Challenge #00055: Slow Progress
The fourth day of therapy for the man who’s ‘Appreciation’ for Julie was dashed by Shayde’s particular brand of intervention.
Day four. The human man known on his paperwork as John Smith still rocked himself in place. He still preferred a soft, gentle environment. He did not want any variety of toy that had eyes.
He had, however, finally stopped repeating, “They wanted to eat me.”
Orsiz'edand'l viewed this as a positive sign. Human insanity fascinated her to such an extent that she made it her life’s work. And this was an excellent study.
Shayde - a subject with her own paper in progress - had simply said that she had 'done a number’ on the man for pressing an unwelcome suit on Julie Rzepczynski. There followed paragraphs on the man’s character based entirely on a level of perception that no other known congiscent shared.
Orsiz'edand'l preferred to get a subject’s story from their own point of view. And, since John Smith had apparently stopped saying, “They wanted to eat me,” now was the time to try and get it.
“Good morning, Mr Smith.”
“…the monster…” he whispered. “The monster said…”
“What did the monster say?”
“She said… I had to confess. To get rid of the things in my darkness. They’re horrible. And I made them. They wanted to eat me.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged. “So you’ve said. What do you want to confess?”
“…everything…” Mr Smith rocked back and forth for a minute. Holding tight to a plush pillow in lieu of a soft toy. “My name is not John Smith. It’s Gareth… Gareth Wifnikov-Smythe. I’m from… Greater Deregulation Hubwards. I was… exiled. Excommunicated. Because of my love for children.”
Orsiz'edand'l remembered a vile word from Shayde’s testimony. Pedo. Short for Pedophile. A lover of children in all the wrong ways. “And how did you… love… these children?”
“I love… their innocence. Their purity. Their honesty. When they grow up, they learn to lie, cheat and steal…”
Obviously, this man had a romanticised view of childhood. Human children were the worst bunch of thieves, con-people and outright liars she had ever met.
“I want to have all of that purity. And love it with everything I have. Everything I am. I would make love to it, if I could.”
“And teach them to lie to their parents by not telling them how you loved them?” Orsiz'edand'l prompted. It seemed to be the chief blindfold that historical pedophiles managed to apply to themselves.
“Their parents wouldn’t understand. But Julie… all Julie has is her dog.”
“I rather think Julie has this entire station as company.”
“Yes. …yes…” Gareth rocked. “Community. There’s no such thing as a child without… community. I told myself… the community was ignorant. They had to be… removed…” He rocked himself for another minute. “But I was the one who was bad, wasn’t I?”
Orsiz'edand'l smiled a human-friendly smile. “That’s right, Gareth. You were bad. Loving someone as… thoroughly… as you chose to; when that someone is unprepared for such love is harmful to that someone. Real love wants to benefit the person that it loves.”
“…i wanted to take…” said Gareth. “All I wanted was to take. I had reasons. They were bad reasons. And I made monsters in my darkness that want to eat me.”
*
Shayde, watching on the other side of a one-way wall, nodded. “Good,” she said. “He got it.”
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