The Anomaly's Enigma

“It’s been four years since the death of Elliot Banks, Gerard. How does that make you feel?”

I pucker my lips for a long moment and try to come up with my answer, “what can I say that isn’t going to get you to write ‘psychotic lunatic’ on that little pad of yours?”

She looks at me, with a judgmental glare, one I know all too well. I guess it’s better than the one I’ve been getting a lot recently like I actually am insane.

“What do you want me to say? I’m happy about it, okay? I’m happy he’s dead. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not, but the man tried to kill me, and my husband, and my brother, and basically everyone else I know,” I tell her. “What more do you want from me? A written confession? I’m glad he’s dead, it made me feel safe for a little while.”

She scribbles something against her pad and I roll my eyes at her, waiting for her to tell me something, anything. Waiting for her to call a cop to have me arrested, or call a hospital to have me committed.

“I don’t think that’s an outrageous reaction at all,” she says. “In fact I think it’s understandable.”

“Well good, because I don’t regret it. That man, Banks, he tried to ruin my life, stitch by stitch, tried to tear me up at my seams, and I don’t for one day regret his death. Not one. If he hadn’t died, I probably would’ve been the one to go, or someone I love, and he was a bad man. He killed people before he tried to kill me, and if he’d been allowed to go on, he’d have killed more people, so no, I don’t regret his death,” I say.

I look around the office around me, wanting to look anywhere but at her. I don’t want to be here. Frank made me. He thinks I’m going crazy or something. No one believes me. I wish they did.

I look at the walls, which are beige with a high wooden trim against the bottom. There’s certificates on the wall behind her. I haven’t bothered to learn her name. She’s just another faceless therapist.

One of the certificates behind her head is crooked and it’s bothering me, because I want to go over there and straighten the frame. She’s got the bland Ikea-was-having-a-sale couch, and an equally as mundane chair for herself. Her desk looks like she paid too much for it though. Like she’s trying too hard to look sophisticated.

I’m most attracted to the door behind her, the one I’m itching to go through to leave this office.

“But four years later, Gerard, how do you feel about what’s happened?”

“Well that’s why I’m here isn’t it?” I ask, “I’ve told you about four years ago, and you no doubt read about it in the news when it happened, I made international headlines! I became famous because of this, if you can call it fame. I hate that though. I’m an artist, not a guy who was shot at, and I don’t want it this way, but what are you going to do?”

“But that’s not why you’re here,” she says.

I sigh, looking down at the ground, because this is the part I’m not looking forward to. I hate people thinking I’m messed up by this, but I guess, if I wasn’t so sure, I’d understand it too.

“No that’s not why,” I say. “I’ve been having some ‘waking dreams’, if that’s what you want to call them, but they’re not dreams. They’re real. Saying they’re dreams is ignorant.”

“You know in some cases, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can take years to start showing any effects,” she says and I groan.

“I don’t have PTSD, okay? I’ve just been a little jittery recently, because someone’s lurking around in my life, searching for some way to hurt me, and I don’t know who.”

“And why do you say that? Why do you think someone’s following you?”

“Because they are!”

“Why would someone be following you?”

“They just are.”

“You’re delusional. No one wants to hurt you,” she says, “It’s a normal reaction. Seeing his face, remembering what happened.”

“I’m not seeing Banks’ face! This isn’t remembering what happened, okay? I haven’t had any fucking flashbacks or anything. This isn’t my past, this is now. This is all really happening to me, and no one will believe me,” I say, shaking my head.

“Well can you blame them?”

“Yes! Yes I can. My own husband doesn’t even think I’m in my right mind, but I am. I know this is all happening. It’s all happening again. This is the dawn before the storm, but the storm is sure as hell coming,” I say.

“You’re not a meteorologist, Gerard,” she says sadly, “your brain is trying to trick you into thinking it’s happening again when in reality you’re just not over what happened last time.”

“That’s not true!”

“Oh yeah?” she says, “Then let’s talk about what happened recently. What triggered all of this fear.”

“He didn’t trigger it,” Gerard says, “he just made me more aware of it.”

“Talk about it.”

“I would really rather not,” I say.

“Gerard,” she says looking at me sternly from the end of her glasses. She strangely reminds me of my mother, and I don’t know why.

“What? It’s not like you deserve to know my deepest darkest secrets about this. It’s been wigging me out enough as it is, okay?” I say, feeling defensive.

