Hummingbird

Jake sits upright at the end of the couch, elbows locked on his knees. He stares past his therapist, out the pale screen of dawn, to a hummingbird that darts between red and purple petunias.

“Look,” Jake says. “A hummingbird.”

The therapist doesn’t turn. He speaks in staccato. “What draws your attention to the hummingbird?”

Jake shrugs. “I haven’t seen one in a long time, that’s all.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Nostalgic.” Jake pauses, making sure his next word is closer to meaning something. “Wanting.”

“What exactly,” the therapist says, raising his eyebrows, “do you want, Jake?”

Jake looks at the shimmery green as it bounces across the window. “For it all to go back to normal. That’s what I want.”

“Well, let’s start with normal.” The therapist pulls a white clipboard atop his crossed legs. “What does normal look like to you?”

Jake drops his head deeper into his lap, his hands running across his face and through his hair. Then he looks back at his therapist. “Normal is before I met Mushu.”

“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere.” The therapist smiles with guarded teeth. “Tell me about this foe of yours, Mushu.”

“He’s not a foe,” Jake begins. “He’s a friend, actually. I met him at the tennis court.”

“What made you befriend Mushu?”

“He looked dependent.” The words leapt from his lips, and he was embarrassed of them, despite their truth. He’d been looking for a doubles partner, and Mushu had dressed the part. Jake remembers their first match, the way Mushu’s waterfall hair seemed to expand as he ran, his lanky backhand that put fuzzy green skid marks on the court. “We started hanging after games, for pints or dinner or whatever.”

The therapist jots a note down. “It seems like a normal relationship to me. What about it feels abnormal?”

“That’s the thing.” Jake grits his teeth and releases. “It sounds crazy.”

“Go on. I won’t judge.” But he’s raising his eyebrows again.

“Well, it started a few months ago. We had planned on dinner at my place, so I was grilling on the lawn. My girlfriend, Nancy, was prepping some Brussel sprouts inside, and when Mushu’s girl arrived, she ran right in to meet her. That left me and Mushu alone out front.”

“And? Did anything occur?”

Jake sighs, his entire being deflating with it. “Not on the surface, no. It was just regular Mushu in his tennis whites, his red headband keeping the hair off his ears. He made a few jokes about me burning the food and the paint job on my fence, and then we went inside.”

“Sounds pleasant.”

“Yeah,” Jake knots his hands together, “but it wasn’t. It was all fake.”

The pen in the therapist’s hand stops suddenly. “Explain.”

Jake thought back- how had he known that first time? It was a summer day, a season where the colors became hypnotic under so much light, and all those colors seemed etched in his mind like a gravestone- the Miracle-Gro green at his feet, the Egyptian blue that ran around Mushu’s form, and his form itself, which was so white and tan that he could have passed as the final piece of his fencepost. That wasn’t what he remembered most clearly, though. It was-

“His smile.” Jake says, his voice brittle. “He was wearing this yellow smile, so tight to his cheeks that I thought it might snap like a rubber band. And it was the whole time, through every joke, completely unwavering. It felt like… you know…”

“What?” The therapist knots his hands in reflection.

“It felt like he was performing.”

“Performing?” The therapist gives a tight grin. “Performing for who?”

“It wasn’t for me, that’s for sure. He’d take these big, long pauses after each joke, even when I wasn’t laughing. It felt like his jokes went…through me, like we were somewhere far away from that lawn on Meadow Lane, and he was on a stage or something, projecting.”

“Jake, I don’t want to upset you,” the therapist begins, “but this sounds like a textbook case of paranoid narcissism. Nervousness, delusions of grandeur, and a high sense of self-importance.” The therapist stares at Jake. “Do you think this aligns with what you’re feeling?”

“I’d agree,” says Jake, “if this only happened the one time.”

“This is an ongoing trend?”

“About every week. When I walk through the gates to the tennis courts, I feel this weird… static. It’s like pins and needles across my skull. And that’s when I see Mushu come over, his teeth the size of saucers, and he starts cracking away. ‘Jakey! Hope that’s a limp I see- I’ve got lunch in an hour!’ or ‘Make sure you double knot those laces- the weatherman said 50% chance of ace!’”

