"What did I tell you?" Wanda said, shaking her head. "He's completely insane."
"I don't know," replied Clarice. "He is really suggesting that he wants to change, and knows of his insanity. I think that's good enough to keep going."
"Well, did anything happen after that?" Wanda asked, sipping her martini.
Clarice shrugged. "Nothing, really. He kept talking about his love of dancing, mentioned the jester a few more times…"
"Did he talk about his job?" Wanda inquired.
Clarice shook her head. "Not really. He said that he used to work, but when his mother came home, he wasn't allowed to leave her." Clarice shrugged, taking a sip of her beer. "Something like that. I think she's really sick or something, and is probably the reason he's going insane."
"Funny," Wanda smirked. "He didn't tell my therapist friend anything about his job. He refused when she asked. Maybe he likes you."
"Doubt it," Clarice replied. "He spent most of his time giving me this… really creepy stare. I don't think he'll come back to me."
"If I was a gambling woman, I'd say he does," Wanda grinned. "Anyway, what else did he say? I'm curious."
"Not much, to be honest," Clarice responded. "A lot about a jester… And laughing. Maybe something happened in his youth with a clown or something that screwed him up."
"Like molestation?"
Clarice shrugged. "He mocks psychology, though. He basically kept making fun of theories and ideas, like saying he had a strange closeness with his first cousin and abusive alcoholic fathers. I know he's not being straight, he's just toying with me. It's weird. It's more like he's analysing me sometimes, since I can't make any sense of him.
"You know what's funny, though?" Clarice continued, pausing for thought, smirking at herself. "He's sort of… attractive, in a madman, I'm-gonna-tear-your-face-off sort of way."
Wanda burst out laughing. "Out of all the things I have heard about him, being hot really hasn't been on the list."
"Well, I didn't say that," Clarice chuckled. "I'm just saying that… I don't know, he has this certain rugged, mysterious, dark sort of thing about him that's just… enticing. And holy crap, you should see his hair. It's the reddest hair I have ever seen I my life. I'm shocked it's natural?"
"What if it is dyed?" Wanda mentioned.
Clarice shook her head. "No, because his eyebrows and everything are the same colour."
"And everything?" Wanda sneered, nudging her friend with her foot under the table, causing Clarice to blush violently. "Oh my God, do you know what you should do? You should ask him."
"Yes, because asking if the carpet matches the drapes is such a professional inquiry," Clarice said, voice soaked in sarcasm.
"He doesn't have to know it's a personal question," Wanda said, still grinning broadly. "Just ask him if it's natural, and if he says yes, say that you need proof in order to deduce a proper, professional opinion on him."
"Oh, for sure. Because, again, such information is necessary to formulate psychological conclusions," Clarice shook her head, taking the last sip of her beer. "Besides, I think he's smarter than that." While she said that, a waitress lifted the empty beer bottle off of the table, and placed a full, condensation-covered, freezing cold one in front of her. Clarice glanced at it for a second, before looking up to the waitress. "I'm sorry, I didn't order this."
"Oh, it's compliments of the man over the-" the waitress turned and gestured to an empty stool. "Hm. It seems he left already."
"Oh," Clarice looked around, curiously. "Did you catch his name?"
"No," the waitress frowned. "I didn't see much of him. He sort of kept his face covered. But his hair… I don't know if it's dyed or something, because it is the reddest hair I have ever seen."
Clarice paled, eyes widening. She looked to her friend across form her, who had a massive, stupid smile on her face and laughed a single time. Both women were completely without words.
"But between you and me," the waitress said, leaning down to get closer to Clarice. "He really gave me the creeps."
Dr. Stoker lugged her large bag over her shoulder, speed-walking down the hallway to her office. She listened to the muffled clicking of the heeled shoes on the floor, staring down at her cellphone as she walked. A client was sending her millions of text messages about being worried that his wife is cheating on him, and he doesn't know how to ask her. It was simply frustrating when her clients did this, since she felt as though she didn't have a personal life – work started before she was even in her office.
She glanced up when she was in the proper hallway, and saw an unfamiliar darkness near her door. She passed it off as being a light out in the hallway, made a mental note to call a maintenance person, and began to shuffle through her bag for her keys. During this process, she dropped her phone on the ground. She cursed under her breath, but left it to go through her seemingly-endless bag to find her keys somewhere in the abyss. Once she found them, she held them tightly, and moved her bag aside so she could fetch the fallen phone. As she did so, she saw the darkness incredibly close to her, and snapped her head up to look into it. She felt her adrenaline course suddenly, turning her veins to icy tubes under her flesh, and she practically leapt out of her shoes, when she found Cicero standing there, holding her phone.
"Jesus Christ!" she breathed. "Cicero, you scared me."
"Oh, Cicero is sorry," Cicero said, frantically, holding her phone out in front of himself. "He often gives that impression to people."
Clarice reached out to take her phone, but she paused when she noticed his hand. Not only was it shaking violently, but it was also covered in a mixture of wetness and a strange, opaque, white substance which clung to his flesh. His other hand matched it.
"Cicero!" Dr. Stoker pulled her hand back. "What happened to your hands?"
He paused and looked down to his hands, frowning. He slowly lifted his other hand, and began to slowly move the digits, cracking the opaque substance which covered his fingers and palms. He giggled slightly, curious as to what was covered his hands.
