3 man of smoke

"I'm sure they want the best for you," Quinton says with a new smile. Her next sentence is stopped before it begins with a pull on the door handle behind the patient. Vaelyn and Quinton both look over to the door as it draws open and reveals an older man in a suit striding inside. Vaelyn watches him as he passes her, his black hair sticking in place unlike the wrinkles over his cheeks. He gives Quinton a few gentle pats, whispering in her ear eagerly, and rises again to stand behind her. She gives Vaelyn a final, dismissive smile as she picks her binder up quickly and stands to be replaced. Vaelyn watches her as she leaves, pulling on a few strands of her hair until the door gently closes behind Quinton.

The man fixes his suit and lowers himself roughly into the seat where Quinton had been. His presence brings chills through Vae's body as if a ghost were to climb through her chest, and her eyes lock on the man she's seen only a few times before. He stares quietly, observing Vae with interest, and allows a heavy silence to flood the room. He reaches his hand into the inside of his suit.

Giving the inner pocket a few light tugs, he pulls out a small box the size of his palm. He flips the top of the box open and reveals a dozen cigarettes inside. Vaelyn stares at him curiously, unsure of how the man is allowed to smoke in a facility prohibiting the use of cigarettes. Her eyes widen at the idea of his importance to the hospital, and even more at the idea that he's speaking to her. He hasn't let his lips part since he entered the room.

He pulls a cigarette from the box and holds it to his lips, putting the rest back into his suit. His other hand slides out with a lighter to replace the box.

"You're not supposed to-"

He ignites the lighter with a firm flick, sending a small flame to burn the edge of the cigarette. Vaelyn gives up her attempt to stop him as he inhales his first gust. She cowers under her arms, uncomfortable from his lack of introduction, and watches as the cigarette burns. He blows the last of the smoke out into the air, thickened from the silence, and inhales before finally speaking up to her.

"They called you off today," he starts. She stares in silence. He takes another inhale from the death wish in his hand, and waves it with his arm as he tries to get her attention. "Did you hear me?"

"What are you talking about?" Vae growls. Her words are quick and sharp, her defense rising as she realizes this man is sealed within this room with her. Over the years of complying to the many rules of the facility, she's recognized that nearly all of the hospital's staff have their own rules, too. One of them is to keep the patients safe and as comfortable as possible -- he's already broken one.

"They haven't told you yet, but you're discharged already. They're just keeping you a couple of days more so they can finalize your statistics after forcing you to walk in circles for three years," he says, following another deep inhale. She ponders in the dark of her knees, the smoke crawling beneath her glasses.

"Walking in circles?"

Exhale.

"Come on, you can't tell me you've learned something, have you? I've seen every session to date, and your attitude is level with the first time we met you," he coughs, leaning back into his chair. Vae shifts in her seat.

"Personality isn't the same as maturity," Vae tells him. He gives her a disheartening look, asking her with a silent stare if she meant what she said.

"They're in the same boat, kid," he wipes off the scattered pieces of ash on the table, "Do you believe you've matured in this experience?"

Vae dozes off into her own memories of the past years and gets lost in the many nights she's spent writing off into her notebook. Her emotions have poured into every night as they are scattered in the day. Her words freeze with the schedule of each and every day as she loses herself in the repetition of one goal: get better. She still isn't sure if she's reached her goal. Her life has dozed off with her thoughts as she mindlessly swallows pills of demand and obedience into her system.

"Yeah," she says to herself more than she answers to him.

Exhale.

"Hm, I guess we'll find out," he says. Vae stares up at him through the thin layer of smoke, biting her cheek in frustration. She's curious to know what this man has hidden inside of him to tell his patients that everything they've gone through has been for nothing. "We normally do after we meet the patient again a few weeks later. I guess some things can't be cured."

"What the hell do you want from me?" Vae asks him, her voice in full volume. He gazes at her surprisingly, as if she just stabbed him under the table, and laughs under his breath. He takes in another hit, the last from the cigarette that burns in his fingers, clutched to its demise in his grasp.

"Just asking some aftercare questions for reflection," he says.

"I'm not answering you," she bites back.

"You're really trying to stay, aren't you? I thought you've learned that showing this kind of behavior adds more days to your calendar," he says pitifully.

"I have every right to be this way. You're treating me like I'm incurable," she tells him. She grips harder onto her knees, her inner peace floating off with the smoke above a pile of ash.

"Do you know how many patients claim to be ready to take on the world again, Vaelyn?" He asks her in the same volume. He stares, spinning the last of the cigarette into the table.

"I'm sure there are plenty," she answers, lowering her voice again in fear. Her confidence is falling with the ashes.

"Do you know how many don't come back because their illnesses got the best of them?" He continues, a little more firmly.

Vaelyn cowers. "This still isn't what I was expecting by 'aftercare questions'."

"I'm asking you these questions because I want to see you safe," he leans forward and weaves his fingers together, "I don't mean to scare you, but you should be a little scared. I want you to be thinking about what your life will be like when you walk out those doors. Have you thought of that?"

