Crazy

“I keep seeing…” The man stopped and shook his head side to side knowing what he was about to say was crazy, but he had to say it anyway. He had been coming to this doctor for the past few months slowly opening up to his psychiatrist about his inner demons and fears. This dull lit office with a light blue painting around the walls had become his home away from home where he felt somewhat safe, if not crazy at the same time. “I keep seeing a bull. Every time I dream, it is there constantly chasing me. Anytime it gets close I wake up, but I feel this incredible amount of dread wash over me as if something is still right around the corner waiting for me. I know it’s crazy”

“Brandon, like I have said in our last appointment, you are not crazy. What you feel is what you feel. I’m just here to interpret it, and find a way to help you move on from your fears and possibly confront them. You’ll get through this.” The doctor reached out to comfort her patient by gingerly placing her hand on his shoulder as he clearly looked stressed. She was a veteran at this sort of thing and had seen plenty of people dealing with different stress and anxiety disorders much like she has seen here.

“I know people say that dreams have meaning, what would this represent then? Does it mean something, should I take a literal meaning from it?” Brandon asked, almost begging for a response from his doctor as he sat back even deeper in the comfy grey fabric couch inside her office.

The good doctor took a second to respond. She took a deep breath as she pondered his question, the deeper meaning of a bull. She felt as if it played to his growing anxiety and the fear of being watched at all times. She thought that there had to be a root to that fear that spurned all of this some time ago.

“Bulls have typically represented, or symbolic of determination or strength. Even courage. In your case, I would say it would represent determination.”

“Yeah I don’t feel very courageous.” Brandon chuckled much to the delight of his doctor.

“Well, that’s a rare sight. A laugh.” The doctor smiled.

“I’m just stating the obvious. I’m terrified to leave my own home, to open my door nor even look out a window. I feel like something is always lurking in the darkness.” Brandon explained as he took a stern look back at his doctor. The doctor didn’t see hope or a glint of happiness. Just despair and the absence of light. He was truly terrified.

The doctor began to think of a way to treat him more appropriately. Stronger medicines for sleep so he wouldn’t have dreams that would disturb him so greatly, or even anti-depressants. She knew she had to get him to a point where he could have a semblance of a normal life. He may even need both, she thought. She twirled her pen back and forth on her steno pad as she thought what to do. Previous patients had success with a cocktail of the two medicines in combination with one another, so she wrote a prescription for both. She ripped the script from her pad and handed it to Brandon.

“It’ll be okay. I give you my word on that, and you will beat this. There is no one out there trying to get you, otherwise, how would you be able to make it to these appointments? If someone or something was truly out there around every corner like you feel like there is, you wouldn’t be here. Right?” She spoke confidently as she peered hopefully into his eyes.

Brandon took the script for medicine from his doctor and thought about what she brought to his attention. Self doubt began to creep in as he had never thought about his ability to still make these appointments. Sure, his paranoia is always heightened to the max on the way from his low end apartment of one in a beat down part of the neighborhood into this village center that housed her office, but he was always able to do it.

“Maybe I am just that crazy, right doc?” Brandon sighed in defeat over his issues.

“No. It’s just brainwaves and chemistry. I don’t believe any one individual is truly crazy.”

“That’s why you get paid the big bucks, huh?” He spoke softly as he tucked the script away in his pocket and noticed the clock and how his time was almost up.

“Anything else you’d like to touch on before you go?” She asked as she also noticed the time around her wrist laid an expensive gold watch that she would always be able to sneak a look at as she jotted down endless notes on her patients.

“Why a bull? I can’t wrap my head around that.” Brandon wondered.

“Again, I would assume it speaks to how persistent and determined this feeling of being watched and hunted for so long. It’s bullish. So it has become this very literal symbol of a bull in your mind. It is rather fascinating if you ask me.” The doctor admitted.

