Sunflower

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” I’m not sure where she’s heading with all of these questions. Maybe she’s finally listened to my friendly advice. I can be a friendly person when I want to be.

Which, in my case is never.

“What happened to asking me how I feel today?”

“Would you like to be asked that?”

“I’m just wondering why the sudden change in questions.”

“As I recall, you told me I was a walking cliché for asking such repetitive questions. Now you’re telling me off for mixing it up?”

“I’m not telling you off.”

“Good, then answer my question.”

I’m slightly thrown off by her straightforwardness, but it’s another thing I’m growing to like about the psych.

“I like to paint.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Sunflowers.”

“What is the significance of a sunflower?”

I pause. “They’re bright, and bold, and seeing one light up my day.”

“Why do you think it lights up your day?”

“Because when I was younger, my Dad used to collect them for my Mum in the garden where he grew some and every time Mum would see them she’d light up like the 4th of July.”

“Does seeing your parents happy make you happy?”

There was no pause this time, only a quick response. “Yes.”

“I see.” Silence fills the air as she scribbles something on her notepad.

Curiosity gets the better of me. “What do you write on there?”

“Would you like me to tell you?”

I’m not expecting that. “If you’d like.”

She hesitates slightly, but not from uncomfortableness or shock, I suppose she’s just thinking on what to tell me.

“I want the truth.” I tell her. “No mumbo jumbo shit, thanks.”

“We only speak the truth in here,” she replies slowly. “Just then, I wrote, human.”

I’m dumbfounded. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re human, as the word suggests.”

“As opposed to?”

“Oh, now you want an answer?”

“Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

“I’ll make a deal,” she announces. “I’ll give you an answer for an answer. How ‘bout it?”

I freeze for a short moment, but I figure I can delay the hard questions longer than I need to. The only reason I’d even think about doing this is because as always, curiosity gets the better of me and it eats away at my stomach. I’ve always been a curious child, wanting to know why things happen the way they do and how things work.

“Okay.”

“Okay. So. What was your question, again?”

“What does it mean to be human?”

“What does it mean for me, or for what I’ve written?”

I think about this. “Both.”

“That means I get two answers for two questions,” she warns me.

I nod in reply, and wait for her to go on.

“To me, being human is having a heart, to be able to love and have lost and feel things we thought our heart couldn’t handle, and then to recover from those things is the most humanly act one can do.”

“And me?”

“I wrote human because despite what other psych’s have said about you, you are human.”

I pause. “You think so?”

“I know so. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“You have a heart, too.”