“We’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t talk to me about it,” she says.

“Fine with me,” I say, and look down at the floor. It’s not my fault this has been haunting me, but I can’t live it down now. No one understands though.

I’m just over reacting. That’s what they keep telling me. Side effect from what ensued four years ago. It’s been a long time since the thing with Banks, and some part of me has known it’s never going to stop replaying in my head, but this is different. That’s not what this is.

I am still afraid of Banks, sure. Since he died, I’ve had a couple nightmares about him, but those were all years ago. I’m happy now. I have a great life. My husband, Frank, is perfect. My brother is a Neanderthal as ever, but I still like the guy. I have a great job. Nothing should be wrong, because my life is perfect, but someone is trying to interfere. Someone wants me hurt or dead, or they want Frank hurt or dead, and I’m the only one who sees it.

“Gerard, you’re going to have to come to terms with this eventually. He’s out of jail. That’s a fact.”

“He didn’t even stop Banks from trying to kill me. I wasn’t the best person in the world to him, but he tried to kill me, so yeah, that has me a little freaked out, I’m sorry. That’s different though. That’s me being wary of him, this is me realizing someone, maybe him, wants me dead.”

“Gerard, you have the restraining order, he’s on parole-”

“So what? Derek Fischer is out of jail, and I’m the reason he was put in there, so yeah, I’m scared of him. I’ll own up to it. He scares me. What else do you expect from me, huh? He’s out of jail, and I’m the reason he was in there,” I say.

“You know that it’s completely irrational to think that he’s going to be coming after you. He’s not that stupid. He’d risk his parole, and he’d be the first suspect if anything happens to anyone near you,” she says.

“Yeah a lot of fucking comfort that gives me. I had to flee the city, and at one point, the goddamn state, running away from Banks and his people. His people tried to kill me. Fischer tried to kill me. Some of them were guns for hire, I get that,” sort of like my husband, but I won’t say that, “but some of them are still out for blood. Fischer is out, and what if he decides to finish what Banks started?”

“The point I’m trying to make Gerard, is that we both know what’s triggered these intrusive memories,” she says, “it’s because you’re afraid Derek Fischer wants to carry out Banks’ plan to have you killed.”

“How do you know he doesn’t?” I scoff, letting her suggestion that this is all in my head roll off of me just this once.

“Maybe he does hold some sort of grudge, but we both know that this man was only ever an associate of a small degree. He wasn’t the brains of any of this, he’s not going to look for you.”

“He might, but maybe it’s not him,” I say.

“But even if he does find you, or anyone else for that matter, you’re well protected, Gerard. It’s been four years, you’re going to have to accept that the past isn’t out there to kill you.”

“It was once, wasn’t it? I wrote a comic book character who I just so happened to base off of a man called Banks, who was from my past, and that guy ended up almost ruining my life. Who says it won’t happen again?” I ask. “I don’t trust the police, okay? I don’t. When this all came around, they wouldn’t arrest Banks. He was too powerful. He had connections. There was a murderer in the police force who wanted to kill me. I remember him, trust me. Officer Roland tried to kill the man I love. He threw him in the ocean for god’s sake. Banks was untouchable. The police aren’t airtight. Poison can make it through the ranks.”

“This doesn’t have to ruin your life though, Gerard. You’ve made a name for yourself, sure some of that may have come from this incident, but you have. You’ve got a good life now, and you can’t tell me you want to let it all be cast into shadow by this fear,” she says.

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” I say, looking away, and folding my hands together in front of me. “I think about him enough.”

“Gerard, we both know that Derek Fischer’s release has invoked some sort of post-traumatic fear in you, and if you’re not going to let yourself accept that, you’re not going to get past this.”

“I had a hard time with this, okay? Four years ago was the scariest part of my life ever, I know it was, but it’s happening all over again. I don’t think I’m being irrational about this, because I know someone wants to get me. I think someone wants to hurt me because of what happened,” I say clearly.

“Bottom line, do you believe Derek Fischer, you’re ex-publisher, is out to get you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s him. There are other people it could be. How do we know we got all of Banks associates? There could still be unknown people who were in on it but never got caught, and there’s no way to know for sure.”

“Why is it happening now then, Gerard? Why the convenient timing? Derek Fischer has just been released from jail, spooking you, why would it be happening now? Why not four years ago?”

