PSYCHIATRIST
What seems to be the problem?
FRENCHWOMAN
Life is an endless stretch of cycles,
cycles of dissipation and rejuvenation.
The Frenchwoman lights a Gauloises cigarette.
PSYCHIATRIST
Oh, we don’t smoke in here.
FRENCHWOMAN
(taking a deep drag)
What are you, a psychiatrist or a prison warden?
The Frenchwoman pulls a green glass ashtray from her purse, sets it on the coffee table and leans forward.
FRENCHWOMAN
Keep the ashtray. It’s only polite to have
it at the ready for your clients. They are
distressed and may need to drink or smoke.
FRENCHWOMAN (Cont’d)
It’s as they say. “A psychiatrist’s office without
an ashtray is like a party without cake,
a church service without communion.”
PSYCHIATRIST
I never heard that one.
The Frenchwoman blows smoke in the Psychiatrist’s general direction.
Something about this new client unnerves the Psychiatrist. The lyrics to the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” spring, unbidden, to his mind.
PSYCHIATRIST (V.O.)
“Now I’m falling asleep, and she’s calling a cab. Now he’s having a smoke. And she’s taking a drag.”
The Frenchwoman stabs out her barely-smoked cigarette and lights another. She drums on the coffee table with long, red nails.
PSYCHIATRIST
(recollecting himself)
So how do these cycles make you feel?
FRENCHWOMAN
How do you think?!
The Psychiatrist begins hearing the Killers again.
PSYCHIATRIST (V.O.)
“But she’s touching his chest now, she takes off her dress now. Let me go.”
FRENCHWOMAN
I feel a great ennui.
Something in the psychiatrist snaps. He speaks out of the side of his mouth like a felm-noir protagnist, sucked into trouble by a femme fatale with an anklet and a borderline personality disorder.
PSYCHIATRIST
Say it in English, Toots.
FRENCHWOMAN
I’m bored. Bored half to death.
I’m done crying, and I’m done laughing.
The Frenchwoman stabs out another second cigarette and stands, stretching sinuously.
PSYCHIATRIST
We have 40 more minutes left in our session.
Don’t you want to further discuss what
I suspect is low-grade depression?
FRENCHWOMAN
To live is to suffer from low-grade
depression.
(beat)
I haven’t decided if you’re a genius
or a fool. You have one week to devise a plan.
PSYCHIATRIST
What kind of plan?
FRENCHWOMAN
I want you to convince me that life is not a chore
but, instead, a gift.
The Frenchwoman leaves tin a swirl of linen and perfume.. Shaken, the Psychiatrist lies down on his own couch.
PSYCHIATRIST
(to himself)
What just happened?
The Psychiatrist gives a digital order.
PSYCHIATRIST
Alexa, play ‘Mr. Brightside’ by
The Killers.
The song twinkles in. We hear the Psychiatrist’s musings.
PSYCHIATRIST (V.0).
Sometimes a song matches
your mood.
As the song progresses, the Psychiatrist notices the Frenchwoman has left a matchbook next to the green glass-ashtray, etched with a picture of a tiki mask and emblazoned with the name, ‘The Waikiki Lounge.’
The Psychiatrist flips open the matchbook and sees a note scrawled on the cardboard:: 2 p.m., December 6, Union Station.
PSYCHIATRIST (V.O.)
That’s tomorrow.
The Psychiatrist takes a barely-smoked cigarettes from the green glass ashtray. The end is smudged with lipstick. The Psychiatrist jabs it in his mouth, leaving him with a smear of red at the corner of his mouth.
The Psychiatrist tears a match from the tiki club matchbook and strikes it, summoning a sullen flame. He drops the matchbook in his jacket pocket and begins smoking as in earnest. .
KILLERS (O.S.)
“Comin’ out of my cage and I’ve been doin’ just fine
Gotta, gotta be down because I want it all
It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss.”
–Sarah Torribio
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See more flash fiction by Sarah Torribio HERE
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