Group Therapy

A rough day at work had me walking aimlessly in the rain. I was soaked through, it was dark, and I did not even begin to think about where I was. I wanted to be home, and I kicked myself for not having taken the bus straight from work. I felt numb and defeated, like nothing could faze me further. Still, when I saw _­the only café-bar I’d seen in miles, with warm lights that leaked into the cobbled streets, it looked inviting. Maybe an evening coffee would do me some good.

The door met me with the soft ring of a bell. It reminded me of the ones in quaint coffee shops where you’re always the first customer of the day. It was certainly a unique atmosphere. Cozy, antique chairs made up most of the seating, but with an ambience that screamed dive bar, like it wasn’t quite sure what it wanted to be. The bartender gave me one look and let out a soft laugh. I guess she had me pegged as soon as I crossed the entryway, leaving puddles of rain with every step and a resting look of despair on my face. The place wasn’t quiet, but sprinkled with some regulars. As if my mind had been read, the bartender set down a steaming cup of coffee on the bar top that smelled distinctly of Jameson.

“Another long day, huh,” she said as I grasped the cup with both hands for warmth.

“I don’t even know how I got here.”

“No one ever does,” she said with a wink. I looked around the room again, noting that the other patrons were a jumble of folks sharing my sour mood. Many of them sat alone.

“I… I quit my job, I think,” I remembered.

“WELL IT’S ABOUT TIME!” She shouted.

I laughed. I have always appreciated when a stranger can treat you like an old friend. Like you are exactly where you belong.

“Look, I’m gonna be short-staffed tonight. Lend me a hand if you like. It will be a good night for tips,” she said casually.

“Are you… offering me a job?”

“Consider it your probation. Then we can see about something more regular.”

I knew nothing about bartending, or barista-ing, or whatever I would be doing here, but her offer made me feel good. I needed something to do, something to focus on.

“Here!” The bartender thrust an apron over the bar at me.

* * *

I was getting to know the regulars. Every night, most of the bar was occupied by a single meeting group. There was Andre. He was tall, awkward, and quiet. He liked tonic water straight from the bar. No ice. At least it was easy to make for a beginner.

“Cheers,” Andre mumbled.

Then there was Mariam. We got along really well. She had such a dark sense of humour sometimes it caught me off guard.

“Hendrick’s with a splash of lime juice, I know, I know!” I said as she made her way to the bar.

“You know I used to make gin that was miles better than this stuff?” Mariam noted.

“You had a distillery?”

“Yeah, and it was going pretty well too.”

“But you had to close?”

“My business partners were a little light on the business. They really lost their drive after we secured the first of our investors. Now all I can do is sniff the juniper and remember the delicious old days.”

“That’s too bad, I can picture your regal face on a gin label. Just like the Beefeater guard.”

“If only. I was so mad I ended up burning the place down with everyone inside. Biggest fire you’ve ever seen.”

I laughed, “You didn’t!!”

“Course not…” Mariam strode away with a smirk.

Ivan was next. He seemed like the leader, since he was always talking to everyone sitting in a circle around him. I wasn’t sure if he was a counselor, or maybe a pastor? He’d been giving me an approachable realtor-type vibe every night I handed him his pint of pilsner.

“Thank you! Wicked storm out there, isn’t it?” Ivan offered.

“It seems like it never stops storming!” I replied.

“Ah, that explains why we’re always around here bothering you.”

“What is it you actually do, anyway?”

“Please, sit with us tonight and I will show you.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure, I am working you know,” I protested, half-heartedly.

The bartender, Kim, was listening behind me. “It’s all right, you can join them. I’ll manage.”

“If you’re sure…” I was curious.

“Go, take a break!” Kim shouted, taking the kitchen knife from my hand, and resuming my nightly task of slicing the limes.

* * *

You had to hand it to him, Ivan could be a very persuasive speaker.

“…and only once we have let go of our incessant pursuit for love, of our need to be with and to fit in with others, can we truly be ourselves. People are supposed to make us happy. Is it working? If you feel sad, that’s ok. If you feel angry, embrace it! Show me your passion! You don’t have to put on a mask or a brave face here. You don’t have to make small talk and look content. Show me your anger!!”

And like this was a cue I had missed, the group started grunting. Some people yelled. Gene, whom I had just met, was laughing uncontrollably. Mariam was doing something resembling a… howl? Andre just kept screaming like he was in excruciating pain. Everyone in the group looked positively insane, but I couldn’t help but join in. I screamed. It felt good to let it out. I screamed again. I felt free. Without worry. I couldn’t stop screaming. I screamed until my throat hurt, and then I screamed some more. I felt weightless, focused… feral.

* * *

Every night I started to sit with them. Every night I released years of tension and frustration. It was life-changing. I appreciated everyone in the group. They all had their quirks, and so did I, but we were all here for the same reason. To let go.

At the end of the night, or what might be considered early morning, we would always take a picture of the group on Ivan’s phone. He would print it out, and Kim let us hang them on the wall. The exposed brick to the left of the bar was nearly full of photos of us. It was a nice way to see our progress. I was still new, but we had grown from a small handful to a group of over twenty these days.

“Hey, why don’t you take the picture tonight?” Ivan asked me.

“Me? I would love to!” it was finally my turn.

