I walked into Mr. Scythe’s office quite unencumbered this time. I had been visiting this place consistently for over a month now and I had never for the life of me paid the slightest attention to this vicinity in which most would say has been the place that would give them a pass to their new life.
Most people were running from something or someone and Mr. Scythe was an amazing counselor who made life easier. He was quite popular, nothing like the other therapists that required you to feel like thrash. Mr. Scythe had a pattern of doing things and that was why his office was almost always full, I think.
I always saw a number of people waiting outside the office but for some reason, I was always given preferential treatment. I rarely ever noticed the faces of others, but those that I saw sitting while walking in, I never seem to see them on my way out. It's mind blowing how efficient and helpful Mr. Scythe is.
Anyways today's session was particularly different and like earlier said, I paid attention to his office. It was quite beautiful, decorated in an unusual manner. A silky rug separating his table from my chair. An old Chinese lamp that I'm sure was only there for aesthetics. Adjoining windows that you could see sunlight perusing through only to be firmly restricted by the most ancient looking blinds. It looked like a girdle but not really, and also looked like it had a single feather unlike any I had ever seen. There was a clock or was it an hourglass? It was both and neither.
Mr. Scythe was right there in front of me, grinning satisfactorily as I looked around the office as though to garner all the praise, or more like astonishment in which I silently had for the room. It was as if my eyes unwillingly gave a complimentary look on how well furnished I thought the room was. I was in awe and I can't say I was to blame.
As always, Mr. Scythe greeted me with a smile but this time didn't offer me the usually tea instead he went straight for a cupboard by the right part of the office. I asked if that had always been there and he shrugged the question off, saying it wasn’t important. He reached under the cupboard and pulled out a drawer, bringing out a huge journal. It didn't seem dusty at all.
Mr. Scythe brought out the journal and ask me to regale him on the things that happened that I thought were of note since our last meeting. I told him that things had gotten worse since our last meeting and that I had left work because it was the saddest part of my life and that no one seemed to call me anymore since I caught Janet and Matthew on my bed. I told him that waking up on alleyways to the smirks of passers-by had continued and were only slightly better than the smell of drinks and piss and a constant pounding on my head. I told him I felt tired and had thought of ending it all.
Mr. Scythe shook his head for what felt like a minute and then asked me to tell him when it all went wrong, as he continued to pen down something on the huge journal.
I told him of how my dad lost his foot to diabetes and that my mother left 4 months after. Who would blame her? I left the first chance I got too. I told him how hard life was for me and how alone I was until Janet. Janet was everything to me. Her smile was like the first sun of summer. I didn't want to say any more and Mr. Scythe as always, understood.
Mr. Scythe asked me what I did at home before coming to his office. I tried to narrate it but could not really put it into words. All I could do was play it through my mind.
I remembered feeling sad and alone, the worst I had ever felt in my 28 years of existence. I went into the bathroom room and suddenly felt the need to take a bath. I filled the tub and it was quite cold. The water, I mean. So I drained a little of it and heated some water that would make my bath warm. That would make my body and my bones and my joints all warm. I got in and it was quite good and so I stayed for some time until I noticed the water getting colder and colder, just like everything in my life and so I figured I'd heat the water.
I didn't want to have to drained the water and go through the cycle of heating it up. I felt there must be an easier way. I’d rather get a heating ring, a toaster would probably do it. Help me get warm for as long as wanted. I would be warm forever. And so I brought the toaster in from the kitchen to the bathroom. I dropped the toaster close to the tub and then I think I decided to come to Mr. Scythe’s office. I couldn’t remember how I came or the streets I walked through to get to his office, but I did, somehow.
All these were my thoughts but somehow Mr. Scythe was vigorously writing and then he suddenly closed the journal and handed it over for me to sign. I was skeptical and slightly astonished and couldn't make out the written words above the spot for my signature. But the dotted lines for my signature glowed and were so attractive and compelling that I couldn’t refuse. I picked up the pen and...blackness.
I could hear voices and I opened my eyes.
I saw faces all around me, faces I had no recognition of and somehow they seemed to all be smiling. A woman dressed in all white later told me that my unlikely hero had been a 13 year old boy, who had followed his cat through my window and inside my house. He found me and called for help.
Had he saved me?
I looked at the little boy, and then his cat. Between the both of them, which was my unlikely hero?
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