Notions

He was attending a medical appointment when it happened.

Although he knew that he was there for a psychiatric evaluation, he had no idea what form it would take. He was ushered into the psychiatrist’s room, given a seat and asked to wait. The room looked surprisingly bare, with very little on the walls. The desk in front of him had a laptop that was turned away, a large notepad and several pens. It all seemed pretty basic. He was taking it all in when the psychiatrist entered, apologising for the delay. After explaining that the session would consist of an extensive list of questions, it was suggested that he relax, make himself comfortable and answer all questions as truthfully as possible.

With that, he began to read questions from the computer’s screen, use the mouse to click somewhere, with occasional handwritten notes being made. The questions went on and on, to the point where he was hardly keeping up with them. This had been going on for some time when a man wearing a white laboratory coat suddenly appeared and stood behind the psychiatrist, who seemed to ignore him completely.

He was staring at this strange figure when he realised that the man’s coat had a number of blood stains and that he was holding a very large knife, also bloodstained. As he looked on, he saw the man hold the knife out horizontally to the side of the psychiatrist’s head, then he used the tip to quickly poke his cheek. At this point, the psychiatrist slapped his cheek, as though he was batting off a fly. At that moment the man with the knife seemed to evaporate.

The patient was taking all this in when he became aware of the questioner raising his voice.

The man said, “Sorry, what did you say?”

The other frowned. “The question was; do you ever get the notion that you can see things that aren’t really there?”

“Of course not,” came the reply.