Vaelyn freezes, staring into the pile of ash sitting above the silver tray.

"The idea of freedom might scare you, too. I know it does for some people. If you had complete control, what would you accomplish? Would you be able to conquer anything without a guiding hand?" He continues to ask her, feeding her questions that aren't meant for her to answer out loud. This experience wasn't for him or his statistics.

"I don't know," she answers back softly. He observes her posture throughout the conversation and realizes it hasn't moved by an inch.

"Are you scared of the world you're facing, or are you scared of yourself?" He asks softly. He leans back, finished with his wave of questions that have answers obscured in a mental haze. Vaelyn is left confused, shaking her head as she tries to process what he's saying. She didn't expect to be interrogated so boldly this morning. The weekly morning routine of meeting with Miss Quinton has come to an end, even if Vaelyn didn't want it to, and another stranger has replaced her to ruin the final moments they had together. If she's leaving so soon, Vaelyn doesn't know when she'll get to see Quinton again.

"I'm not scared of anything," Vaelyn assures him. He furrows his brows with doubt.

"If you're so sure of that, then why do you always sit like that in these sessions? You always hide under your knees and talk like you're afraid to answer anything we ask you," he shrugs to her. She looks at her knees, level with her eyes, and looks back at him with a glare.

"I'm in here for a reason, aren't I? You're really asking the wrong person about fear," Vaelyn suggests gently. He watches her as she lowers her feet onto the ground, slipping from the edge of the chair. "I am a subject. You ask me questions so you can write down what medications you need to give me. You put me with people who have the same symptoms and wait for those drugs to kick in. You expect everyone to get better in the same way, and you hope they'll be fine enough so you can charge them a pretty penny for your services. Have you ever had your parents tell you they're in debt because of your illnesses? Have you ever been a burden in the life of someone else? You're not in this for me, you've got your own life to live. You're just hoping everything you've put me through will pay off in cash."

He takes in everything she said with a bite to his cheek. He nods, thinking over her abrupt thoughts as they finally find their way out of the passing smoke.

"It's not just the medication that's helping you, Vaelyn. It's the shift in atmosphere and the change of your environment. Humans are made to adapt in order to survive, but sometimes, they lack to manage in certain places. There's nothing wrong with that. That struggle can easily be hidden under your own shadow, if that's where you best handle it. But see, if you walk out of this place just to return to the same environment where you struggled to keep yourself well, are you really going to use anything you've learned in the past three years? The challenges you've faced in this facility were made for you, not for your life outside of it. When I ask if you're afraid of yourself, I'm not just asking about your health," he explains in detail.

Vaelyn holds the edge of the table with her palms. "What is it you're asking me, then?"

"I'm asking about your demand for greater," he crosses his arms, "I'm looking for that moment when you realize that you deserve better than what you were given before you came here."

Vaelyn stays silent, listening closely to his words as they nest into her mind. He continues with another exhale, the first without a trail of smoke to follow it.

"You were admitted for an attempt of suicide, Vaelyn, three years ago. You felt that the place you were living in hadn't helped you show your worth. I'm not saying it hasn't, but what if it didn't get better if you went back? You're not here because you're crazy. You're not here because you can't function. You're a very intelligent human being," he starts to rise from the chair, "You're in here because the life you lived wasn't one you wanted to continue."

Vaelyn nods quietly, admitting to the reality of the assumption. She wasn't defined by her illness, and there will never be a time when she is. She has a greater purpose than to be labeled like a pill bottle with a sticker. He stands behind his chair, gripping the top of it as he explains the value of her escape from her own mental prison.

"When I ask if you're afraid of the world, I want to know if you'll travel far enough to find the place where your worth is at its greatest. It's a huge world out there, and it isn't controlled like it is in here. I want to know if you'll find the place where you are in control," the man tells her. He pulls another item from his pocket, this time from the outside, and tosses a card onto the table. She looks down at the card, then back up to him.

"I'm in control," she assures him quietly, her posture comfortable for the first time in the conversation. He walks past her, reaches for the handle of the door, and pushes it down to drag it open. He looks at her patiently, shrugging another time with a gentle smile.

"Prove it," he says, eyeing the card that was thrown in front of her. She glances at the card as its aluminum-colored face gleams back from the light of the ceiling. She picks it up, observing the dark, bold letters that tell her she has been discharged next to her name and the face of her younger self when she arrived.

"Since when did hospitals give their patients identification cards?" She asks him, looking up to find nothing at his place. The door is cracked, left for her to leave, but the man she spoke to has vanished beyond it faster than the smoke he left behind his breaths. Vaelyn jumps out of her chair and slides through the opening. She swiftly spins her body around, looking for him in every direction he could've walked off into, but loses him in the overwhelming reality in her hand. She raises the card to her eyes and flips it a few times in admiration. As its lamination shines from the rows of the ceiling lights that bathe the walls in ivory, it holds the chance for Vaelyn to finally chase the sun of a sky that holds more color than the white of idle clouds.