Comfortable Truths

Warm air brushes my face as the therapy machine opens.

I rise refreshed; each burr of tragic memory smoothed, each iniquity of neurochemistry balanced.

Attendants guide me past edges too soft to bruise, and wrap me in a chair that shields from all risk. The screen before me eases to life, bright enough yet not too bright.

And so I watch what I did to those children.

Without the cushion of familiarity.

Without the comfort of madness.

Until the horror shatters my mind again and the attendants carry me away.

Warm air brushes my face as the therapy machine opens.