The Session

                (A psychiatrist’s office.  DR. HELEN is with ANDREW.)

HELEN:  Well, Andrew, it appears as if this might be our last session.

ANDREW:  Yup.

HELEN:  I’m not sure what we could talk about, but—

ANDREW:  Actually, all I’d really like is…an apology.

HELEN:  An apology for what?

ANDREW:  Dr. Helen, what have you been treating me for?

HELEN:  Uh…well, a myriad of things—

ANDREW:  But mainly?

HELEN:  Uh, well—

ANDREW:  Paranoia, right?

HELEN:  Well…uh, yes.

ANDREW:  And…?

HELEN:  And…?

ANDREW:  I believe I’m owed an apology.

                (A beat.)

HELEN:  For being paranoid?

ANDREW:  Yes.

HELEN:  Andrew—

ANDREW:  Dr. Helen?

HELEN:  Your paranoia—

ANDREW:  Have I not been saying for the past two years that something terrible was going to happen to me?

HELEN:  You’ve had some irrational fears, yes.

ANDREW:  Oh, I don’t know if I’d call them irrational.  After all, a comet is coming right at us as we speak.

HELEN:  It might miss us.

ANDREW:  It won’t.  You may have tried to steer me away from my perfectly logical fears throughout the course of our relationship, Dr. Helen, but now I’m back on track.  I’m scared as hell and it feels really, really good.

HELEN:  Andrew, nobody could have predicted—

ANDREW:  What did I say on March 12^th of last year?

HELEN:  I really can’t—

ANDREW:  Luckily, I document all our sessions.

                (He takes a small notepad out of his pocket and flips to a certain page, then reads--)

“Discussed with Dr. Helen my fear of a comet hitting the Earth.”

HELEN:  Andrew, over the past two years, you’ve developed fears of everything a person could think of.  Spiders, snakes, elevators, furniture with legs—

ANDREW:  It looks like it’s going to crawl towards me.

HELEN:  --Joyce Carol Oates—

ANDREW:  Have you SEEN Joyce Carol Oates?  She looks like somebody locked Shelley Duvall in a dark closet for six years!

HELEN:  And yes, maybe one day, we talked about you having a fear of a comet hitting the Earth, but that doesn’t mean anything.

ANDREW:  I’m sorry, but is my psychiatrist actually telling me that something I feared means nothing.

HELEN:  In this case, yes.  The quantity of your fears as opposed to their actual content is what seems more relevant.

ANDREW:  But I was right.

HELEN:  Andrew—

ANDREW:  I was right about the comet.

HELEN:  That doesn’t make it any less rational of a fear.

ANDREW:  Of course it does!  It’s happening!

HELEN:  If you hit enough baseballs, eventually you’ll hit a homerun.

ANDREW:  I would never hit a baseball.  Or pick up a bat.  Do you know how many sports-related injuries there are every year?

HELEN:  If it makes you feel better to think that your paranoia was somehow justified, then that’s fine.  But what I was trying to do was help you to live a better life in spite of your fears.

ANDREW:  Well that’s never going to be possible again.  Even if this comet doesn’t hit, how can I ever truly relax again?  Knowing that pieces of space rock are just floating around up there waiting to come down and crush all of us?  It’s paralyzing.

HELEN:  Andrew, did I ever tell you how my husband died?

ANDREW:  No, but that’s probably because I don’t pay you to talk about yourself.

HELEN:  Indulge me.

ANDREW:  Fine, go ahead.

HELEN:  My husband died of an aneurysm a few years ago.  One day he was fine, the next day he was dead.  He was perfectly healthy.  We had a cruise planned.  Everything was fine, and then the world exploded.  That was it.

                (A beat.)

ANDREW:  Why on Earth would you tell me such a horrible story?

HELEN:  Because I want you to see that you really can’t predict or plan for anything, so you have to just live life in the moment.

ANDREW:  But—

HELEN:  Andrew, even now, in this moment—you’re sitting in your psychiatrist’s office talking to me instead of going out and doing something with what might be your last few hours alive.

ANDREW:  Then why are you here?

HELEN:  Because I care about you, and I knew everything that was going on would unnerve you, so I agreed to come in for a special session, even though it’s the weekend, and I’d, honestly, rather be doing anything else than listen to you talk about how your landlord is poisoning you using the air vents in your apartment.

ANDREW:  So you do think I’m right about that?

HELEN:  Andrew, you have to make the most of the time you have left.

ANDREW:  What if I don’t want to?

HELEN:  Then go home and—I can’t even imagine what it is you do when you’re not here.  We rarely talk about it.

ANDREW:  Mostly I just watch the Food Network and try not to breathe too much.

HELEN:  Okay, then do that, if it’s really what you want to do.

ANDREW:  It’s not what I want to do.  It’s all I can do without panicking.

HELEN:  But why panic?  The worst is over.  The world is going to end.  You’re free, Andrew.  You don’t have to worry anymore.  You are going to die.  Just like we’re all going to die, just like we’ve always known we were all going to die, it’s just that now we have the details.  So what do you have to be afraid of now?

                (A beat.)

ANDREW:  I don’t know what to…I wouldn’t even know where to start.  I mean, being somebody else—than, you know, who I’ve been.

HELEN:  Go outside.  Go anywhere outside.  Hell, walk to a gas station and just sit on the curb for a few hours.  Look at people.  Be around them.  Try throwing yourself into humanity for a little while and see if it does you any good.  I think it will.  Once you do that, you don’t have to plan.  I mean, you can if you want to, but…Even if we get lucky this weekend, there are going to be other comets.

ANDREW:  My whole life has been comets.  One after another.

HELEN:  I’ll tell you what—if furniture ever starts walking, I give you permission to lock yourself away in a room somewhere and never come out.  Or I could just have you committed, whichever’s easier.

ANDREW:  Promise?

                (She smiles.)

I’m a real pain in the ass, aren’t I?

HELEN:  Fear is the only thing that stops most people from being who they could be.  I was afraid for a long time too, after my husband died.

ANDREW:  So what did you do?  Fling yourself into humanity?

HELEN:  No, I just…thought about what I was really off—that time might be running out, and instead of letting it cripple me, I thought—Well, I’d better get moving.

                (A moment.)

ANDREW:  Thank you.

HELEN:  Hey, that’s what you pay me for.

ANDREW:  Not nearly enough though, right?

HELEN:  Oh God, not NEARLY enough.

                (She laughs.  He smiles.)