Pendulum

“So, how do I - How do you want me to...,” the patient flailed his arms around, “What do I do?”

“Well, you had something in particular to discuss, didn’t you? Start from there,” the therapist shot him a brief smile.

“It’s a long story, Doc.”

“Start where you think you should.”

The patient shook his head, “All of it?”

“It’ll help me do my job. You’re here for an extra session, so time won’t be much of a factor,” the therapist’s gaze extended from the upper rim of his glasses.

The patient looked around the room, inspecting its dark colours and how light from the windows greeted it in different patterns. His eyes fell on a metronome flipping back and forth right behind where the therapist sat, ticking away without a care in the world.

He took a deep breath, “You know how when you’re younger, you haven’t quite grasped the concept that your words have consequences. At least not how it’ll impact people in the long run. That’s how this starts...”

A boy stood in the aisle between columns of desks in a bustling classroom. The teacher had just left and this was the moment. After a full week’s preparation he was ready; the note was written, the necessary conversations were had and all that was left was the home stretch. He glared down at the note he was clutching at, before his legs started marching down the aisle, toward the middle of the class. His heart was pounding and every one of his speedy breaths was manifested with the cold of winter.

There she was, writing in her books like she always did, it was the reason she remained perched at the top of the class.His eyes were fixed on her raven hair as the wind weaved through and played with it. A smile wormed its way onto his face. She was perfect, in every way and some part of him believed that all of the effort spent that week would pay dividends.

The smile would turn out to be short lived, however, when a rude interruption ensured his plans would remain unfulfilled. Just a simple “Ew” being spoken from his left was all it took. With a huff and furrowed brow he turned and saw his crush’s friend scowling at him. Complete with that disgusting birthmark above her lip. The bustle present in the class not seconds ago was gone and everyone glared at the unfurling interaction. Every. Single. Pupil.

His crush’s friends started whispering amongst themselves. He could hear them too, through all the giggles and flummoxed gasps. The boy looked at his crush for a split second and caught soft, almost sad eyes in return. Laughter rose like a wave from one side of the class and that tsunami crashed in his ears before long. He took a few more breaths and felt the emotion swelling from his chest, but he stopped himself from breaking down completely by scurrying back to his desk and hiding his face in folded arms.

“That alone didn’t butcher my self esteem, Doctor. It was the fact that she said in on repeat. Every day. For years,” the patient’s expression had turned into a sour scowl as he recounted the events, “Hell, I couldn’t talk to girls anymore. And this continued throughout high school – I was a nervous wreck in front of any woman I found even remotely attractive. And all because of a stupid thing some kid said.”

The therapist cleared his throat and shifted his legs, “Recognising the problem is half the battle. This is good -”

The patient chuckled, “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Right. Continue then.”

“Okay. Um... Fast forward to grade ten. Same school, but most of the rich kids left for big cities, including the girl who apparently thought I was revolting. My crush was still there though,” he smiled for a brief second before continuing, “She was still wonderful as ever; still the smartest in class, right above me. And you know how it goes, Doctor: my friend group gets involved sexually with their respective partners; they start hanging out with seniors who have a terrible influence on them, the whole shebang,” his scowl slowly returned as he stared at the floor, “...And I distanced myself from them. The more the alcohol and weed increased, the more I fell into the cracks. Just sitting at home, reading or playing video games. Tangling myself in my parents’ hair...” he paused, “The distance between us kept growing when everyone found out my family and I were moving to a city somewhere in the Eastern Cape. The people’s faces when the principal announced it at assembly, wishing us luck with our future endeavours, are burned into my skull,” he paused again, “This distance though... It... it sparked something in my best friend... He just... Turned on me. This guy I considered family. One of the only people I ever felt comfortable being myself with.”

The therapist waited for the story to continue, but the patient’s words were becoming slower as he fell deeper into his story. He spoke to spark the patient’s attention, “How did he turn on you?”

When the patient looked up, his eyes were angry but coated in an extra layer of sadness, “I’ll give you an example...”

A teenager sat at the front of a tranquil classroom; taking notes on a chapter that the Biology teacher just asked them to read while he stepped out. He enjoyed the solitude, since it helped him focus. On the other side of the class sat the girl he had been crushing on forever, doing the same as him. The boy smiled as he looked at her being entranced by her books. No distractions. He looked back down to his textbook, but caught wind of several sets of feet approaching from behind him. His throat tightened and muscles tensed up, almost as if his body was preparing for battle.

