“Follow the path Adam,” she said, holding out the index finger of each had like goal posts. “You start at a point here, this is where you are now.” She wiggled the finger of her left hand. “This is where you are going to get to, where you want to be.” She wiggled the finger on her right hand. “And there is one direct route there.”
“I’ll bet,” Adam sighed.
“One path, but it involves forward momentum. Your forward momentum. Now at the moment, you are over here.” Left hand. “You have lost your forward momentum so you are at a standstill, in danger of ending up somewhere else, or back to where you started.”
“Isn’t this analogy a little basic for you doc?” Adam smiled. “I’m not five years old.”
“Five years old, fifty years old, it makes no difference. It’s a basic analogy because it’s a basic idea. You want to rehabilitate yourself, to keep moving forward, then there’s only one way.”
“What if I don’t? What if I tried, and nothing went right? What if I was doing okay, and then my wife took our daughter and moved to France? What if I reapplied that after years of toiling away, my work was never going to be accepted on it’s own terms and I was going to be a second rate illustrator for hire until I decide to retire? What if I decided that it doesn’t matter if I can ever walk again or whether I’m stuck in this fucking chair for the rest of my life? What then doc?”
The sun no longer seemed to penetrate the windows, the room dull and cold. It was there, outside, just hanging in the sky, a piercing orb of white. He found that he could look at it directly, pulling his eyes away to no ill effect. He looked from the sun, to the doctor, back to the sun, back tot he doctor. The more he did so, the less cohesive she seemed. Eventually, the living area of his flat was dark, and she was nothing more than a rough etch of dark fire. He searched where her face should be, trying to find it, to see her expression.
“Well,” she said, in a voice not quite her own. “Do it anyway. Because you shouldn’t squander your gift. Do it for her.”
“For who? Amber? She doesn’t particularly care one way or another, she -”
The fire stood and moved closer to Adam, a hand outstretched.
“For her Adam.”
“I don’t -”
The sun burned against his skin.
“You need to go. The exhibition. It will be good for you. For us. I can help.”
Adam squinted, everything was too bright suddenly. He couldn’t see anything. He was looking directly at the sun at every turn.
“I don’t think I can -”
Somewhere behind the walls something heavy was dragged across from floor to ceiling. A moment of silence, and then as though something large was thrown with venomous force, causing the whole wall to reverberate. Adam flinched, before feeling a hand on his arm.
“Get home.”
He looked into the face of the dark fire and it burned.
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