Therapy for the Other Life

"Scrolling through comments from internet trolls was my latest procrastination technique." I focused on my hands, folded in my lap, to avoid looking in his eyes. "It wasn't a healthy thing to do, I know, but it worked. It killed time like a spree killer on crack. It could remove untold hours from a day when I didn't track it. That's what I was doing when the slip happened." I snuck a peak and the expression that met me was not one of utter disbelief, so I continued, my gaze back on my hands.

"I call it the slip, because that's what it felt like, my body slipping through a whole in the matrix, or something, just long enough to make me feel a little off. There was a momentary disconnect that felt akin to dizziness, but not, light-headed, but not. It only lasted a few seconds, but the impact has been profound and lasting." The sound of movement on leather made me look up. His left leg was now crossed over the right, but still no look of scepticism.

"In those ten or fifteen ticks of the clock I lived an entirely different life." Adrenaline washed through me, warming me from the inside and kicking up my heart rate just enough for me to notice. I took breath, rubbed my hands together and continued.

"Walking through the dawn always helped shed the night's work better than any hot shower. The waves lapping at my ankles, and the soft Caribbean sand lightly scrubbing my feet as I strolled the shoreline relaxed me and pulled the tension down my body, washing it away on the tide. The gentle, salty breeze a gentle exfoliant for my mind; the darkness blown away to leave room for the light, the good.

"The move to the Mayan Riviera came not long after I started with the firm. The constant hustle and bustle of western society, a city that never really rests, was too much once I started with them. The work is not for the feint of heart and demands that the body and soul get as much rest as possible in off hours. I had been recruited, so I told them, if they wanted to keep me, they would transfer me to a location of my choosing." I heard the change in the pitch and tone of my voice, excitement taking over.

"I was green when they found me. No experience, no history of violence, but plenty of anger and a desire to inflict pain and or death in response to injustice. I also have a penchant for the darker side of life. I've subjected myself to enough horror and crime that I didn't think it would bother me. At first it didn't. The adrenaline was always so high, there was no time to notice that what I was doing was real. Not until after my first job on my own.

"Coming down off the rush of my first solo kill was what I imagine it would be like for an addict coming off a high, and there was so much activity in the city, so much noise, it was two and half days before I really slept. Then, after sixteen hours cocooned in my bed, I made the call and threatened to quit if they didn't move me. By that evening, my apartment had been packed, emptied, and I was on a red eye to Mexico."

I paused for a drink of water. The flow of my words had increased, and my mouth was drying out. While I gulped ice cold liquid from my water bottle, I notice that the man's posture had changed. Both feet were on the floor, and he pitched slightly forward in his large chair.

"Three days later, I returned from my morning walk to find an unmarked envelope had been slipped under my door. A new job. A color photo of the mark was clipped to the front of the file. Typed notes told me about her life. Her habits, likes, dislikes, personality, family tree, friends. It was all there in black and white. In bold red ink on the inside of the folder was a date, my deadline. If I didn't complete by then, the job would go to someone else." I stood and moved to the window that overlooked the river that split the city in two.

"I studied that file for days, memorizing every aspect of who my target was. Outwardly, she was a soccer mom. If her family knew what she was really doing while the kids were at school, they probably would have turned her in. This woman's activities told me she thought she was big time in the underworld and none of her friends had the first clue." I turned from the window. The doubt I had been waiting for was finally all over him. He was leaning against the tall back of his chair, his eyes no longer bright with interest. I thought about laughing it off as a dream, but I'd come this far. Might as well get it all out while I still had part of my hour left. I wouldn’t be making another appointment. I crossed the room and returned to the patient's chair.

"I decided it would be a car jacking. My mark was in Mexico on a "girls trip" and the cartels had been unusually active in recent weeks. The violence was still at a peak with no sign of slowing any time soon. A foreign woman in the wrong place at the wrong time was an easy target and a disappearance would probably not even be investigated. I went north to Cancun and found my target. I had contacts there that could get me everything I needed. A car with no VIN sat on a roadside not far from her hotel. I had gotten intel that she was planning a trip to Chichen-Itza and that she and a friend had rented a jeep and would be driving inland on their own.

"The highway from the coast was isolated once you got crossed out of Quintana Roo into the Yucan  and their trip fit my plan perfectly. I gassed up the ghost car and started out 2 hours before dawn. I decided on a spot just east of a checkpoint tower on the deserted highway and parked off the side of the road. I dressed the scene to look like the car was broken down. I knew as saavy as she was, since she was with a friend, she would stop for another woman that needed help. The trap was set. I just had to wait.

"I had paid off the guards in the tower to alert me when she passed the checkpoint. My plan went off without a hitch. It turned out her friend was a bonus. She hadn't been in the file, but she was an ex-employee of the firm and was on their disposal list. I made out like a bandit on that job." I laughed at the memory of the unexpected double I'd pulled.

When I noticed the therapist's questioning look, I straightened the line of my mouth, stiffened my posture, and looked him dead in the eye. I read the incredulity in the dullness of his eyes, the slight tilt of his head and single eyebrow raised just enough that I knew he was trying to keep his expression neutral.

"Look, believe me or don't. I don't really care. That life was real, and it was exciting. The work may not have been above board, but it was good work. I was ridding the world of evil people and I loved it. In this life, my work is boring. I collect money from people who are chasing what they think will give them a better life. It's pointless and trivial. That's why I'm here. I still dream about that other life, the one that I might have had. The opportunity that slipped past me, slipped through me, while I was scrolling through comments from internet trolls, trying to distract myself from my mundane life. I'm depressed and questioning my existence so if you could just give me something to make me think I'm happy, I'll be on my way, and we can both pretend this session never happened."