“Don’t you get it? They waited for him! They’ve been waiting four years so that Derek Fischer would leave so that they could come after me and blame it all on him. Everyone would suspect him, it’s perfect. Or maybe it is him and he doesn’t care about the consequences. All I know is that I’m going to die soon if people don’t start listening. I’m not crazy, I’m just scared,” I tell her.

I look at her already knowing that she’s about to tell me something I already know is wrong. I feel her disbelief in vibrations moving through me before it’s even left her tongue.

“What I think is happening is that this fear is a figment of your imagination. Derek Fischer being released from prison has unburied all the fears you had four years ago, and you’re brain is making things up to help you get through it. Your brain is tricking you into thinking this is real when it’s not.”

“You’re wrong. I have felt this, it’s real, and it’s not fake. Someone is out there, and they want to hurt me or someone I love. It’s not post-traumatic or anything, okay? This is ongoing-traumatic. This is happening again. I can sense it.”

“Oh and how? A gut instinct?”

“Yes!” I say, looking at her angrily, because she doesn’t understand. She’s taking me as a joke, writing me off as some maniac with invisible demons haunting him, but I know it’s happening again. I know it. I’ve felt the signs of it. I’ve had more people looking at me, felt people watching me.

“Gerard, having a gut instinct doesn’t mean anything.”

“How can you know that?” I ask, “You don’t know what it’s like. This isn’t something that can all be in my head. This is real. This is happening around me and I know it.”

“Sometimes our dreams can seem real-”

“No!”

“Alright, then tell me what these senses are? Explain the signs that have been presenting themselves to you?”

“I’ve been getting these creepy fan mail letters. I get a lot of that stuff, okay, and it’s usually fine, the occasional nut-job, but these are all the same. All the same one’s with the same message on each. ‘Not over yet.’ Not over yet! What the hell else could that mean?”

“Gerard, you’re a celebrity. You write a famous comic, you have to expect things like this,” she says, looking at me like I’m a child.

“Then there’s the feeling that someone’s tailing me. Following me. I don’t know who, but I’ve been hearing them. Looking behind me only to realize it’s too late.”

“I really think you should consider the idea that maybe you didn’t entirely get over that fear. Maybe that’s why it’s taken four years for you to start showing these signs. Your brain’s been trying to block it out for a long time, but eventually, it had to give in. It couldn’t last forever, this running away from that feeling.”

I sigh long and hard, looking up at the ceiling out of annoyance, “Alright I’ll amuse you for a moment. Entertain your very wrong idea that this is all in my head. You’re wrong, but suppose you’re right though. Why couldn’t I build a wall to this forever?

“Because that’s not exactly how life works, Gerard,” she says, looking at me. Her eyes are no longer on the pad in front of her, and she’s looking at me too sympathetically. I hate it when they look sympathetic. They don’t actually know what it is they’re giving advice on, they just like to make you think they do. There’s no empathy there, no one can just understand what it’s like to have been in my shoes.

I have been shot at a fair number of times. I have been shot at by the guy who later I ended up marrying, that was mostly unintentional. He fell in love with me, I fell in love with him, it’s a long story. I’ve seen my brother being thrown in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, and I’ve seen my boyfriend kidnapped right out from under me. It was my fault too. All of those things were my fault. I have watched the person I love die, like legitimately die, he was dead for like 29 seconds. I’ve had my life uprooted, and been thrown into the middle of nowhere so that I wouldn’t be killed. I’ve been chased off of a road, shot at in the middle of a forest, assisted in the hotwiring and theft of a car, and let my brother get kidnapped because of me. Then my boyfriend tied me to a bed, and it got a little messy for a while, and I thought it all got better. Living a life like that is not easy though. Trust me. You can’t run from that kind of a past. It’s catching up to me, I’m positive of that.

“You don’t know me but you think you do,” I say.

“Well who are you then?”

“I’m a guy who just wants to be happy with his life. I want to go home, and I want to be happy with my favorite person in the entire world. I want to just have my life with Frank and forget about what happened before. I just wish I didn’t have to worry that someone wants to kill me, but I don’t get that luxury. I haven’t really had it for four years,” I say, feeling my whole face drop and my body shake.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Gerard,” she says, “you won’t listen to me, but I know that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Yeah?” I ask, standing up, because I am sick of being ridiculed like this by her, “you say that in two weeks when you’re watching the news and you hear them report that I’m dead.”