“So he annoys you? Is that the core of this?” The therapist is writing again.

“No,” Jake says. “That’s not it at all. Sure, the jokes are lazy, but if he was my friend, I’d smile and shrug them off. The point is, I’m not sure he’s my friend anymore. Under those wet blue eyes and that Cheshire grin is… someone that wants to use me.”

“There goes those feelings of narcissism, Jake.” The therapist clicks his tongue. “We’ll work on-“

“It’s spreading,” Jake interrupts in a cold breath. “That’s why I’m coming to therapy. Because I think it’s spreading, and I don’t know where else to go.”

“Spreading how?” The therapist crosses his legs.

“It’s at these big events, like a dinner a few days ago. It was the four of us again, at Mushu’s place, and I already didn’t want to go, but Nancy told me it’d be rude to say otherwise. So we went over, brought some wine, and it all seemed OK until I walked through his apartment door.”

“The static?”

Jake nods, shifting his eyes back to the window. The hummingbird is still there, moving faster now, zigzagging between the hard-to-reach blossoms. “It was bigger this time, closer to a convulsion, and I nearly passed out as those pins ricocheted through my sciatic. It did weird things in my head, too. I started to hear applause, like hundreds of hands at once, and what sounded like corny laught- “

“This sounds serious, Jake. We’ll have to get you on some Prozac. Remind me at the end of our session.” The therapist takes a note, and notices Jake is waiting to speak again. “Continue.”

“Mushu looked bad. Not in a dying way, but it was obvious he was losing to this… force… within him. His eyes were bloodshot and dry in their broadness, and every action seemed strained and over the top. He’d fling open doors with wild mannerisms, skid into each room, and almost fall on top of the expensive China hidden around his house. He even knocked a family photo off the wall, sending glass across the floor like a burst atom. All he said was ‘Praying THAT’S not an omen!’”

“OK. And the pauses?”

“They were longer, more than a beat. It wasn’t just for dramatic effect, either, like the other ones- I think, in the group setting, he was looking for a back-and-forth. Which is ultimately what he got.”

“Expand on that.”

“Well, we were at the dinner table, with chicken and mash and corn between us, and Mushu began his antics again. ‘Pass me the Jake- I mean the chicken!’ And there was silence. I waited for it to wash over, so we could eat and just abandon the dinner altogether, but then I heard Nancy over my shoulder. ‘At least he’s not as corny as you, Mush.’ I choked on my water as she looked at me. Her eyes had calcified into buttons, and she wore a new, glossy smile that was closer to a car decal than a true expression of self.”

“Did it frighten you? Your girlfriend’s reaction?”

“Yes! It’s easy to pass judgement in the majority. But straight after Nancy was a comment from Mushu’s girl, and that’s when I knew the disease, or whatever it was, had gotten them. I knew they had turned on me.”

“Don’t you feel ‘turned on me’ is a bit of an exaggeration? It was just harmless quipping.”

Jake stands up, his fingers now serrating his hairline. He begins to pace in little circles. “You couldn’t see the stares, Doctor. After the three of them had spoken, they all locked their gazes on me. Each was that over-excited, drug-addicted gape of the lost- and that, I could have gotten over. But there was more than that. More eyes. It felt like the world had turned its attention on me, as if fifty million ghosts had packed that dining room and were breathing down my neck. It was stage fright of the millionth degree.”

“So what did you do?”

Jake freezes, his spine arched like a cat, his hands balled into cement. “Nothing. Not even Jerry Lewis could have shrugged off that pressure. So I choked on my tongue. It washed over the entire table, a minute at least, while I juggled with my own presenter’s dilemma on whether to scramble for words or shrivel up in the silence. I found there was no right answer, though, because that’s when the other side of that thing came out. The side that hid between cracking teeth and vacant pupils.”

The therapist bites his top lip and scrunches his eyes up. “You’re referring to the monster?” He notices Jake’s foot tapping three raps a second.

