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[charleswhite]

Title: The Shrink
Genre: Literary Fiction
As I watch Leah Houston stroll across my Persian hand-knotted wool rug, I’m haunted by the feeling that my days as a shrink are numbered, part by health, part by ennui. My new patient’s body exudes a metallic smell, like freshly sheared copper, and there is a dark stain on the front of her creamy North Face jogging top. “What brings you in today?” I ask with practiced cool, though the area where I had my new pacemaker implanted two days ago itches and burns.
Leah wriggles in the leather armchair like an eel trying to throw a hook. “I’m seriously sleep-deprived, Dr. Noland, and when I do drift off, I’m plagued by horrible nightmares.”
Suspicion rises cobra-like from my memory basket of troublesome clients. “Any idea why?” I ask, leaning back in my Charles Eames lounger and glancing at her intake form—mother deceased, father receiving chemotherapy, insomnia, bulimia, recently returned from Medellin, Columbia. I wonder what she was doing there the previous two years, given my Columbian wife’s awe of Ingrid Betancourt, the liberal anti-corruption candidate who finished seventh in the 2022 presidential election.
“I was hoping you might be able to prescribe something.” Leah turns her head as she speaks, but I catch the concealed eyeroll, hear the suppressed sigh. As if it’s my job to dispense medication at her command.
For me, pills are a last resort. “Let’s talk a bit first. Quick fixes are not what I’m about.”