Mind Avalanche

Dr. Patel whispered into her cell phone as she stood on the dimly lit porch. “Good evening, Ms. Clary. We’re here, waiting by the front door.” She whispered. She stood next to her colleague, a rather short, much younger Dr. with a thin mustache and glasses so thick they made his already enormous eyes even more bulbous.

Ms. Clary cautiously opened the door.

“It’s very good to meet you at last, Ms. Clary.” Dr. Esquivel extended his two arms for a double-handed handshake. “Do you mind if we come inside? It’s a bit chilly.”

Ms. Clary guided them in. “Please make yourself at home.” She fidgeted with her hands. It was apparent she had regrets as she caressed the side of her face, “Can I make you two a coffee or tea?”

“Neither,” said Dr. Patel.

“We’d rather start sooner than later if it’s all the same to you,” shrugged Dr. Esquivel.

Ms. Clary sighed and finally sat on the couch opposite the two.

“I thought about it all day. Is this going to destroy me financially?”

“…If I may give some assurance.” The young Dr. Esquivel said cockily, bringing out a pamphlet from his laptop bag to spew his sales pitch.

Ms. Clary took a deep breath. “You look like you’re still a junior in high school”

Dr. Patel's eyes widened; she quickly tried to hide a smirk forming. She interrupted. “Listen, I understand that people still consider this experimental therapy, but I assure you it has shown only impeccable success rates.” Ask any of your peers,” she said. “Of course, those in the “affluent enclave,” she said, making finger gestures for quotations. Her face looked stern. “This.” She said, pointing her finger to the side of her head. “Is a vessel full of wonders so intricate, it would take a lifetime to figure out. Now.” She added, turning to the young doctor. “We’re both gifted in accessing that vessel. We will help find some form of equilibrium for your daughter Amy and get her out of this severe catatonic depression.”

The young doctor brought out a copy of the terms and conditions and a pen for Ms. Clary to sign. “Please, your name and initials.” Dr. Esquivel flicked a piece of gum into his mouth while he waited.

Ms. Clary looked defeated, but ultimately signed her name on the contract.

“Ready when you are,” said Dr. Patel.

Ms. Clary guided them to her college-aged daughter’s bedroom, who lay asleep in a filthy room filled with junk food waste and dirty laundry. The two doctors positioned themselves to the side of her head, avoiding knocking over any of the dozen half-filled water bottles on the dresser. The two doctors took deep breaths, placed a small headset device around their heads and placed their index and third fingers to the side of the young woman’s head and closed their eyes.

“Ms. Clary,” Dr. Esquivel whispered.

“Yes?”

“Amy is going to be alright.”

She watched as they both stood silent for a clearer reading of Amy’s consciousness.

*******

Inside Amy’s head there was a fabricated world where her traumas began, and an event that recited in her head like a broken record. They found themselves in Amy's old job site, in a busy office with large windows that overtook the walls, and they watched the traffic of flatbeds and bobtail trucks reversing onto the docks.

Amy stood staring at her computer screen by the front counter, while truck drivers failed to greet her, they came in and out to process their paperwork and retrieve freight from the warehouse.

She had been in a dampened mood since her boyfriend of three-years, George, had been neglecting her, leaving many voice memos and text messages unreciprocated. Frankly, it made her blood boil and her teeth grinded, she made no attempt to socialize with her colleagues or her favorite drivers who had otherwise enjoyed the social aspect of their interactions, she had been cold and different today.

“And why is that face so serious today?” joked a trucker.

Amy ignored him, vetted his license, jotted his company name on the computer and sent him on his way to the queue in the warehouse. Her eyes paced to the door watching the night shift workers come through to punch-in the timeclock, waiting for the sight of George anywhere.

“Where the hell is he?” she whispered to herself, slamming a stapler on the counter.

Lisa walked over to borrow the stapler and noticed her feeling down. “Told you not to date your coworkers, but you couldn’t resist, could you?” she teased.

“Shut up.” Amy mumbled. “I am not in the head space.”

Lisa continued waving the stapler as she spoke. “Bro, what did I say? This place is like one giant happy incest family. Everyone has at some point hooked up. The warehouse guys with some of the office girls. Jennifer hooked up with a broker who came by to drop off a car few days ago. And look at all the warehouse guys, they look like salivating dogs when the artwork girls show up. I told you. George isn’t any different from anyone here. C'mon girl, never shit where you eh–“

“Amy! It’s good to see you again,” said a driver, overly cheery. Lisa got caught off-guard, then, she quickly disappeared into the back offices to keep gossiping.