Brandon gave a half smile in response and waved goodbye as he went for the exit from the wonderfully dull office. As she walked down the hallway exiting from her office he chuckled to himself at the notion that his mind, more importantly the symbol of this bull haunting him, was fascinating to a doctor. He knew she cared for his wellbeing but the idea that something that was so terrifying to him was fascinating to a doctor, was a bit frustrating to him. Shortly after that thought had left his mind, he would then realize he was back in the open. He felt his heart beat rising slightly but remembered her words and tried to remain calm.

Brandon went for the medicine at his local pharmacy and from there headed back to his beat up apartment in downtown Baltimore. It was hard for him to hold a job, almost impossible even, for a long period of time so this was the best he could do. The appointments with his doctor was a difficult expense to swallow but he had to in order to feasibly get better. He closed the red door behind him leading out to a hallway where he could always hear other tenants playing music, not super loud, but enough to be a bit of a disruption. He also was lucky enough to be on the top floor which helped a bit. No one bothered to call the cops over it as it just became a bit of ambiance to their shithole. He went to his kitchen to unbox his medicine and left them there for him to take before he slept.

With everything done for the day, Brandon felt it necessary to unwind and mindlessly watch television to help ease his mind and hopefully drift off to sleep. He found some reruns of some network show that everyone deems so popular on and turned the volume up just loud enough to drone out the music from the hallway and got comfortable in his La-Z-Boy reclining chair. Slowly but surely he would drift off into a sleep.

In his nap he had begun to have similar dreams all over again. He felt the panic and anxiety slipping back in as he navigated his dream state. In pure darkness he felt something lurking behind it all, something familiar. That freaking bull, he thought. His heartbeat had begun to elevate and his palms felt sweaty while his breathing all picked up. This all caused him to wake up from a brief nap but all of those feelings persist even after he had woken up. In his apartment he felt like he was being watched and began to look around. He checked the kitchen, across from his living room and found nothing. The bathroom, nothing. Finally his bedroom and again nothing. His breathing regulated as he once again heard his doctor’s words ringing in his head. He tried to calm himself only to be interrupted by the sound of feet galloping slowly behind him. He couldn't believe it, and outright refused to believe the sound and turned to face it.

“What in the world?” Brandon gasped as his voice was trembling much like his body as he was face to face with that familiar bull he had kept seeing in his dreams.

The bull was dark, almost demonic. It had black fur that seemed to devour anything around it, sucking it all into a void along with small brown horns above his leering bright red eyes that saw straight through Brandon. The bull was massive, much bigger than what he remembered from his dreams. The reality of how a bull could appear in his apartment and not destroy everything in its wake dawned on Brandon for a second, but then it disappeared only to be filled back up by pure fear. He was motionless, everything inside of him wanted to run from the situation but he kept thinking, how do you run from a bull? Brandon made a motion to his left and the bull lowered his head like it was readying to charge him, he swore when the bull lowered it’s head he saw smoke billow out from its nostrils. Brandon took a deep breath and with all of his strength and courage he tried to beat his fear to run past the bull and out the red door.

Brandon took off in an instant only to be met with an insane force unlike anything he has ever felt in his sternum. The bull had pushed him back and out of his bedroom window falling all the way down to the street outside of his apartment complex. The impact against the concrete was loud as onlookers came up to him in shock. One of his neighbors looked up to where he fell from and saw nothing.

“Is it still there?” Brandon asked as he began to cough up blood and struggled to talk much less breath from his injuries.

“What? There's nothing up there?” The neighbor spoke in shock.

“But the bull?” Brandon pondered.

Brandon’s final moments on that dirty road were filled with confusion. He looked up at his apartment window expecting to still see the billowing smoke coming from the bull that had just pushed him. Instead, he saw absolutely nothing and at that moment he realized he hadn’t taken his medicine. He could hear the sound of an ambulance coming as sirens were blaring in the distance but he knew his time had come, and with it came clarity. He was crazy after all.