Excerpts
Best Practices in Desensitization
I’ve spied in their pitying, pitiful eyes they think my fear irrational, but they don’t dare call me irrational.
Before the mandatory leave of absence, I was an adjuster of insurance claims. I traveled around, kept myself stoic as folks sobbed their tales of what they had seen. But they relayed only half-truths. After witnessing the most miraculous occurrences, such spectacular devastation, I’ve pieced together the whole of it.
I am not irrational.
I’ve surveyed the remains of a home carted through the sky, a discarded dollhouse once the tornado took notice of the man sprinting for a ditch. He perished from a six-story drop, but only after the cyclone had played a bit, danced him about, lashed him to ribbons.
I reported all this to my supervisors.
My agency has denied multiple claims from Frederick Industries in midtown. People blown right off the roof. The height of surrounding structures created a unique “tunnel effect,” with the resulting airstream catching roof smokers off-guard. In essence, the gusts simply enjoyed making paper dolls of us.
I reported all this to my supervisors.
And they, in turn, prescribed time off, bought me this balloon ticket, and sent me up into the air to face my fears. Desensitization therapy.
I huddled low, quaking in the basket as the pilot quoted platitudes for nervous passengers. He wouldn’t deign look down at me. He chewed his mustache, tapped the gauges, and administered roaring thrust into the scarlet and gold envelope.
The beau and his sweetheart did their best to ignore my whimpers. They retreated into themselves to salvage the sunset’s romance. The breezes threaded a comb through the girl’s blond locks and traced the side of her throat. I saw it.
A merciless blast rocked us. And again. The sweetheart pulled into her beau. I clawed the wicker. As the pilot fought the ballasts, the wind kicked us sharply upward. And he, caught off-guard, sailed out into the aureate.
The stress management specialist the agency assigned recommended substituting a relaxation response during fearful stimuli. Counter-conditioning therapy. Such techniques, however, were quite wasted on the lovers.
“Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.”
“Do something! What do we fucking do?”
A chill penetrated the basket, a reasoning, an enticement. The wind seized upon the beau. He flailed, grasped nothing, and was stolen away.
“You did it. You fucking did it. You pushed them!” That’s all the sweetheart could think to say.
Her hair whipped across her face; my fingers clasped her ankles. An airy kiss placed upon her cheek; my arm to block her kicking.
And the burnt-gold sky accepted its toy. Them all, rather than me.
This lone survivor would eventually crash-land. Too frightened to reach the burner, I would wait until the fuel ran out. When my supervisors read my report, they would look upon me with pitying, pitiful eyes. Wouldn’t they now see? Paper dolls, all of us.
They would not think my fear irrational. They would not dare call me irrational.
I am not irrational.
