Alice wrings her hands together, the scars laced across her right palm glinting silver in the light each time they twist towards the window.
“Let’s stay with that moment,” I say in my gentlest therapist voice, resuming the bi-lateral movement of my index and middle fingers in front of her face. Her eyes glow like fire, tracking the rhythmical movements of my hand as they scan side-to-side in time with the clock on the wall. I’m lulled into a trance-like state myself.
My aim is not to make the memory go away. It’s to help her make sense of it, smooth it out and fold it neatly so that it can be stored away like other memories. Not stuffed into her brain in a crumpled mess so that it jumps out uninvited, full of unprocessed emotions and posing a threat in the here-and-now.
“The heat is intense now.” Alice says. “The air is so thick, it’s like crawling through treacle. I can taste the smoke. There are sirens in the distance, but they’re fading. It’s no use, I’m going to die and it’s all my fault.”
She starts to cry and a lump forms in my own throat. Everything looks black to me now too, but I can just make out the shape of her through the smoke. I crouch onto the ground beside her and reach out to touch her shoulder.
“Remember your updated thoughts, Alice. Let’s see if we can insert them in here. ‘I’m safe now. I did the best I could.’ Can you say them now?”
“I’m safe now. I did the best I could,” she says.
The smoke is choking me. I cough and splutter, sweat dripping down my back.
“Good,” I manage, feeling myself wilting.
“Now I’m reaching for the door handle…” Alice says.
“No!” I wheeze, dragging myself over to the door and placing my own hand over the handle.
I smell the burning, like bacon frying, before the pain sears through my hand. I rip it away from the handle, my flesh tearing. No sound comes out when I open my mouth. There is only pain. The smoke around Alice clears, and she slowly evaporates with it.
And then I’m back in the clinic, an open wound pulsing in my palm. What is that piercing, screeching sound?
As I inhale, the noise stops abruptly and I realise that it was my own scream. Alice sits across from me, stroking the smooth, unblemished skin on her hand. She looks up and a smile spreads across her face, her eyes shining with tears.
All around me flames dance, forked tongues lunging at me. But she doesn’t see them.
“Thank you!” she says, and skips out of the clinic, the burden lifted.
Flames engulf me.
