"I woke up this morning thinking about a quote. I can't seem to get it out of my head."
Dr. Alice White's eyebrow rose with mild interest and gave a smile that bordered on a mix between pity and amusement. "Was this after the nightmare?"
Tim sighed. He didn't mention his nightmare yet. He had it enough times, whether or not it happened wasn't much of a question. Still, Tim was getting more uncomfortable at her repeated attempts to talk about his nightmare as if it was the link to solving all his problems.
But she was the therapist, so maybe it was.
"Yeah. It was after."
Satisfied with the confirmation, Dr. White allowed him to continue with the thought. "What was the quote?"
"It was from Stephen Crane's The Open Boat" He paused to recollect the exact words. "If I am going to be drowned, if I am going to be drowned, if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far to contemplate sand and trees?"
He expected her to write something down on her pad like she always did when something he said something she felt had to be noted. Instead, her pen only hovered over the paper as she considered the words.
"That is interesting," she concluded.
He kept rubbing the tips of his fingertips with his thumb as if trying to brush it clean. "Interesting? I don't think I like the sound of that."
"You spent several days lost in the desert, Mr. McGee. Your one and only priority was to find water. So why do you think your mind is now leading to thoughts about having too much water?"
"The quote's not about drowning," he defended. He moved to rub his head and stared at her in frustration.
She calmly stared back. "Then what is it about?"