False Facts
By Matt Lynch
The whole population of the world could fit in the state of Rhode Island.
This is according to the small book on the waiting room table. The book is called Factoids: The Book of False Facts. Among the other books on the table, this is the one I chose. I am the only one in the room.
The moon is made entirely of cheese.
People with darker eyes have better reflexes.
I wish this one were true. Maybe I could have reacted fast enough to grab any part of my life. Maybe I could have grabbed an extinguisher and put out the fire. Instead, I called 911 and rushed outside to watch my life burn before my eyes.
It seems like every step in a new direction leads me walking into a wall.
“Mr. Decoure,” the psychiatrist says. “I’m ready to see you now.”
I walk into the room and lie on the couch. It’s my first visit. The psychiatrist sits in the chair facing me. The camera in the corner close to the ceiling is pointed at the couch.
I ask what the camera is for.
Off camera, the psychiatrist says, “It’s so I can review our session.”
“Ok, so Mr. Decoure . . .” She ruffles through her papers. “Jordan. Correct?
Alright, so Jordan, what seems to be the problem.”
I tell her I’ve stopped having dreams
“And how long has this been happening?”
I tell her since the fire.
“The fire?” she asks.
I say yes. The fire. I just finished my junior year of college and moved into an apartment. It was my first night on my own, away from my parents. I had everything packed in one room. Everything was still in boxes when the fire started. My pictures, my writing notebooks, my computer—they were all in those boxes. Everything I had done in my life was burnt in that fire.
“And how did this fire make you feel?”
I say, pretty hot around the collar. The moon’s not the only thing made of cheese.
Off camera, the psychiatrist asks, “How long ago was the fire?”
I tell her it happened a week after my twenty-first birthday. About a year ago.
“What was your last dream about?”
I tell, look at how this looks. I tell her that in the dream, I’m in a pretty plain, generic-looking house. For some reason, I’m peeing on everything. I’m peeing on the carpets, the curtains, the counters; anything that isn’t peed on, I pee on. Someone walks in and asks if I heard anyone peeing. Of course, I have to say no. Then I wake up.
“What do you think this dream means?” the psychiatrist asks.
I tell her I know what Freud would say. He would say it means I have repressed feelings from an unfulfilled childhood and by pissing everywhere, it fulfills those unfulfillments.
I know Jung would say I'm tapping into an ancestral habit of marking my territory.
As for me, I don’t know what it means.
“It’s not that you can’t dream, Mr. Decoure,” she says. “It’s that you don’t dream.”
I think to Freud.
All I know is I’m twenty-two, and I’m living at home again. I’m not returning to college for my senior year, and I lost my past and my future to a fire
Maybe I’ll run away to Rhode Island, but isn’t running away at twenty-two just called growing up?
On camera, I ask, “Can I get a tape of this when we’re done?”
Off camera, the psychiatrist just nods her head.