Kill Him

KILL HIM "Kill him..." It would have been a magnificent opening line. It had been almost a year since I wrote my last story. I couldn’t write a single sentence. Because of the medication they gave me, I couldn’t focus my mind, and worse, I couldn’t think. I would sit in front of the computer for hours, going mad. The pain of not being able to write made me take more pills, feel worse, and trap myself in a vicious cycle. To put it briefly, I wanted to die. I would write nonsensical sentences and delete them repeatedly, sometimes fall asleep at the computer, and sometimes my senses would completely shut down, and I’d press random keys. I had no hope for the future. My mind was stuck in the past. I had no strength left to endure. That’s when I decided to take a story I had written before to my doctor and have him read it. I was going to prove to him what a good writer I was. That way, he would agree to stop the medication, and I could start writing again. That’s how it all began. In the session that day, I told him I wanted him to read the story and then spend the entire time discussing it. He agreed. When he finished reading the story, he looked surprised, almost mesmerized. "Why did you bring this to me?" he asked. My explanation was straightforward. "I want to stop the medication." When he said it was impossible, it was my turn to ask, "Why?" After listening to a lot of his nonsense, I simply asked for some time. At least for a while, I didn’t want to take any pills. At first, he resisted a little, but then he said we could try stopping the medication in a controlled way, that there was an alternative treatment, but I had to come see him once a week. For the first time in a long while, I felt hopeful. Of course, I could have stopped the medication without asking him. I could have stopped and never gone back to his office. But I had tried that before, and to be honest, it hadn’t ended well. I was eighteen when I was first diagnosed. Despite my resistance, that was the first time I started taking medication. When I realized that the pills, instead of healing me, were starting to harm me, I stopped. No one knew. I pretended to take them regularly, secretly throwing them away each day. No one noticed. Everything seemed fine. Because they thought I was taking the medication, they believed I was a healed man. Ironically, I really had healed. I could control my mind, focus better on my studies. Everything seemed fine. I hadn’t had a single episode until the moment my parents died in a car accident. The police said the brake line had burst, their speed was high, and unfortunately, they couldn’t stop. After losing them, some things started to spiral out of control. Eventually, my aunt convinced me to go to a clinic. Maybe I’ll tell you what happened there another time. But as you can imagine, I experienced things in that clinic that made me terrified of stopping medication recklessly. My doctor said we would first adjust the doses and then gradually stop the medication. Those were not easy days. I had withdrawn into myself and spent about twenty hours a day sleeping. During the remaining hours, I sometimes had fits of rage, sometimes cried, and sometimes just sat blankly. About a month passed like this, and I was completely off the medication. All the sessions with the doctor and the alternative methods we tried were starting to work. We were both happy. It took me some time to start writing again. The first story I wrote, I dedicated to the days I couldn’t write. The doctor thought I was obsessed with death and insisted we return to medication to overcome it. Then I would convince him again and ask for more time. This time, he wanted me to write new stories and bring them to him. Stories without death, calmer, more serene. Maybe even a bit constructive. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write, and I found it hard to stop myself. Sometimes I still wrote nonsensical things and tore them up, but most of the time, I produced good work. I had no intention of going back to the medication. The doctor had realized this too. He could easily tell I wasn’t sleeping from the dark circles under my eyes and my behavior, and he’d ask me to take a break. Still, he wanted to keep reading my stories. He would take them all and put them in my file. I just wanted to read the stories to him and then take them back. But he insisted they should stay with him. This started to bother me. He began asking for stories at every session. I started saying I wasn’t writing just to avoid giving them to him, and then he would say, "Let’s go back to the medication." I was stuck in a big dilemma. Leaving him was no longer an option. He had dozens of my stories, and he clearly had a plan. He was going to steal my flawless stories. He would publish them as his own and maybe even become a famous writer. He’d hold book signings, attend fairs, give lectures. Universities might even invite him. People would ask how he wrote so well, and of course, he wouldn’t say, "I stole them from my patient." He’d talk about how much effort he put in, how painful the process was. Soon enough, he confessed his plan to me himself. "I want one last story from you. We’ll have our final session. The book I’ve been working on for a while is finished, and I’ll be focusing on that for some time. But don’t worry, I have a good doctor friend who will continue with you. I’m sure you’ll be in good hands." I felt like I’d been struck in the head. I didn’t even listen to the rest of what he said. I remember storming out of there. I found myself walking on the street. All I could think about was hatred. That hatred slowly turned into a deep sense of revenge. There’s something about me I haven’t told you—I have a really shady circle of acquaintances. Getting drugs, weapons, or poison is child’s play for me. Without lifting a finger, I could have someone killed. I have a lovely group of friends who would do it for me. But that wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I wanted to get my hands dirty, take revenge like a madman, and enjoy every moment of it. Otherwise, I’d kill myself. Imagine, the last cigarette, the pack empty. Perfect timing to die. So, to avoid dying, I came up with a perfect plan. Getting ricin was a bit harder than I thought. Still, it wasn’t impossible. I chose the most suitable story for our final meeting. The story and the ricin were placed in an envelope with all precautions taken. When inhaled, ricin gives you no more than seventy-two hours. Death becomes inevitable through internal bleeding and organ failure. And so it would be. All that was left was to give it to the doctor. At the appointment, I was there with him. We chatted a bit. I told him I had brought one last story. So he was going to leave me. "A farewell gift," I said and handed him the envelope. "But," I said, "please open it after I leave. I want you to be alone while reading it. Be alone so you can fully immerse yourself. Don’t get distracted." He was thrilled. He thanked me. He said I needed to start the medication again—of course, he was done with me. He told me to take a break from writing, to rest my mind. He wrote me a prescription and handed it to me. I took the prescription and stood up. He shook my hand warmly. Silently cursing him, I shook his hand back. I even smiled. Just as I was about to leave, he called out. "I almost forgot, this is for you." He handed me a box wrapped in gift paper. Reluctantly, I took it, thanked him, and opened the package. I was holding a book with his photo on the cover. It was his book. "New Methods in Psychoanalytic Solutions"—so this was the book he had mentioned. A bunch of scientific nonsense. I stared blankly at the unopened envelope still sitting on his desk for a while. Then I left the room. I went to the seaside and sat for a while, had a cup of tea, and ate a bagel. I folded the prescription into a paper airplane and threw it into the sea. I admit, the brake line wasn’t a bad idea either, but it was such a cliché. Ricin, on the other hand, was pure brilliance. What a perfect ending this was. "Kill him..." - deri