"You’re a psychology grad who wants to apply their knowledge in the field. You need a subject and realize that the most accessible mind is your own."
Provided by a reddit user: CJaiK
Image courtesy of @rocking-dave
“Have you ever really tried what you preach, doctor Verus?” I was getting tired of the conversation with my assigned psychoanalyst, who happened to also be my long-time working partner. “I mean really, really tested it out?” I approached the cell bars as much as I could while still sitting down. “Tell me, doctor Verus,” I leaned back in my chair–I spoke sassily as ever. “Do you really think you know what’s going on in your patients’ minds?” I looked at the two guards beside Verus. “You don’t. You don’t know.” I got up from my chair and walked away from the bars slowly. “You go on and on and on and on about what to do and how to do it and when to do it, and… The truth is, Verus, you have no idea. You have no idea what actually works and what doesn’t. You know what you are, doctor Verus?” I approached the bars again. “A walking textbook.” I stared exactly in his eyes, expecting a reaction of any kind.
“Can we get back to the point, please, Iprus?” He replied, as calm as a rock. “Why did you kill Sarah?”
I laughed. “Silly. I told you already. I wanted to get inside a murderer’s head.” I got back up from the chair again and started walking up and down my cell. “To know what a murderer thinks like, so, you know, I could help with other investigations better.” I made a sudden turn on my heels and looked him directly in the eyes. “Except you don’t know, do you? You only know what you’ve read in those little books of yours.” I approached the bars very closely yet another time and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I’ll let you in on a little secret about those books, doctor Verus,” then yelled into his ear at the top of my lungs. “They all suck!” I stormed off away from the bars again. “You’ll never understand the real thing if you only read about it. You need to implement it into your own life. You need to live it. You hear me, doctor Verus? You need to become one with it! Become it! To understand the killer you need to become the killer! To understand a–“
“Enough!” He shouted as loud as he could, forcing me to stumble back onto my chair. “I’m giving you your last chance, Iprus. Don’t screw it up.” He took a deep breath and exhaled fully before continuing.
I was the best psychoanalyst of the country’s police department before I got arrested and charged with murder.
I have forever been the person who didn’t satisfy himself with just okay. I always took it one step further and wanted to do it flawlessly. In terms of psychoanalysis and police work that meant I was to construct the perfect mental profile of the criminal we were looking for and find them–which I did. Every single time.
I wasn’t like the other psychoanalysts who only studied the criminal’s actions from afar with a notepad and a pan in their hands. I have always considered myself as more of an actor than a doctor. I was given a role and my job was to study it, learn it, and ultimately become it. I considered myself a vessel into which you could have transplanted the mind of anyone and then studied it in detail–which meant I was hardly ever myself. If ever at all.
No matter how hard I tried to deny it and fight against it, I was losing contact with reality. I didn’t know who I was anymore, couldn’t tell right from wrong, and couldn’t snap out of character the way I used to. Fiddling around with my own mental health had finally taken its toll and I knew it.
“From the start,” Verus started after a brief pause, again very calmly. “We both know you knew who the killer was before you killed Mary, so why did you do it?”
“I wanted to know how he thinks. That’s all.” I answered calmly that time around.
“God damn it, Iprus, you know that’s bullshit! You were already inside his head! Else you couldn’t have identified him!”
“But it’s true,” I continued. “I wanted to know if it changed anything. I wanted to know if I was missing something.” I got up from my chair again and turned my back on him. “At least that’s what I tell myself.” I muttered into my chin as I finally broke free of the murderous personality–just loud enough for him to hear.
“What are you talking about, Iprus?”
“I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t, Verus.” I could tell he was waiting for me to speak up. “I was too far in-character and believed it was the way to go. Truth is I’m losing myself, Verus. All this self-experimenting has left me lost.” I paused for a second to help gather my thoughts. “Maybe I killed her because I wanted to get caught. Because I wanted to stop living like this.” I grabbed the two bars closest to his face and leaned toward him. “This isn’t life. I’m never myself anymore and I can’t let anyone near me. Not even my wife!”
“I want to help you, Iprus, I really do, but you have to let me. I can’t sign the papers saying you’re fine and stable if you’re acting like a mad monkey all the time and you out of all people know that. Give me something to work with, okay? You know I’ll help you get through with all this.”
“It’s no use, Verus. I am broken beyond repair.” I got up from the chair, walked into the corner of my cell and sat down on the bench. “Just end it. Please. Do me that one last favor.”
Verus wanted to object my words, but the two guards had already placed their hands on his shoulders and nudged him to leave. With the two guards as witnesses to our conversation, he had no choice but to sign my execution papers.
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Congratulations, you have been featured in this week's Finder Frog Focus: Fiction Recap Post Our Recap of this weeks topic first published here.
Awesome! :D Thank you very much for featuring me!
Thank you for writing things we can feature it helps a lot. haha. Great story again. I will be checking my funds to be sure I get a copy of your book also. I got rhethypo and poetrybyjeremy quite enjoying having books from people I can go scream at directly.