“Careful, love is a strong word!” He smiled and handed me his phone open to the camera app.

I was framing the group, which was getting pretty tough to fit in frame, when I saw… me. I was standing rigidly, arms folded, in the corner behind everyone else. I flinched, and snapped a blurry picture.

“Sorry,” I said, flustered.

How could I be in that picture…? I looked up from the phone, and all I saw was the group before me. I glanced down at the phone again and found myself leaning against a different wall on the other side of the group. I was staring right at the camera, and smiling. A big, toothy smile. Again, I looked up from the phone, and I saw no doppelgangers, only the group before me, acting like nothing was wrong.

“Take the picture already!” Mariam shouted.

I was shaking. I must have been tired. Hallucinating. I couldn’t bear to look at the phone, to see my animate reflection. The thing with a face that was mine, and an expression that wasn’t, like some distorted copy of me. I just pressed the shutter button a few times with my thumb, my eyes locked on the group.

“Are they any good?” Ivan called out.

I scrolled through the camera roll. In the latest picture, I was standing in front of the group. As I went back through the pictures, I noticed that I was advancing in each one, coming closer and closer toward the camera. Coming closer? But the order was wrong. I looked up from the phone immediately: nothing, just the group. I quickly tried to open the camera app, my window into that other reality; where was that sick version of me?! Agghhh! I opened to the selfie camera by mistake. I was panicking, and I was trying to hit the button to switch to the main camera on the back of the phone, when I realized that I had not been looking at the selfie camera at all. The ‘other me’ was right in front of… I took my eyes off the screen for a split second, and when I looked back at the screen I saw… nothing. No me, no group. Just an empty room. I felt a push like a sudden gust of wind, and it knocked me down to the ground, hard. Then I passed out.

* * *

When I woke up, I saw Ivan and Mariam leaning over me.

“Congratulations!” Mariam shouted excitedly.

“Uhh… what… the hell? Mariam, I was… I was in that picture! How can that be?! Look, check the phone. I was IN THE PICTURE!!” I pleaded as they looked at me like I was a lunatic. “I WAS IN THE FUCKING PICTURE JUST LOOK AT IT!”

“Of course, you were in the picture.” Ivan offered.

“But that doesn’t… how can…”

“I printed it, isn’t it perfect?” Ivan said, calmly.

I grabbed the photo from his hand. There I was, smiling wide. It was unsettling. What I didn’t notice before was that I was the only one who was smiling. Everyone else was straight faced, or frowning, or scrunching their face in rage. Some had their mouths open in a silent scream. In this group, my smiling, creepy doppelganger juxtaposed their frenzy, and it almost looked… normal.

“That,” Ivan gestured to me in the picture, “is happiness.”

“My happiness…”

“Yes! You have finally separated yourself from your harmful feelings, and you can leave it all behind. That is why we let you take the picture tonight.”

Dazed and confused, I stood up and stumbled over to the wall covered in pictures. The first picture I saw was nearly the same group, but before I was there. I saw Mariam, standing in the back, smiling gleefully in a room full of hopeless and frenzied expressions. In the next photo, I saw Andre smiling. Then Gene, Saoirse, Molly. A photo for everyone I knew. Every single photo had a room full of anger or indifference but with one, happy figure. The one taking the picture, who was losing a part of themselves from the other side of the camera.

“But, I felt something! I think… I think it came back to me. It was walking toward me, and I passed out.” I remembered.

“Yes, it came back to you,” Mariam said, “but you are close now. We can help you be rid of it. We can purify you.”

“Purify?! No, that’s not what I want. I don’t want any of this. I was feeling better, I swear, I’m doing well. It’s okay really, I promise I’m doing well.”

“Let go,” Ivan interjected, “let go of hope! Hope that things will change. That you will be okay with the small doses of joy you receive, knowing how much more your addiction craves. Remember our sessions! What makes us happy?”

“LOVE.” A chorus of voices replied.

“Our curse!” Ivan’s eyes never left mine. “Only when devoid of the optimistic can we embrace our true nature. Let us help you.”

Two of the bigger men, Theo and Lee, moved towards the door and stood in front of it, barring my exit. I wanted to leave. Slowly, everyone in the room closed the distance between us.

“This is for your own good,” Ivan pleaded.

I saw Mariam smash an empty bottle of gin on the bar and lock her eyes on mine. I was being surrounded.

“Get behind the bar!” Kim called out as she eyed everyone suspiciously.

I walked backward while observing the group, and took my place behind the bar with my only ally.

“Don’t listen to them… there is another way,” Kim whispered in my ear from behind me.

I felt safe near her. Right now, I knew she was the only person in the world who was on my side, someone who might understand what I was feeling.

My comfort was temporary, interrupted by a sharp pain in my lower back. My hands grasped frantically at its location, and I felt a knife. The kitchen knife Kim always left out to cut the limes.

“NO!!” Ivan shouted.

He started an uproar from everyone in the bar. They were angry. They yelled. They maddened more and more. Then the laughing started. Their laughs were maniacal, like beasts, fueled not by joy, but pain. They laughed and laughed, a convulsion that hardly resembled laughter at all. Nothing was left in their voices but unfiltered despair and rage. It was deafening.

It was all they could do to express their loss as I faded away.

They went for Kim next.