The Wrong Fit: A Short Story
WORDS BY KIERAN THORNTON.
Patrick sat hunched over, elbows tucked into his lap, and one leg bouncing up and down. He wasn’t sure why it was bouncing; that’s just what it did.
The man in the chair opposite wore royal blue trousers, a pale pink shirt, a tie, and a look of smug comfortability to match the framed certificates on the wall behind his desk. He was also wearing socks with smiling cartoon airplanes, advertising him as professional, but not averse to a good time.
‘Good morning, Mr. Treedt. How can I help you?’
Patrick chewed his lip. The bouncing intensified. The man leaned forward, creating a sense of closeness. Patrick had seen it a hundred times on a hundred people; this man wasn’t even the first to wear whimsical socks while doing it. Patrick decided to let the question breathe a while, to see what the man would do next.
‘Don’t be nervous,’ the man said, predictably.
That was when Patrick knew his questions would not be answered today or ever in this office. He sighed and began the same way he always did.
‘You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I get this feeling sometimes. Like parts of me aren’t mine.’
The man nodded, writing something down in his notes waiting for him to continue. Patrick half smirked, watching the man’s hand trace the four letters he could spot from a mile away.
‘It’s hard to talk about.’ Patrick paused, furrowing his brow. He felt the scar on his forehead drifting towards the centre. ‘Ever spent the day building something? Or just working on the house?’
‘I have vague recollections,’ the man said, easily, ‘I don’t see my apartment enough to bother doing much work on it.’
‘Well, you can be completely fine all day, but, afterwards, there’s always a cut or a scratch you didn’t notice at the time.’
The man nodded.
‘You don’t know how you got it and you didn’t feel it until you saw it, but now that you have, you can’t notfeel it. That’s how I feel all the time. That’s all I ever feel.’
The man stopped writing and rested two fingers on his lips, narrowing his eyes as though riveted by every word. Patrick already knew what he would say.
‘How old were you when you first had these feelings?’
‘I’ve always had them,’ Patrick said, hollowly. ‘I just didn’t always know it wasn’t normal to feel this way.’ His other leg began to bounce alongside the first. That dreaded, familiar, closed in feeling started to come over him. Patrick pulled the sleeves of his jumper up to his elbows. The tattoos beneath his thick arm hair were his whimsical socks, or they would be if they were really his.
The man noticed his discomfort and gestured to the glass of water on the table between them.
‘These feelings. Did they start in one place and spread over time? Or has it always been like this?’
Patrick rolled his eyes at the question but drank deeply.
‘Neither,’ he answered. ‘It just happens, and I have to try and hide it. When I’m walking home from the store and my hands are suddenly larger and hairier than I’ve ever seen, I still have to let them carry my bags. When I get out of bed and find myself standing on feet I’ve never seen before, I have to walk on them like I’ve had them all my life.’
The questions continued as the minute hand ran its lap. When the end was drawing near and the man said, ‘I understand this must be hard for you, Patrick, but I have one or two more questions I’d like to ask before we finish for today.’
Patrick caught his breath or tried to. His hands were shaking, and the framed certificates were coming closer. He could even make out the fine print.
‘Yes,’ he said, preemptively, ‘I’ve thought about it.’
‘I didn’t ask you the question.’
‘You didn’t have to. We both know what you were about to ask, and I’ve already answered it a hundred times.’
‘But never to me, Patrick. These are important questions. Please. Have you ever considered trying to perform an amputation on yourself?’
‘Not anymore,’ Patrick said after a pause. ‘I used to think that, if they weren’t there at all, they couldn’t change.’
‘What stopped you?’
Patrick’s palms were wet with sweat. ‘I knew they still would.’
The man wrote a final note on his page then looked up at him with an assuring smile.
‘Well, Patrick, thank you for your honesty. We’ll need to investigate this further, run some tests, but-’
Patrick laughed. It was like a bark, filled with derision.
‘Just say it! Tell me I’ve got BIID, just like the rest of them did.’
The man cleared his throat and shuffled his notes. ‘Body integrity identity disorder is certainly a possibility, based on what you’ve described to me.’
‘That’s what they said. Only that’s not what this is!’
Patrick got, uneasily, to his feet and stomped around to the back of the armchair and leaned over it, gripping the backrest with ruthless force. His whole body was shaking. Any minute now, he thought. A tear fell on to one of the tattoos.
‘What occupation is listed in your notes?’ he stammered through tightly shut eyes.
‘It doesn’t say. Mr. Treedt, would you please sit back down?’
Patrick didn’t.
‘I do nothing!’ he shouted, feeling faint. ‘I sit at home. I haven’t been able to find a steady job in years. No one wants to hire a man who screams out of nowhere because his hands are wrong and drops whatever he’s holding; they tell you you’re a liability. I’m as scared as ever, but now I’m broke, too.’ The final sign came upon him, that cold trickle down his spine, and his breath caught in his chest. ‘So what makes you think you can sit there, staring at me, when I’ve just paid you everything I have, asking the same questions I’ve been asked by every other quack and give me the same goddamn answer they all did!’
~
At his desk, late in the night, the man in the woolen jumper took his fingers away from the keys and leaned back, once again feeling that sense of deep dissatisfaction. No matter what he did, no matter how many different versions he tried, he could never quite connect to Patrick. The character never felt right. He took a sip of cold, stale-tasting, coffee and rubbed his eyes. That’s when it hit him. In short bursts of clacking keys, the scar on Patrick’s forehead slid down, over his lip. He paused for a moment, placing his fingers to his mouth, thinking hard. After a moment, he smiled and continued to make changes.
~
‘I just wish someone would make the effort to understand, not just tick boxes until they find one to throw me into.’ Patricia was back in the armchair, sitting still now that the change had passed. With a ruby-red fingernail, she brushed away the tears trickling down towards the scar over her lip.
There was silence. Their session was long over.
‘I understand,’ said the therapist in a much softer voice. She wore royal blue trousers, a pale pink silk shirt, and a scarf with smiling cartoon airplanes.
Patricia stared at her through drying eyes and thought, finally, that she really did.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2020.