“It’s more of an energy, I think. First I heard was the cracking of dining chairs on the hardwood floor. It made me flinch at the force of it, and when I looked back up, they were all standing, staring through me. On their faces were frowns, curved so tight and aggressive that they weaved into the neck and called upon every tendon. Mushu began yelling, almost barking, and there was a touch of static in his voice now, as if his scream was carried on radio waves. ‘LINE!’ I could hear him saying. “LINE!” I backed my chair away to make a quick exit. But, turning to run, I noticed the ladies had blocked my path and were chanting the same phrase- ‘LINE!’ ‘LINE!’ ‘LINE!’ They moved closer to me, trapping me between them and the dinner table. I only got out of there by diving headfirst under the tablecloth and crawling towards the door. I haven’t seen any of them since.”

There is a silence now, and as the therapist uncrosses his legs, Jake does another small circle. “So, Jake, you tell me this story. The question is- what do you make of it?”

Jake’s mouth, which had been gaping open throughout his tirade, snaps hard against his jaw. He sits back down, realizing he’s exhausted, and reclines against the blue couch. There’s an answer for this question- Jake knows he’s been dancing around it all afternoon, which has felt longer and more eventful then his last ten years combined. He closes his eyes, and channels that feeling as best he can.

Copying his therapist’s staccato tone, he says: “There’s another world out there. And I’m afraid it’s trying to claim me.”

The therapist looks to Jake, and for a moment he believes the therapist has become one of Them, the way his eyes seem so far away. But then he turns and walks towards the window. The sky has become murky during their talk, the window flush with clouds with only a few flowers to brighten the day. The hummingbird hovers no longer.

“I get it now,” the therapist says, his arms crossed behind his back. In the frame of the windowpane, he is a cutout cloaked in black.

There is a short laugh, declaratory, and he speaks again. “I get it.”

“Get what?” Jake says. His foot is beginning to tap again.

“How you need to be written.” The therapist turns, and Jake can see he is scribbling furiously on the yellow swatch of paper attached to his clipboard.

“What about me are you writing?” Jake is clueless, and he feels a spark of anger in his stomach that is quickly extinguished.

“I’m not writing ABOUT you, Jake. I’m writing YOU.” The therapist pedals back to his seat, and Jake can see a half-grin across his face. They meet eye-to-eye.

“See, before, I thought you were a foil,” the therapist says. “Casting wise, it made sense- Mushu is tall and skinny, while you’re boxy and strong. A Costanza type to balance Mushu’s Kramer.” The therapist flips the paper. “But you’re not a Costanza, are you? Too flighty for conflict, too cautious for comedy. Awareness is your greatest strength- and your biggest weakness.”

Jake pushes a finger out, attempting a word, but the therapist battles on. “See, it was all that hummingbird garbage that got me thinking- maybe you’re my hummingbird! They’re delicate creatures, beautiful feats of nature, and that could make for a good character arc in season two. But for now we need conflict, and throwing a hummingbird in a cardboard box every other episode will surely stir things up, right?” He delivers a storky cackle once more.

Jake doesn’t know when he’ll get to speak again, so he stands and blurts out “What are you talking about?”

The therapist points out an outstretched hand, eyebrows up high. “See? Look at yourself. This is what I’m talking about- the fact that you can’t figure out what’s going on causes you to panic. To act irrationally.” The therapist shrugs. “It’s good television!”

Jake feels dizzy, and in his wet paint vision he realizes none of this looks familiar. He doesn’t remember a receptionist, a lobby- he can’t even recall if he drove his own car. “How did I get here?” Jake says as he stumbles into the coffee table.

“I brought you.” The therapist says, smiling openly now. “I brought you all here, on pen and paper.” He disconnects the yellow sheet from his clipboard, and places it on the table between them. A small ding radiates through the room, coming from the therapist’s wristwatch. He sucks his teeth. “Seems we’re out of time. No worries- I’ll see you on set. As for my 10:30 block…” He holds up the white clipboard, which Jake recognizes not as a clipboard, but as one of those film clappers they use in movie shoots. “I think I have some revisions to make.”

Jake straightens up again and makes one lunge for his therapist. The therapist doesn’t wince, like he might do in the same situation- he only drops the hinged bar atop the slate, sending a sharp clap across the office, into Jake’s body, into Jake’s being, with all the force of a nuclear generator. He sees static, moves across it like a hand over a television screen, and finds himself falling into the world of a million laughing faces. He begins to scream, and as his shouts turn to tears, he beats his arms all the way down.