The Obituary Diary

DAY 3

*AUTHOR'S NOTE*

Hello there! This story follows a non linear narration form and has footnotes that are indicated with asterisks. I will be uploading chapters every Friday. In the meantime, feel free to comment anywhere through the existing text and don't forget to leave a vote if you enjoy it.  :)

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That awfully familiar silence prevailed. We didn't know each other. Introductions were still being made. Well, at least I was introducing myself a dozen times a day. She did it just that once in a single sentence.
"Hi, I'm Dr.Jones."

It had been three excruciating days since she spoke those words that painted a portrait of a 'trouble free me'. Three days later and the troubles still remain but eerily enough, that portrait's grown all the more vivid.

It's a ruse, if you ask me; a twenty first century gimmick to pacify the minds of the depressed, the anxious and the lonely. I'm all three of those things; that's why it seems to be working on me.

So, I sat there on a chair that was way too comfortable for comfort with wandering eyes trying to defeat the system with my super intellectual mind. Oh, everywhere I looked there was a trap just waiting to spring. There was this painting with way too many squiggly lines; a perfectly engineered device to force my jaw into motion. There was the lighting, orange and dim; almost romantic but it was actually a reminder of heart break and an inducer of tears. There was the holy cross set slightly crookedly to make Christ lovers speak up and say, "Doctor, your Son of God is tilted." It was also equally effective upon the 'I don't know if God exists' folk helping them voice their theological dilemmas.

All in all, there were more than a hundred tools to get a man rambling and there was one to make sure that he rambled and didn't engage in an intellectually fruitful conversation. That one was Dr.Jones herself. Oh yes, she had that intimidating 'You are a MAN!' aura just floating about her and it wasn't the kind you'd receive from a forty eight year old spinster. Nah, it was the kind you'd receive from a twenty seven year old, Harvard graduate with Miranda Kerr looks and an ability to dissect your words to leave you emotionally exposed. I don't know how I found myself in the midst of this but now that I had, I took it as a challenge: Show this bitch her place and you can show any bitch her place! 

A misogynist thought but it was just one of those myriad of traps to get me babbling. This one in particular was set for intellectual fools like me. 

"I sometimes think that our sexual nature is at a more profound level responsible for gender inequalities and the creation of our patriarchal society."

"Freud", she asked.

"No, I. Think about it. All women desire men who are more accomplished than them; who are older to them. Men on the other hand, desire women who are hot, sophisticated and younger. So, in the pursuit of attracting sexual mates, a man would strive to be the woman's definition of a desirable man and a woman would strive to be the man's definition of a desirable woman. This of course, has lead to the creation of what we know as gender inequality and the patriarchal system: Men who are highly accomplished and women who are less accomplished."

She adjusted her spectacles; an apparatus she used to take the attention off of her sexuality and place it precariously upon her intellect and it took just that slight movement to make me realize how ludicrous what I had just said was. I tensed in anticipation of her reply. She'd most definitely point out the logical fallacy in my idiocy. There was no doubt of it. I could already imagine her saying it. "Are you stupid? The patriarchal system is responsible for remodeling sexual desire in that form. Sexual desire isn't responsible for the patriarchal system. Dumb Nut!"

It was mortifying to just think about. If the words were spoken in reality, they'd turn me to cinder. She cleared her throat and I prepared myself to face the humiliation.

"Is that how you think", she asked and through those glasses that rimmed her eyes, I saw her blue gelid eyes penetrate to search my soul. 

"Umhhhh, well, sometimes... Sometimes I think otherwise", I said and after that, my tongue just retracted and refused to flap even on my insistence. I had to say something more! Those words by themselves were so stupid. But that darn tongue of mine. It wouldn't budge.

"I see. So, who is this girl who makes you believe that you need to accomplish more than her to have her?"

"Excuse me", I exclaimed out of disbelief. 

"Who is this girl", she repeated. Her browse through my soul had been completed. My deepest trouble had been detected. Interrogation now commenced.