"Yes, yes," he said, frantically. "Oil and wax, oil and wax, oil and wax! Cicero had to change Mother's candles, but they were so small, so small. And Cicero cannot blow them out, in case his impure, contaminated breath touched sweet, sweet Mother. He needs to handle them carefully. And, oh! How they burn poor, poor Cicero's hands! Light the one with the other. Light the one with the other. And how the wax pours all over poor Cicero's hands!" he laughed as he continued to move his hands and crack the wax. "And, of course, humble Cicero has to oil Mother. Sweet, sweet Mother. She cannot go dry, or her taut, thin, gray skin will crack! Cicero saw a maggot. Oh, how it died between his fingers! Taut, thin, gray skin. Taut, thin, gray skin. It must be moisturised. She may move freely within the void, but Cicero must take care of Her while she is in this physical, fallible, fragile state. After all, She can't take care of Herself!"
Dr. Stoker paled slightly, watching the madman seemed to sing his babblings. "Cicero, your mother isn't dead, is she?"
Cicero looked to her for a moment, before laughing loudly. "Of course not! She lives and lives and lives and lives, and never will She die! At least, not while Cicero is Her Keeper."
Dr. Stoker said nothing for a long moment, before taking the phone from Cicero's oily fingers, wiping it off on her pant leg, and placing it back into her purse. "You know you don't have an appointment with me today, do you, Cicero?"
"Oh, Cicero knows this very well," the lunatic replied. "But he was cleaning the Mother, oiling her until she is so beautiful, but during this whole time, I could not hear Her voice in my head. She doesn't speak to poor, dear Cicero. So, he cannot have a conversation with her! Cicero feels like the Mother, sometimes, since he needs a Listener. So, Cicero was thinking… Maybe I deserve a Listener! Dr. Stoker, you will become Cicero's listener! But hopefully dear Mother would not get jealous…"
Dr. Stoker sighed and opened her door. She walked in and kept the door open so Cicero could come in. She did her usual motions, dropping her purse behind her desk, hanging her coat on the coat hanger, unlocking her desk, taking the clipboard out from within the drawer.
"Cicero, there's a bathroom through that door there," she pointed to a door between two massive, full bookshelves. "You can use it to wash off your hands. Let me know if you need anything."
"Oh, thank you, Cicero's Listener!" Cicero said, running to the door, opening it with his elbows, and entering into the bathroom.
Dr. Stoker sighed heavily and collapsed into the chair behind her desk. She spun around and stared out the massive window, to the world below her, all in the shadow of skyscraper in which her office hid. Her entire office smelt of the vanilla votive she often melted over a candle for a sort of aromatherapy. She hated the smell of it. She used to not mind it, but after smelling it day in and day out, she detested it – she could hardly eat vanilla ice cream, because the taste of it reminded her of her office, which reminded her of the patients that just want to speak, and not receive any opinions (which she hated doing). The look of her office was something that also annoyed her. She always loved having big, bold, sharp colours in her abodes, but her office was a combination of dark brown, light cream, topaz-like colours. Her deep brown carpets were unnaturally soft, the paintings that hung in her office were abstract and meaningless, and the vast majority of the books in the bookshelves by her desk, she had never read in her entire life. This is all for the sake of her patients, however. And people wondered why she rebelled against the traditional psychological conventions.
She wasn't sure what to do with this man. Obviously, he was completely insane. Perhaps he was experiencing a mental breakdown or some sort of episode, and knew that she was the only person, and her office was the only place, where someone was listening to him, as he had mentioned.
Wanda had never mentioned him nicknaming the doctors. He was definitely different from anyone she had ever dealt with. She had heard of people like him before, but only from other psychologists who have been practising much longer than she had; she had read about his type in psychology textbooks and from professors as a hypothetical, worst-case-scenario patient. It was for these reasons she was finding such a difficult time knowing how to deal with him. She was known for not being the most orthodox psychologists, and vowed under the saying "if you don't like my style, don't bother coming to see me", but everything she had ever thought of to treat or help this man, seemed to fall short of what he probably required. The only thing she thought of doing, was stepping even further away from conventional schemas of psychology, and take matters into her own hands – she was also planning on rewriting the psychology textbooks while she was at it.
After a while, Cicero returned from the bathroom, his coat off and wearing nothing but a small, white t-shirt to cover his chest. He stood outside of the bathroom door, and watched her, unmoving. She slowly turned around after hearing the bathroom door close and jumped slightly when she saw Cicero standing here. She smirked slightly to herself, when she noticed that his arm hair was, in fact, as red as the hair on his head.
"My apologies, Dr. Stoker," Cicero said, not making eye contact. "Cicero tends to panic when he's left alone. He doesn't deal well with… solitude."
"Cicero, can I ask you a question?" Dr. Stoker said, crossing her legs.
"Of course, Doc," Cicero replied, clutching his coat close to his chest. "You ask the questions, and Cicero provides the answers."
"Why do you insist on staying away from psychiatrists?"
Cicero smirked slowly, his eyes flickering. "Why do you?"
"Because I believe that a person can be cured without medicating them into zombies," Dr. Stoker replied, humouring him.
Cicero's smirk turned into a sneer, and he slowly began to pull on his jacket. "Exactly. Cicero doesn't do well with being a zombie."
Dr. Stoker frowned and stood. "Where are you going?"
Cicero paused and glanced back to her, raising an eyebrow. "Leaving? You have made it quite clear that you do not have time for poor Cicero."
Dr. Stoker sighed and stood, walking to the door, opening it, and placing the "occupied" slide into the small space on her door. She then closed the door, and turned to face Cicero.
"I have time before my first client," she told him. "Please, have a seat."
