
“Could you tell me a little more about this demon?” her voice lit up a little when she asked. This was what she really wanted to talk about. The questions about my well-being we had just gotten through were merely a formality. This was my second week with Julianne. In order to keep from being court-ordered into in-patient psychiatric care, I agreed to keep up with an out-patient treatment. Julianne had been nice enough last week, but she really didn’t show any genuine interest in me until I freaked about that damn mirror. She was not much older than I was and had admittedly started out on her career as a therapist. I must have been her first ‘basket case.’
I felt trapped. Julianne was as polite as a psychiatrist could be, but we both knew she had the power to have me hospitalized. She wanted this. She wanted to understand my thoughts. There was a tacit understanding that I’d have to confront my fears, so I took a deep breath and thought about what to say.
“There’s a demon that has followed me since I was a child. I was unaware of his presence until a few of my classmates in elementary school pointed him out to me.” I sank into the chair. My heart began to race in a paranoid panic that evoking his name might draw him out of that damn mirror. The faint sound of her pen scribbling on her pad was the only thing keeping her ice-cold room from being completely silent.
“Can you describe him?”
“Grotesque. He’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen. Hollow eyes, contorted arms and shoulders, talons for hands, fangs for teeth, and I never looked at him long enough to notice any more than that, but his presence is overwhelming. My heart sinks to my stomach any time I see him.”
I knew she wouldn’t believe me. Anytime I tried to convince anyone I was haunted by a demon, all he or she would do was tell me I was crazy. And I think the demon wanted it that way. Other than the kids who would point him out to me when I was young, no one else could see him. He’s in all my photos, my driver’s license, and any video footage of me, looming directly behind me, ready to destroy me. Delighting in the fact that he has alienated me from everyone I’ve ever wanted to love.
“And when do you usually see him?”
“Anytime I look into a mirror, he is there. Angrier every time that I’ve made him wait so long for me to look at him. And uglier every time, too. He’s in all my pictures. I don’t take them anymore.”
“Are there any photos of you on your phone that I might be able to look at? I want to get a glimpse of this demon.” She seemed to feel pity for me, I think.
“No, like I said; I don’t take pictures anymore. It creeps me out that he’s in them. Here’s my driver’s license, though. He’s definitely in that one.” And I dug my ID out of my wallet. I've seen my license enough times. I’ve kept a sticker over my picture to keep from looking at him. I’ve had to show my ID to a few people before: a cop who pulled me over, bartenders, employers, and voter registration people. None of them ever noticed the demon, despite his glaring presence.
I pulled the protective sticker off the photo section and took a quick glance at it to be sure he was in fact there. And he was. His ugly scowl jutted out of the side of my neck, like he was about to bite me. I quickly looked away.
“Wow, you managed to take a really nice ID photo. That’s hard to do,” she congratulated me, “but I don’t see this demon,” and she looked slightly disappointed.
I had gotten used to people not being able to see the demon. He stalked me in elementary all the way through most of high school. He was as sadistic as he was relentless in his pursuit of me. As a child, I remember running home from school in horror begging my mom to take me to see a priest, but I couldn’t convince her that I was possessed. She got me tested for mental health instead. Both the doctors and my mom assured me I would be fine. They couldn’t see the demon. I figured it was his ploy to make me suffer even further. To make me suffer alone with no one to understand my situation. To discredit me every time I tried to point him out to someone.
“You see him every single time you look into a reflection or photo of yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Has he ever spoken to you, this demon?” I could hear more scribbling.
“No.”
“What do you think he wants?”
I knew the answer as soon as she asked. I could see it every time in his eyes. The hunger, the deranged depravity. It was the single thing that terrified me.
“He wants me dead.” My voice began to crack as my throat hollowed. Tears started rolling uncontrollably out of my eyes. I knew it was true. And it was useless confiding with Julianne because she absolutely did not believe me. He would kill me eventually. Why else would he be poised in a lunge, baring his fangs anytime I saw him?
“What does he do to make you think that?” she passed me a box of Kleenex.
“I j-u-u-st kno-o-w,” I sobbed.
“Okay. What I want you to do for next week is really think about your interactions with this demon. I want you to write down anything you can remember about him that you think is significant. We will talk about all of it next week.”
“Okay.” I agreed. At the expense of her time, she waited for me to stop sobbing and for my face to clear up before she subjected me to the lobby of waiting clients.
I grabbed my keys and headed for my car, and my heart stopped.
I forgot to put the shades up. The shades that kept my reflection from appearing in the windows when I approached my car, and there he was, madder than hell that I tried to get rid of him. He was coming for me.
I did the only thing left to do. I grabbed my bottle of Zoloft. I couldn’t let him end me violently, let him rip at my flesh with those talons or sink those fangs into my skin.
I had to do it myself.
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