The Big Bad Wolf

My secretary didn't tell me about my next case.
On a normal occasion, she buzzes herself into my office. She holds the next Big Grey File and grins a joker smile. My secretary, she calls each individual nut job a Character. She'll tell me about my next mental patient, my next Character, and talk with her hands. Read from the files as if they contain the greatest story I'll ever read. I'll feel it's my job to finish it.

It is my job to finish it.

This was not, however, a normal day. The file told me this. Placed on my desk, it remained mute. I dog my secretary's heels on their way towards the door, saying, wait.
Wait
Wait
Wait.
She turned to me, her imitated smile plagued her with a glass cabinet of crows feet. A look that aged her 30 years.
     She reminded me of my mother. I'm brought to the memory of that same mother telling tales at night; dragged to the time when she stopped tucking me in. You're always ready for this, though, as a kid. You are. You'll tell yourself otherwise, but deep, deep down you know this is a chance to find yourself.
Close your eyes. Picture you - a better you - anywhere else. Somewhere that makes you happy. Where do you find yourself? Are you at a gorgeous, babbling brook? I didn't think so. You're somewhere a lot less imaginative than that. A normal human imagination can't work on the spot, not in ways such as this. You run on memories. You are just another average person.
And how does that make you feel? Discombobulated.
Distressed.
I counted the objects on my floor. The type of count that, as a kid, you pray will save you from all evil.
       Three building blocks
       One action figure
       Two socks.
  
       Four pencils.
       Two notepads.
       One mug of coffee.
That's always how it works. Everyone has their own cerebral cortex of OCD's that keep their guns loaded - Those guns you get given the Christmas that Santa dies. The sniper that's handed to you the day that the tooth fairy runs out of change.  You'll always have those arms. You'll always remember how they came to be in your closet. Each bullet is a little piece of history. In psychoanalytical terms, we call it sehnsucht. Though intelligent sounding, it's really just German for nostalgia. We don't use colloquial words to describe a patient's situation. Never 'you seem sad', more 'you're displaying noticeable state of melancholic being'. Salt and pepper sentences.
Sehnsucht.
Never nostalgia.
Never, ever say they must be having a hard time, because it sure wont be as difficult as coping with the coffee burns on your face.
God forbid you tell them that you understand. Because you don't, and moments later the only thing that you'll have the ability to understand is the pain of getting slapped by the manicured hand of a domestically abused Glamour Model. That was Cinderella 'Glass Shoe' Simmons. That was Tuesdays at 12:30.
And inside this file,  inside my new fable, is the new Tuesdays at 12:30.
***
Tuesday. 12:30.
His eyes are adjusting to my face.
I can feel the heat from his breath, and I pretend it's not affecting me. Smelling rancid, painting pictures with the tip of his claws. I think, is this Rorschach? What can I see in your hands? In his paws, his fingers, I can see blood that's been washed off. I can smell onions, rinsed and dressed with a douse of cheap cologne. A scar stretches the length of his torso, and this anthropomorphic dribble, this beast, he says:
"Should I break the ice?"
Break it like a house of straw, maybe. I keep this thought to myself, though. What really comes out is, yes, that would be a start. Tell me how you got to be here.
"When a nice girl and a handsome wolf love each other very, very muc-"
I say, that's not what I meant. Interesting note of hostility, however. And this really gets him laughing. He asks me, "Could I have some coffee?"
    Two windows
    Three ferns
    One sovereign ring.
I explain that I handle special cases. The ones that are slightly out of reach to conventional doctors. I take them, analyse them fast and then hand them back to their original shrinks. I am the middle man that sorts everything out. Through a salivated slur, he says, "Sorts?" Nodding, ha ha. He raps his fingers against the wood of the arm rest beside him. The blood begins to pulsate around my ears, and I hear, "Fire away."
What happened at Red Riding Hood's house?
"Before or after the farmer came and sliced me open?"
Before.
"So, when she found me, I was in her grandmother's salmon satin nigh-"
Before that, too.
He sighs, and says, "I'll tell you something that's funny. You can call me a sociopath all you like, but that farmer dude is still out in the big, bad world." his eyebrows are raised, he's pointing out the door. His lips, they're upturned into a smile. Diversion. "He cuts me open and sews me shut. The heartless fiend, he stuffs my colon with red and white onions. Acid on a gaping torso. Have you ever felt a sting like that, Walter?"
It's in the file, I say. I know this. Please, call me Mr MacDowell.
   "So, eventually I'm awake in a bathtub of ice. Surrounded by cops, they're snickering slightly. Exchanging glances and grins over my naked, exposed form." He inhales, and says, "Those pigs." for a second he remains submerged in his thoughts. I study the slight frown that furrows his eyes. "The doctor tells me the onions have simply stained my skin and my bowels. Have you ever smelt your hands after cutting onions? It doesn't come off for days. Imagine that, but fore-"
White noise at my ears, the pain of being ignored deepens. And how does that make you feel?
"Forever, Walter. You sit next to someone, they take a whiff of their surroundings and say 'Mm, kebab'." he breaks away only to snort at himself. "The only issue is I have to politely turn to the bastards and tell them, starry eyed, that they are in fact inhaling the smell of my festering intestines."
I don't laugh with him. Truth be told, what gets me by is improvisation. The ability to adapt to the situation, to understand what it takes for the opponent so snap. This man, this wolf, he is thrusting irritant shrug-offs at me. And I ask him simply, can you picture yourself somewhere that makes you happy? Tell me where that is.
Frowning, he asks, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Where?
With a shrug, he licks his whiskers. "Forest."
I think, forest. Now it's a relation game. Green. Memories; stopping Little Red to find out where she's going. Getting cut open in front of the trees and home land. Waking up in a metropolis. Sensitive, sensitive, sensitive. Do you like your new life, Wolf?
"Yes, I love regular cavity searches. Electroshock therapy is like being tickled by one thousand beautiful angels. It's just the happily ever after." He smiles with his mouth, and his fists are beginning to form into a flick off. I laugh, and prepare to test fate. I declare he is not to be trusted any more. I remind him that a young girl arrived to her grandmothers house, and found a very hairy sociopath with lipstick and a nightie in place of her frail Nana. I say, electroshock is getting off easy.
Flicker, flicker, flicker, his anger moves his eyelids. Swift and easy, he gets up from his seat and approaches my desk. With one poised claw, he gives me a punch in the mouth. I taste iron with garlicky undertones.
Through the blood and the teeth and the snot, I say, Wolf. Due to your lack of co-operation, and your utter disregard for those who are trying to understand and help you, you are going to be re-sectioned.
Another blow, across my cheekbone. His nail punctures my cheek, and I tongue the open wound. There's a small yelp and a thump. Everything is illuminated, and yet I know this howl clear enough so as to not diagnose it as my own. A heap on the floor, I see defeat. I am  the alpha.
    One stapler
    Three paperclips
     Just one more minute.
With naught but caution, I approach the flesh of the wounded. Kneeling down I ask, did you kill Red's grandfather?
I'm welcomed with a muffle, and I repeat my question. With volume comes meaning. Wolf, did you or did you not kill Red's grandfather?
Sudden movements, and I am on the floor. My hands find themselves behind my neck, following two loud pops. The unimaginable friction of bone on bone, sandpaper where cartilage should be.
And knife to my stomach, he whispers, "No."