Untitled/Thanksgiving Ch.4
'Iowa' Lyrics by SlipKnoT, 'Man in the Box' lyrics by Alice in Chains. I don't own WTOS, Clear Channel does.
One Week Later
She was going to pull off a murder suicide for doing this- first she was going to kill Macy for forcing this bullshit on her, and then she was going to kill herself for agreeing with it.
Cheesy remakes of classic Christmas songs dominated the radio, and she groaned at a particularly heinous one done by Destiny's Child-or was it just Beyonce, she couldn't remember and couldn't care less-about the Twelve Days of Christmas. Finally finding a decent rock station, she listened to that as she found her way towards the psychiatrists' office.
"This is one-oh-five, WTOS, with killer classics and the best pure rock...here's some Alice in Chains by request for Portland...
"I'm the man in the box
Buried in my shit
Won't you come and save me
Save me..."
Perfect. One of the few songs that could have drudged up the memories of what happened, and she was listening to it.
"Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut
Jesus Christ, deny your maker
He who tries, will be wasted
Feed my eyes now you've sown them shut
I'm the dog who gets beat
Shove my nose in shit
Won't you come and save me
Save me..."
"Hell with this," Jordan snarled, turning the radio off.
Pulling into a parking spot and walking inside, she wondered for the thousandth time today what the Hell she thought she was doing, going through with this...talking about what had happened with some total, complete stranger who, no doubt, was going to attempt to burrow her way into the darker areas of her own psyche.
This, in other words, totally sucked.
A woman in her fifty's sat alone in the tastefully decorated office, and when Jordan entered, she rose to greet her.
"Hello Ms. Cavanaugh...welcome to my office. Please, have a seat," The psychiatrist, a Doctor Morgana Dell said politely. Jordan nodded a little nervously and sat on the couch, trying to make herself look comfortable when in reality she felt as though she was lounging on broken glass.
"I understand you're suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Dell began, taking out a pad of paper and a pen.
" Yup."
"Would you like to talk about it?"
"Nope."
"Then why are you here, exactly?"
"Because I was forced to see someone or I would've been suspended from my li-my job. You're the closest shrink to my workplace, so there you have it."
"It sounded like you were going to say that you were going to be suspended from your life...why is that?" Jordan sighed irritably, silently berating herself for not catching her mistake before she'd uttered it.
"Because my job IS my life."
"How so?" Jordan studied the carpeted floor intensely as she replied.
"I bring closure to people's families, their friends. As a medical examiner, finding out how they died, whether it be from a homicide, suicide or natural causes is my job. I'm one of the last people to see them before..." She trailed off, not even wanting to go near THAT subject.
"Before what?" Morgana kept writing in her notebook, patiently waiting for Jordan to continue.
"Before they go into a box," Jordan muttered, almost inaudibly.
"I see. May I ask a question?"
"Sure...why not." Jordan sighed, closing her eyes. How long was this damned meeting for again?
"How many people come though your doors-or, to be more specific, through you- that die from natural causes?"
"Not nearly enough."
"So the majority of your cases are homicides."
"Yeah, pretty much."
"That must be stressful." Jordan frowned slightly.
"No more stressful than a normal person's job is. I'm good at what I do, so hacking and slashing people up isn't a problem for me."
"Are you saying you're not normal?"
Pretty much, doc...great to know you're finally catching on.
"No...what I'm saying is that not just anybody can do what we do. It's like someone trying to work nights, or being a brain surgeon. Some are cut out for the job, and others aren't." God this sucks, it reminds me of that anger management shit I had to go through. This really REALLY sucks...when can I LEAVE?
"Would you like to talk about the incident that caused you to get PTSD in the first place?"
"Not really, but seeing as how if I don't, my ass is gonna be canned, I might as well. A couple of weeks ago, I had the misfortune of finding a body that had been dead for quite some time, and that had already been given a funeral service and burial some weeks before. What I happened to find in his place was a young woman's body, and she'd been buried alive, left to suffocate." Jordan couldn't even see the carpet now; all she could see was the past events of her traumatic case flowing before her eyes.
"Go on," Morgana prodded gently. Jordan closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down before she continued.
"As soon as I released my findings, I got a visit from the Bureau in the form of one Special Agent Haley, who'd been working on the so called 'Digger' case from the beginning. He and I teamed up to try to find the killers' hideout, and eventually we did."
"What happened then?"
"Nothing...until I was about to leave the office one night, where I was attacked."
"You were attacked? By who?"
"The Digger," Jordan said flatly. "He was in the morgue, hiding under a sheet. I suspected Haley, cause he was kind of odd...but it wasn't him after all." Jordan had, by this time, wrapped her arms around herself tightly, as if she was cold. Her face was pale, eyes full of remembered pain.
"What happened then?"
"I...I Can't-"
-Flash-
"-Relax, it's over...
You belong to me
I fill your mouth with dirt-"
-Flash-
"He drugged me...took me to a cemetery-"
-Flash-
"-Relax, it's over...
You can never leave
I'll take your second digit with me
Love...-"
-Flash-
"-and he was making me up to look like his mother, who was a prostitute...she used to lock him in a box while she was earning her money...-"
-Flash-
"-You know, I honestly wish I could have saved you for last, but you just had to get too close, didn't you? You and Haley just had to satisfy your curiosities. A shame I have to kill you so soon...-"
-Flash-
"- Couldn't move...-"
-Flash-
"-The drug I paralyzed your muscles with should be wearing off shortly...too late for you to do anything about your situation, of course, but at least you'll know that you didn't go down without a fight."
OH FUCK YOU YOU SONOFABITCHWHENIGETOUTOFHEREI'MGOINGTOKICK
YOURFUCKINGASS-
-Flash-
"-and he buried me alive..." In Morgana's eyes, Jordan looked as though she was on the verge of exhaustion, as the woman clearly hadn't been getting enough sleep. "...That's it."
"Is it?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Pardon me for saying so, but you look like Hell." To Morgana's surprise, Jordan only smirked sarcastically.
"I've been hearing that fairly often recently, and for the life of me I can't figure out why."
"In my professional opinion, you're not sleeping, and if you are, you're only getting a couple hours of sleep a day, which isn't nearly enough for someone your age. You've been putting the coffee and the No-Doz right to you, haven't you?" By the slightly guilty look on Jordan's face, Morgana knew she'd hit the nail on the head. "No more. As of right now, you have tomorrow off. You're going to spend it asleep, whether you like it or not. It's not up for debate," Morgana said sharply, cutting off any retort Jordan had planned on making. "You're no use to your boss if you mess up an autopsy or end up dead yourself in a car accident driving to work. You're taking tomorrow off and that's final."
"Funny," Jordan murmured to herself, "That's almost exactly what he said."
"And I see that you haven't listened very well either," Morgana shook her head sadly. "Rather stubborn, aren't you?"
"I'm Irish," Jordan replied, as if that explained everything. "Runs in the blood." Standing up, she decided to call this session to a close. "Nice chatting with you doc, but I got places to go, people to see. Saionara." Not waiting for a reply from the doctor, she left.