“Oh no,” the little boy whispered, “not you again.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the boy that young Davy had brought to me. He appeared to be more delusional than any patient I had ever seen.

“Did you… did you just change perspective?” he asked, pointing a shaking finger at me.

Like a good therapist, I did not respond so that he would have space to continue on his own. I opened the top drawer of my finely carved oak desk and pulled out a notepad and a pen.

“Oh, so you’ve turned it into a desk now,” he murmured. “How… how lovely.”

“Thank you Joe, it is quite lovely isn’t it? Now let us turn our attention back to you – can you tell me a bit about why Davy thought you needed to see me?”

“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because he’s too daft to see what’s really going on here?”

I picked up my pen and wrote at the top of the page: Joe; and under that: appears to be experiencing a severe disconnect from reality.

“I see,” I said in my best ‘pretending to understand maniacs’ tone. “And what exactly is it that’s going on?”

“Like you don’t know!” he shouted, standing on his chair so that we were at eye level. “You’re responsible for this whole bloody thing! I just wanted to go for a walk in the woods with my mate Davy and you went and made a grand farce of it! You and all these other plonkers!”

I wrote in my notebook: not willing to take responsibility for his own actions. Then I underlined it. Twice.

“I thought I could trust the others, but they were… were… ridiculously worse than you! I just want to go back to the woods!” He had turned a very worrying shade of red at that point.

“So, you just want to start over then?” I asked gently.

“Yes, yes, a million times yes!”

“Well then, if you make your way out the door behind you, I think you’ll find exactly what you wish.”

He eyed me suspiciously, a child expecting an adult to promise Disneyland but deliver a trip to the dentist’s office. He lowered himself to the floor and slowly made his way to my office door, looking back at me continually. He took hold of the silver handle and opened it slowly to find…

“Oh, thank jaysus, the woods!” He cried. “Oh great, that crying business again.”

“It has been lovely talking with you Joe. Good luck out there.”

“I just need to be lucky enough to lose all these no talent hacks,” he whined. Just as he was about to say something else, suddenly a bear appeared behind him. “WHAT?!”

“Good luck Joe,” I said as I closed the door behind him.

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Click to View Author Guidance

This is the story of Davy and Joe.

Joe is aware that they are in a story, being written by an author (well, authors hopefully).

Davy is not.

Davy (unwittingly) just wants the story to move along.

Joe is quite insistent that it be a *good* story.

Davy is a friendly, good-natured fellow.

Joe is a dick.

“Don’t think I can’t see this sunshine!”

Joe is fond of using British insults since there are so many more options that don’t resort to swear words, which he considers himself above using.

“You’re a real bloody tragedy mate, just stop typing.”

Davy is the real hero of the story – without him it wouldn’t go anywhere.

“Well that’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

Joe likes to get the last word in.

“You’re taking longer to write this ‘author’ guidance than you did to write the story!”

updated Sep 19, 2008 by Eloosive