Dialogue

By Abbas Murtaza

Write an exchange in dialogue between a psychiatrist and a patient.

“Doctor!”

“Yes?”

“I need your help, Doc! Desperately! People keep acting strangely around me. Things go wrong, they break and my friends are leaving and I feel so lost. I don’t know what’s going on. I think something’s wrong with me – I can’t remember anything.”

“Ah. Well, I am a psychiatrist. Sit.”

“You can help me! You see, they say it’s me. They point fingers, stare, shout, call names, and hurt me. At first, I thought they were crazy. But now, I’m not so sure.”

“You seem alright to me, Mister..?”

“I feel ok. I don’t know what to do, Doc. I feel like my life’s turned inside-out!”

“Tell me everything.”

“Who are you?”

“What?”

“This is unbelievable. A bloody shrink’s office, this is. I’ve been mugged! I can’t have that!”

“Are you ok? Sit down again.”

“You ugly ape! You freak! What are you doing to me?”

“Just relax. You told me you had a problem remembering…”

“I’ll kill you! No-one touches me. I’ll make your blood run free, your skin turn blue, and your body a hollow shell!”

“Put that down! Damn it, put that down!”

“Oh my God, Doctor! What just happened?”

“Stay away from me, you. Leave me alone.”

“These scissors! What was I doing with them?”

“You monster!”

“Who did this, Doctor?”

“You did this. This is all your doing. Leave me alone.”

“That’s crap. I came to you so you could help me.”

“Help me, Assistant.”

“I did nothing. Come on, Doctor, be reasonable.”

“…”

“Get up. Come on, take my hand.”

“Ok, then.”

“What are you doing? How dare you touch me with your hideous, sausage fingers?”

“ASSISTANT!”

“Die.”

“No, I....”

“Good riddance. Such a repulsive human-being. I’m going to stuff him in this closet while I find a way out. I hope his body rots in there, and starts crawling with a million maggots, slowly chewing, slowly, on the rot. That Doc just left me! Unbelievable. I come to him for help and he starts going looney in front of my eyes, then vanishes without a trace. What am I going to do now?”

“What’s happening?”

“Hello. You must be the Doc’s assistant. He left me here, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No worries. I’m Abbas. Abbas Murtaza.”

“Hello, Sir.”

“Please, have a seat. I could use someone to talk to right now.”