To Amy, she recognized most of the regular truck drivers, but this one seemed like a first-timer.

“Who’re you? Have we met?”

The shorter man had been someone she did not recognize, Dr. Esquivel blending in with a band T-shirt and jeans trying to look inconspicuous. Amy watched as he smiled while he adjusted his thick glasses, too big for his face, and handed her his driver’s license. He stood next to Dr. Patel, dressed in a business suit attire, she had kept her eyes locked onto Amy. Dr. Patel was the only one who noticed the irregularities in the world, the short plexiglass quietly expanded into the ceiling while Amy typed.

“She’s forming a defense.” She whispered.

“Excuse me?” said Amy.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Dr. Esquivel interrupted. “Probably caught you off guard, by the way your eyes darted at me,” he laughed. “I read your name off of your badge, of course. But, I’m just having a fantastic day today after the long drive from Arizona.”

“Picking up? Dropping off?” asked Amy, reluctant to ask any follow up questions.

“Ah, dropping off,” said Dr. Esquivel.

“Picking up”, said Dr. Patel irritably.

“Right, it is a pickup. Computer equipment.”

“Scooters,” Dr. Patel said, jabbing her elbow into his ribs.

“Scooters. Right. Electric scooters.”

“Okay.” Amy arched an eyebrow. She nodded and typed the reference number with her keyboard, that’s when she watched George punching in on the device on the wall. She watched him race to the warehouse access door while Amy quickly turned to her two customers. “Excuse me for a moment!”

Amy hurriedly grabbed a safety vest and headed over to the warehouse.

The security door was locked with a mechanical code lock when the two doctors ran towards it to enter the office.

“Amy! Wait,” said Dr. Esquivel, he had known the code and typed it in, but something unexpected happened. The metal on the lock had welded his fingers into it as he attempted the code.

“Shit”, said Dr. Patel. “She’s trying to control the narrative. We better hurry.”

“How am I supposed to get out of this?”

Dr. Patel grabbed Dr. Esquivel's hand and tugged at it out as hard as she could, twisting it, jerking it away, until his fingers had simply ripped away from it, leaving his hands disfigured and his fingers dismembered in place.

“This way.” She said, heading towards the warehouse access by the dock doors.

They ran past security, extending their arms out, and they could see Amy heading towards George, dodging forklift drivers and automated robots moving small boxes.

Dr. Patel called out to Amy, but she had been hyper focused on confronting George.

Dr. Esquivel looked terrified, shaking the nubs where his two fingers would have been. They ran past the restricted area.

“Sir, you can’t be in here,” said the security guard. “HEY!”

Amy overheard the yelling.

While the two doctors made it a few feet away pass the designated zone, they heard a screeching siren getting louder and louder. It appeared almost from thin air across the aisles, a forklift so big, it looked like it had an 80-ton payload, it could tower over a three story building, it blared its horn and headed towards the two.

“Uh… Dr. Patel? We-are turning around... now, right?”

Dr. Esquivel’s face was filled with sweat bubbles.

“It’s nothing but her protective manifestation.” Dr. Patel said. She pointed her fingers to the enormous wheels rolling towards them, and caused them to deflate.

Dr. Esquivel gulped his saliva.

Amy struggled to find George in a sea of at least forty warehouse guys all dressed the same, in safety reflective vests and black uniforms. Her eyes wandered around the large warehouse. “George? Where are you?!”

“Amy, we’re Custom officers.” Said Dr. Patel, who had finally caught up with her.

“Uh, we need your help to find some contraband.” Said Dr. Esquivel.

Amy pinched her eyebrows. “Can this wait?”

“No,” Dr. Patel said.

Amy narrowed her eyes, studying the way-too casual outfit of the short man, and the all-too posh business attire of the woman. “You two are not really customs officers, are you?”

“No, but we just really need to have a minute of your time,” said Dr. Esquivel.

Amy rolled her eyes. “I’m tired of strangers getting into my business.” She said.

