Phobia

John Welks was in a car, driving. The city lights blurred past him.

He eventually reached an impressive-looking house, with trees on either side and vines that crawled up its walls. There were, surprisingly, no flowers. Red clouds hung overhead, the sun peeping over it. Dusk.

John pulls over, and buzzes himself in.

A man is sitting on a chair, fingers steepled, and eyes closed. They open slowly, and his voice is low, hard, cold.

‘You came early’.

Good, thinks John, What I need right now is not sympathy.

John smiles giddily, and the doctor makes a sweeping motion towards the futon.

‘Seat yourself.’

John does so, and this brings him eye-level with the psychiatrist. His eyes are a funny shade of grey-blue-green. They would have been charming, had they not been devoid of emotion. John chuckles nervously.

The doctor tears his gaze away from the file sitting next to him, distracted by the sound.

‘ I am scared of spiders’, says John, ‘Not their appearance, it’s just the way they move. With eight legs, you know, and all that. My childhood home would have spiders in unwanted places.’

‘I was informed,’ says the doctor, ‘Of your little problem. This treatment…is physical. I require you to sign a paper.

A sheet is passed over the table.

‘You’re giving me a gag order?’

‘Obviously.’

This guy is crazy.

John pulls a pen out of his breast pocket, and hesitates. Signs anyway.

He returns the paper.

‘This treatment is called flooding, or desensitization. If you are exposed to something you are afraid of for a prolonged period of time, you eventually understand that there is nothing to be afraid of.’

A spider is crawling up into his pocket, John notices. Cold sweat breaks down his back, and he trembles. The doctor gives him a small, cruel smile, and stalks over behind John’s chair. He manages to get a glimpse of a glass cube, filled up to the brim with giant, hairy things. Their eyes goggle at him, pincers clicking. John wants to run, but he stays where he is. His legs have lost all feeling in them, and now he’s breathing through his mouth.

‘Try not to wriggle too much,’ says the doctor softly, ‘They may bite.’

And he upends the cube.