Compulsion

CW/TWs: Obsessive-compulsive thoughts*. There is also a brief depiction of gun violence.

It wasn’t always a known factor that set Miriam off. 

It would have been much easier if it was; she could have simply posted a sign titled “Words and Phrases to Avoid Around Miriam” on her office door. Or perhaps, “General Topics of Conversation That Are Potential Minefields, and While Miriam Is Aware That It Is Not Your Responsibility to Cater to Her Every Need, It Would be Awfully Nice if You Tried.” 

But unfortunately, there were carelessly placed conversational landmines everywhere for people of Miriam’s “curious condition,” as her mother had once called it, and so she often found herself in the awkward position of either performing a bizarre ritual in front of some confused bystander or excusing herself. 

When possible, she chose the latter. 

This particular day’s inconveniently timed trip wire was: “Be careful what you wish for.”

It was offhanded and said with a flippant laugh, but Miriam had the sudden and nearly uncontrollable urge to throttle her own client, which would, admittedly, be bad for business.

The man sitting across the desk from her had barely looked up from his smartphone for their entire hour-long meeting, and Miriam’s abrupt “Excuse me for a moment” was met with nothing more than a dismissive wave. Ordinarily it might have rankled her, but at the moment it was barely an afterthought. 

When she stepped out of her office (right foot must cross the threshold first), Miriam’s intern, Kevin, looked up sharply from his computer, where he was clearly trying to hide what appeared to be either a poorly timed pop-up advertisement or something that would be getting him fired shortly. 

“Ms. Woods, can I help you with something?” 

“Just using the restroom. Remind me later to schedule a meeting with HR.” He went slightly pale at that, but Miriam was already moving down the hall at a speed that was inadvisable given the height of her heels. 

There were worms under her skin, or maybe this time they were spiders or cockroaches; Miriam didn’t have the brain power to parse out the details of the metaphor. Her face was hot and the hairs on the back of her neck pricked, the alarm system of impending doom ticking down with irritating finality. What kind of doom awaited she couldn’t be sure, but it would certainly be horrible if the tightness in her chest was any indication. 

Ridiculous. Fake. Illogical. All in her head. 

Miriam had heard it all, had repeated the words in her own mind time and time again, but they never had an effect on the single-minded drive to rid herself of the creeping horror at the thought that she may have been the cause of some misfortune or tragedy just by thinking it. Logically, she knew that she was no god; she had no power to influence the universe, and yet “better safe than sorry” was the mantra she lived by, and one that everyone around her unknowingly lived by as well. 

Miriam was seconds away from blessed solitude, her right hand on the undoubtedly disgusting bathroom handle (touch it again with your left hand, then wash them three times in the bathroom) when she heard her name being called. Her mind was spitting out receipt paper full of the most colorful language she knew as she switched her hold on the handle to her opposite hand, then dropped it and turned with a smile. 

“Miriam, I’m so glad I caught you.” Leonard from Accounting was beaming at her, and she had half a mind to pin any resulting disaster from this delay on his conscience instead of hers. Yes, that would suit her nicely. “My daughter wanted me to say thank you for buying so many of her Girl Scout cookies. She’s one of the top sellers in her troupe.” He was already pulling his phone out, his slightly greasy fingers swiping through nearly identical photos of an admittedly very cute ten-or-something year old behind a table piled high with Thin Mints and Tagalongs, ten boxes of which now sat in the kitchen of Miriam’s apartment ten miles away. 

There was an itch somewhere deep beneath her skin, an unavoidable presence hovering over the conversation. And then there was no warning before Miriam had the sudden, horrible image of her arm pointing a gun (where did that come from?) at Leonard from Accounting’s daughter (Leslie? Lucy?) and pulling the trigger. Brain matter and horribly bright blood were covering everything and she felt herself flinch, hand spasming in horror (Be careful what you wish for; seven knocks on the wall). When Leonard looked concerned, she merely grimaced and said, as apologetically as she could muster, “Headache.” 

Leonard nodded in understanding, and after turning down his very kind offer of Tylenol, Miriam successfully recused herself before the poor man realized that she was apparently imagining killing his only child over an inconveniently timed conversation. 

She grabbed the bathroom handle with both hands and closed it behind her with too much force, locking herself in. With the door between her illogical brain and the rest of the office, she felt every pretense slipping away. The crawling, roiling feeling beneath her skin intensified for a moment, the delayed necessity of ritual trying to force itself out of her limbs. But mere moments later, when she knocked on the wall for the seventh time, she felt the fear of Leslie/Lucie’s violent gun death recede from her mind, only blood splatter residue left in her mind's eye. 

She didn’t even own a gun. She would never kill a child! She knew that. Everyone knew that. Right? But then how could she even think it? 

And then, when she dropped to her knees on the filthy bathroom floor and began to pray to a miscellaneous God that she didn’t believe in, she realized that she couldn’t even remember what she needed to be careful about wishing for. So she found herself issuing a blanket retraction of whatever it was, hoping that any listening deity would understand that she wasn’t trying to control the future. 

And when she felt that she had successfully avoided killing an innocent child and wishing something anonymous and horrible into the universe, Miriam stood up, washed her hands three times in the bathroom sink, and went back to her meeting with a clear conscience. 

*All representations of OCD in this story are limited to/based on my own experience and should not be taken as depictions of OCD as a whole. Thanks for reading!