A couple of security guards gathered around, some grabbed the two doctors by their arms, pinching their fingers into their skin. The automated delivery bots formed a barrier around Amy. Dr. Patel did not look intimidated, she held her chin up high while Dr. Esquivel had been shaking and pacing his eyes around the warehouse which had reconstructed itself to a giant endless maze of freight, mirroring the generic fiberboard boxes and wooden crates on stacked racks that reached skyscraper level heights. The ceiling was like an abyss, an empty, distorted chasm that seemed to suck the colors of everything around its edges.

Amy had begun to walk away and continue her search for George, leaving the two of them in their predicament.

“Stop!” yelled Dr. Patel, her voice echoing across the facilities. She slipped away from the hands grasping her. “Look, someone who loves you unconditionally sent us. You do not want to go and talk to that apparition you call George.

“Why not?” Amy laughed. “I need closure.”

Dr. Patel walked a few steps closer. “Because he’s going to say some heinous abhorrent comments to you, you’re going to be devastated, recreate that horribly embarrassing scene that already happened. Then they’re going to taunt you, and you’re going on that drive home that will change your life forever. It’s a spiral of chaos. Not worth re-experiencing it.”

“Sometimes a person comes along that makes us lose trust in people.” Dr. Esquivel explained. “Sometimes it’s the people closest to us.”

“Why are you guys here?”

“You were such a happy-go-lucky person.” Dr. Patel said. “I read your file, you were strong-willed. You loved chatting with the truck drivers, and attending concerts with your coworkers.”

“Life is short.” Sighed Dr. Esquivel. “We’re on this rotating rock for a short time, and we need to use this time to love ourrselves, and love others. All of that doom-scrolling, watching the news that shines a light on the worse parts of society and social media channels that incite discourse and promotes hatred. We need to come back to reality, and absorb our own personal communities. We need to reflect and remember what brings us joy and-“

Dr. Esquivel's eyes were even bigger than usual as he watched the warehouse workers all start to point and laugh, their faces had been lacking any features, just a spiral of skin pigments, peaches, dark browns, pinks and blacks.

“See what I mean?” Amy muttered. “They always laugh, when you're most vulnerable .”

“Silence!” demanded Dr. Patel. They all stood quiet.

Dr. Esquivel waved his hand over to one worker and launched him 20 feet up but, he remained there in the air floating bent limp unconscious. “Th-that was unexpectedly cool.”

Dr. Patel rolled her eyes, then waved her arms, pushing the rest of the warehouse and security workers up, leaving a sea of dangling lifeless puppets in the air.

“None of these people matter.” Dr. Patel said. “Only you and your family and friends matter.”

“There’s people who miss the old you.” Dr. Esquivel added. He conjured up people that Amy knew that walked in from the office, dozens of people that meant something to Amy. Her mother, Ms. Clary, her aunt, uncles and cousins, and old friends she hadn’t spoken to in so long, old coworkers and teachers, people from her college tutoring club, and rock climbing social groups. Even her old pets from her childhood, a parakeet she had owned as a young child, flew and landed on her shoulder, mimicking the same silly words she had taught it to recount.

“Squawk! It’s Bussin’!” the lime green bird said in its high-pitched chirps. “Very Bussin! Vibe check. Bussin!” Amy smiled, caressing its beak with her fingertip.

The crowd all walked closer to her for an embrace, surrounding Amy in loving hugs. They spoke and shared stories, while Dr. Patel and Dr. Esquivel sat on top of a giant turbine sitting on the industrial scales and observed in their formal doctor attire, buttoned white shirts and black slacks and boots .

Then the fire alarm in the warehouse rang, it sounded suspiciously like Amy’s alarm on her phone.

*******

Dr. Patel and Dr. Esquivel walked over to their company car waving their goodbyes to Ms. Clary who had finally cracked a smile. The two doctors sat inside the car in silence, before starting the ignition. “It takes a bit of a toll on you, doesn’t it?” asked Dr. Esquivel.

“You get used to it”, said Dr. Patel, turning to her peer whose big eyes had been bloodshot. “It can be dangerous, but you did incredible in there Dr. E. I am proud of you.”

“You don't think I was too preachy?”, said the young Dr. “When is next time anyways?”

“Not at all, its only the first session. And we start again whenever Ms. Clary lets us know, we’re on-call for a few weeks, but I have a feeling Amy is going to be much better in a session or two. She won’t remember us next time, and who knows where we end up, could be one of many scenerios Ms. Clary alluded to. We’ll be ready though, and now we get to rest.”

“oh, I'm going to sleep so good tonight,” said Dr. Esquivel.