PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

push in the right direction.   He is used to bringing
joy, and has almost forgotten how to deliver bad news.  I have made him
uncomfortable, I know it, and he shifts his weight about on the couch, trying
to settle.  I know he is wondering what might be wrong with me, and I see that
it is only now that he notices just how empty the black chair to the side of
him feels.  It is the chair of the husband, where the boy outside with his arms
crossed will take the choice to stand up and become something, or chose to live
with the albatross of an abandoned child hanging from his neck for the rest of
his life.  I believe he will do the right thing, but I cannot decide why.  I
can feel the doctor carrying on with his scan, and I dream about the boy
outside and wonder if I would feel better with him at my side as opposed to
nobody.  I wish Gregory was here, and I feel pathetic for wanting his
prescriptionary method of support.  A set of delicate fat fingers resting
absently on my arm as if I were a stranger. 
    The
doctor nudges me in the arm just forcefully enough to wake me from my
daydream.  He points to something flickering back and forth, a tiny little
switch going on and off, a wagging finger of judgment.  It is the heartbeat.  The
sounds, the gushhush gushhush of imminent life were alien and new to me.  But
the heartbeat looks as my own pulse feels.  It is a sensation of reality.  It
is only now that it is tangible to me that there is something moving inside of
me.  No matter what else was happening in the world, this little fish was
protected by nothing but my own mortal body which I had on occasion tried to
destroy.  This revelation was a chink of winter sunshine in an otherwise bleak
landscape of grey, the diamond in the tray of river mud, the first flower to
burst through the ground after a nuclear winter.  In new beginnings there is
always the first day, the first moment, the first drop of monsoon rain to
quench a barren landscape.  Maybe, for me this was it.
    On
the way home I stop the car because an urgent need to pee takes over everything
else.  I park in Glebe Road car park and use the facilities which are not
acceptable according to my usual standards, but I accept this change as part of
the pregnancy and my first sacrificial act as a mother.  There was no time to
clean the surfaces, so instead I try not to touch anything and fight back the
tears.  Afterwards I discard my gloves on the floor because no amount of
cleaning would be ever be enough for me to consider wearing them again.  I
cross the road and walk along the pavement which leads towards the town centre. 
The trees which line the roads are sparse, big giants stripped of their summer
frills, their leaves long since rotted into the ground and the spiders web of
branches glisten white like Narnia.  The lake is just visible through a shroud
of mist which has rolled in from the surrounding hills, a sleeping beast hiding
his might behind a hazy facade.  I hate this lake.  I hate its size.  I hate
its depth.  I hate its beauty, of which I am not unaware.  I hate the town’s
dependence upon it.  I despise the tourist crowd which flocks to it, riding
around on boats and water-skis as if it were a friend to be visited and enjoyed. 
I hate that I allowed it the chance to take my life, and I hate that I failed
to give myself to it.  I hate it because this was the last place he ever took
me.
    I
drop down on to the gravel path which abuts the lake like a poor excuse for a
beach and make my way through the pestering swans and moorhens, cawing at me to
feed them.  I pass the Old England Hotel on my left, originally beautiful but
now defaced by the surgical stoma bag attachment of a new wing, a necessary but
ugly appendage.  I cut up through Church Street and I feel the pull of my
lungs, their task made harder by the intruder in my womb.  I pull a new pair of
gloves from my bag and as I step inside the café, the heat is
overwhelming,