Josh is having a difficult time staying connected to what is going on around him. He wants to be aware of his surroundings- to be able to call out for help. But all he can think about, as sirens wail and red lights flash, is how hard it is to breathe, how much his chest hurts, and how much the blood on the concrete looks like an inkblot.
His mind begins to wander through memories dulled by time, made hazier by the pain.
Rorschach.
It's a funny name, like one of Joanie's composers.
Rorschach.
-schach, like Bach.
"Josh, what about this one?" asks the man in the thick horn-rimmed glasses.
Josh wants to say "fire".
They all look like fire and billowing clouds of smoke, every single one.
Fire and smoke.
Those are no longer images that follow him around everywhere. It's been months since Joanie's death, but his parents are still concerned, Aunt Edie and Aun Julia are concerned. He can see that they're worried and that that's why he's sitting in this room, being asked to talk, draw pictures, look at ink splattered on white paper.
He's here because of the fire so that's all he can see.
Josh cooperates with Dr. Katz because he hates to worry his parents, they've looked so sad for so long and he doesn't want to make that last any longer than it has to. Maybe if he answers the man's questions the visits will stop; and maybe his mother won't have to go to a room, not unlike this one, with another bespectacled man anymore.
He talks.
He lies.
Cloud.
I'm fine now.
Spider.
I don't think about the fire anymore.
Two dogs.
I know I didn't abandon her.
Butterfly.
You don't need to worry about me.
"What do you see, Josh?"
Anything but a monochrome conflagration.
Josh looks up from the scarlet inkblot.
He sees Toby and, for a brief moment, he feels anchored to the present before he lets himself fall and memories begin to tug at him once more.
A/N: This was brought on by an image that I saw of what blood looks like when splattered on different surfaces. The image of blood splattered on concrete reminded me of inkblot tests and I thought that if Josh was taken to a psychologist in 1970 it was certainly possible that they would ask him to look at those inkblot cards.