"Case file 402, session 29. Subject; Piper Ali."Dr Pepper murmurs into the tape recorder and looks up at his patient.
He'd known she'd be a difficult one, this one. From the set of her chin the first day she'd walked in, he'd known. What he didn't know then was just how difficult.
"You said you had something urgent to tell me?" Dr. Pepper asks.
"Yes doctor." she replies in a flat tone.
"Is anything the matter?" he asks, careful to mask the note of worry that had creeped into his voice with one of fatherly concern.
"There's a hole where my tooth used to be. There's a hole where my heart used to be."
There's silence, "and..?" He prompts, carefully keeping his face neutral even though what she'd just said had left him puzzled.
"And nothing." she replies in that disturbing monotone.
Dr. Pepper releases an inaudible sigh, this is not how I want to start the week Lord. After 28 sessions, he'd made no headway with this one. What will it take to get you to crack young one?
***
To be continued. Or not... 