Hahha :P In that case... I guess I'll just have to write more! :P
I promise I will, just need to finish my next book first (it's almost completely done already, just needs the final few tweaks and the cover and some inside imagery) so that I can get more time again. In due time, I'll post 1 story/week... ... or more, if you guys tempt me enough (looking over at @calluna :P)
I can't even begin to tell you how happy it makes me feel to hear that! <3 I am already a very happy dude if you enjoy reading my work, but considering the purchase of my book just makes my eyes water. :3
Definitely need to check those two authors out! Maybe I need to get me a couple book copies for myself, too! :P
And definitely! There's something magical about owning a book by a person who you've directly spoken with. Not just, you know... "Oh, I heard this author is good." .. But legit had a conversation with them 1 on 1.
I might be asking a little much here and being a little intrusive, but you might be interested in an interview I've done with @qurator. You can find it here.
I checked the interview out for your feature and mentioned it, we will be going through the cycle of finder frog again next up is poetry etc, as we get the hang of this in between working full time we will be fortunate enough to have many good creators to look out for when it comes to curation posts.
For now we just hope people do get some exposure and have a few bigger people see you until we can ramp it up to a point where we are comfortable to gain bigger delegations and help people a lot more through those.
I am adding a feature list where we can come around power permitting and still give a few cents or more as power grows to those we have featured before, including the fact that we do need to get the @resteemriver account running more smoothly .
Guess what I am saying is please don't post more in the hopes of gaining support I have seen people do that with curie votes and it boggles the mind to think they rely on that, obviously you know what you are doing on steem and post because you enjoy it. So this might be more a warning to others that they should not be to reliant on the many initiatives so to speak, see it as bonus, your true rewards come from those you interact with. I will be sure to follow along and as we grow our efforts we will keep rewarding the people who we discovered along the way.
:) Sorry got a bit winded there.
Glad to hear! :D
Ohhhh, poetry. That I cannot do unless the stars align perfectly and I drink more of the magic potion as usual, or brew it extra strong.
I am so very happy (and excited) to see all your work on this project and am looking forward to what becomes of it :D
Yeah, I know. I try to be consistent with my posts, but I won't sacrifice quality for the sake of posting. That's why I'm keeping this account's posts to ~1-2 per week and (hopefully) daily posts on the @svashta account.
And yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with what you've written here.
The true value of this blockchain lies not in the curie votes or the size of the upvotes, but the interaction with and amongst people. The more we interact, and the more there is of us, the more value there is in the blockchain -> the more we all profit (both financially and every way else). ^^
No problem at all! ;D
Don't underestimate the dangers of suggesting I be more tempting haha
Danger and @calluna in one same sentence? No, no, no. That has got to be a mistake.
You're by far the most innocent creature I have ever met.
Damn it, I can act as tough as I like but you clearly see right through me!
I was offput by the usage of psychoanalyst ‘til I realize American Psychoanalysts are in name that but really ego-psychologists trying to “cure” someone to a “normal” behaviour. And our lil’ detainee gave probably the best slips of the tongue that our ego-psychologist would never be able to piece together when trying to “cure” him. They God to honest should’ve left it to the Lacanians to pick his brain out.
What grinds my gears is the term "normal".
What is normal?
Doing what the majority does? That's average, not normal.
There is no "right" way to define normal by any means, especially when in our heads we all believe we're normal. We all believe we're always doing the "right" things.
What's "right" and "wrong", and what's "normal" is nothing but a social construct... That I absolutely hate.
Tell it to the preacher, brotha’.
I always enjoy these kinds of "Genius" protagonists, and I do think if you can maybe do a follow up since now he has such a rich backstory already his battle against self and the lines he crosses for the greater good or is it an indulgence who cares it is a battle and as far as battles go those of the psyche will always the truly epic ones, add a sword then you have a blockbuster.
lol. Highlander Sherlock... Sherlander?
There can only be one, it is elementary.
I was more thinking of making a prequel than a sequel but maybe someday I should get around to doing both. I definitely very much like the idea here and it speaks to me dearly.
Hahaha :D Shanderlock would actually make a cool last name. I'll likely use that for some future stories, if I may. :P Thanks! :D
see the problem I might have with a prequel is you have the destination already... So the character progression and I am speaking out my ass here, but the progression would feel very direct route.
If somehow you can use the before to support a future character change then maybe you have more complexity allowing you to write them in tandem.
When we join back with him in the now then we also have gained something valuable because we already have an attachment with this event hence an attachment to anything before it and that will support how I would feel about any new predicaments and even have input as to what I wish he would do based on previous events. All nice and fresh in my memory.
Yip Shanderlock sounds great. :)
Hmm, now that you've mentioned it... And describing the tedious police work he was doing before he ended in there would've been boring anyway... Maybe. ;)
It's definitely a character I want to write more on - like the killer chemist from "A revolutionary product". I think they're two characters that are unpredictable both for me and for the reader, which is exactly why they can be (and are) so awesome.
Definitely worth a revisit. If not in the same setting, at least with the same or similar character. ^^
Maybe the chemist could be called Shanderlock. Nice and mysterious.
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STOPI did not see that coming! The whole time I was thinking initial interview after the murder and then poof! Game over.
I do hope you do the prequel. Intriguing!
~T
Haha! Very happy to have taken you by surprise! :D
I'll try and get to it when I finish the upcoming book and have some time to spend elsewhere. ^^
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