Repercussions

Part 1 was yesterday....

Thanks to Shade for modeling.



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He just didn't understand.

Why?

Why him? He'd tried to live a good life, stay healthy. Eat right. He'd never smoked, and avoided violence whenever possible. Always tried to do the right thing.

And yet even as Elliot listened to what the "flower" had to say, he knew it was really his own subconscious - all those thoughts he'd been suppressing all these years were finally bubbling up into a full-blown schizophrenic episode.

Hearing voices - what's next - seeing things? Was there really a "flower" there at all?

He supposed his therapist would call it transference - wasn't he transferring his feelings to an inanimate object? That seemed to be Dr. Rubenstein's favorite diagnosis, anyway - any excuse to blame it on transference. Your toe hurt? Must be transference. Milk in the refrigerator gone bad? Obviously, transference.

Elliot didn't know exactly what the cause was, but he knew what it meant - he was losing it. That was as clear to him as the imaginary flower now speaking three feet from his face.

Something had to be done. Something drastic. Things had to change before he ended up like Uncle Walter - hospitalized and having pleasant conversations with a cement wall.

"Ah, I -uh, umm - I, uhh-- I need to get to work," he finally said. He'd wanted to say, "I understand," and almost added "thank you for the warning," but he couldn't quite manage it. It was hard enough to tell a flower that he had to get to work. Anything deeper was beyond his capabilities.

So he stared at the figment of his imagination for what seemed like a very long time, collecting his thoughts and putting together a plan of action, then he turned and walked away - not to work, but to the subway station on the other side of the building.

He had to think, and that seemed as good a place as any.