“Yeah, keep doing your shitty work, faggot,” the words pierced his skull from behind, seemingly entering the brain there instead of through his ears.

The teenager exhaled sharply as his ‘friend’ came to sit next to him.

A smell of cigarettes filled his nostrils as his friend continued, “You’re never getting that ass, dork. Never. Cause I know your secret. You don’t even like that, do you? Stop pretending. I know what you are...”

The teenager recoiled, tightening his posture to almost resemble a seated foetal position. He attempted to block out the words being fed through his ears. His friend snickered and jumped up from his seat, moving toward the front of the desk with no care for the seconds passing. As his friend’s footsteps grew softer and then louder again, he heard laughter from the other teens standing around them.

When he looked up all he saw was his friend’s rear end grinding on the desk, centimetres from where his face was. In response, he recoiled even more, completing his seated foetal position. With a thud, his “friend” hopped down from the desk and spun to face him. He leaned in closer, his breath warm on the teenager’s face and the smell of cigarettes entering every pore. He opened his mouth to speak...

“You know what he said to me, Doctor?” he paused with a furious scowl latching to his face, “My best friend of ten years? He said: ‘I don’t know where you’re going, but you better leave fast. I will find you. And when I do you’ll never be the same.’”

The therapist looked down at his clipboard and wrote something down as silence grew between them. The incessant ticking of the metronome filled the air; its volume increasing with every cycle. The patient took the glass of water from the table and started sipping on it while his scowl slowly faded.

The therapist cleared his throat and spoke, “Is this friend related to what you wanted to speak with me about?”

He nodded, “That brings us to the present. You see, just the other day I opened up my Facebook for the first time in a long time; and, as you do, I started looking up people I used to know. Just to see how their lives were going,” his eyes grew, “That’s when I saw his name. And I tried to force myself away from it. To not click on it, but I had to. I just... needed to see if someone so vile gets to be happy – while I suffer with myself,” the patient leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, intertwining his fingers in the process, “I scrolled through posts that came up, from him pretending to be happy with this high school girl he knocked up, to them in the hospital together, to him working as an auto electrician at his father’s business. And to him and his girlfriend asking for prayers.”

The therapist shifted around and pushed his glasses up to perch properly on his nose.

The patient continued after a short pause, “Their kid was dying. Barely 6 months old and suffered a fractured skull. I wanted to feel sorry for the kid, I really did. But... I was smiling. I was happy.”

“Why did you feel that way?”

“I relished the possibility that he might’ve been the reason the kid was dying. That his carelessness was the reason an infant would die. That he would ruin other people’s lives and face repercussions for it.I loved that the pendulum finally swung his way.”

“Are you worried at your reaction? This is the reason you called, yes?”

“It gets worse doctor... I...”

The patient took a large gulp of water. Again the silence grew, but that metronome kept ticking and somehow getting louder. The air was thick and all the natural light that once brightened the room had been vacuumed out. All that was left was grey, along with the dark colours already present in the office.

“I wanted the kid to die,” he finally said, with anger strewn across his face, “It wasn’t enough that the kid just got hurt or had a brush with death. I needed to see those memorial posts and thousands of people offering condolences, most not even friendly with the parents. Classic virtue signallers. My mind conjured examples of those posts and it made me feel giddy... I could be one of them. Offering my condolences and claiming the moral high ground. And when he sees my name and my posts about his kid he would know that I was the bigger man. That I chose peace over grudges, even after all the anxiety he put me through.”

The therapist cleared his throat, “Did you expect that to be your reaction?”

“No, Doctor. It felt off. Like when you’re at the edge of a cliff and your brain flirts with the idea of jumping.”

“I assume that you’ve sat with these feelings? Has anything changed over time? Sometimes our thoughts are influenced by our experiences on that particular day, but it wouldn’t necessarily represent how we feel about a subject in general.”

“Yeah, I did, and... I’m terrified.”

“Of what exactly?”

The patient’s gaze remained unflinching, “Of what will happen to me when the pendulum swings back.”

The therapist leaned forward, “You’ve given me a lot to consider, but I assure you: you’re in safe hands. We’ll get through this patch together.”

The patient leaned back in his seat and snickered, “Just tell me one thing, Doctor...”

The therapist stopped the metronome and looked back at the patient with curiosity strewn across his face.

“Do you think I’m a monster?”