The Baal Dialogues

He stopped reading some time ago. I didn't notice, and don't know how much time has passed since. Time is beginning to flow differently for me, another sign of the change in me, the evolution of my being.

"Baal? Are you listening?" His voice begins to reach me as I allow myself to resurface.
"Baal... I asked you about the children. Why it is you feel children are pure. Do you think you were pure as a child? Is that what you want to return to? That purity?"

He is so riddled with the cancerous growth of Freudianism yet doesn't even feel those malignant pustules oozing their juices; that whisper of sex and penetration and oedipal dreams. He believes himself to be a thoroughly modern psychologist, and yet, does not even observe himself enough to notice how often he returns to poke at what he hopes is the open wound of my childhood.

"Baal. Please talk to us. I think it would help you if we explored your notions of purity and childhood."

He hasn't actually asked the question yet - dare not now anyway, in the presence of the woman - for fear of seeming too archaic, too old school, too unhip. Of course I can see the question in his mind, fidgeting and raising it's hand, trying to force itself to the fore.
He resists, but he wants to ask, wants to ask so very badly. Instead he circles the issue, dancing on the fringes. Asking instead what I enjoyed as a child, what my earliest memory is, what my friends were like. I lie of course. I lie and he knows I lie, and he believes himself to be so very perceptive because he sees through my lies so easily. What he doesn't understand is why I lie. He views my lies as fear, a resistance to analysis common to all who wish to pretend to themselves that they are sane, and yet deep down they know how truly mad they are, how vulnerable the truth would be to the good doctors mind scalpel.

"Baal. This isn't helping you and I think you know that. We need to get at the truth, confront the truth. You see that don't you?"

The truth. It is at the very core of us. It is our beating heart. An incision made with a probing question, layers of skin and fat peeled back. The answer shows the path that the scalpel should take, reveals a trail of scar tissue that the blade can follow easily. Another cut, deeper, through muscle, sinew. Another question, another revelation, the fleshy parts pushed away and muscle clamped with childhood memories, we reach the heart. The truth, and the root cause. An abusive mother, a neglectful mother. The doctor withdraws, satisfied that the cancer has been removed, and leaves his underlings to mop up.

There are two parts to a psychological analysis; getting the patient to reveal the truth, and, once that has been achieved, ripping that truth out so that it infects the body no more.
The first part is the harder. Many psychologists consider the second part beneath them, a job that any amateur can achieve. No, it is the direction that matters, the ritual cutting of the patient with that scalpel. The good doctor though fails to see that I am different. That I lie only to observe his reaction to my lies. To see how he will combat it. To see if I can provoke him to ask the question, the oh so clumsy slash with the blade. The one that would lay bare
his own truth. The Freudian cancer that lies beneath the healthy modern skin.

"Baal. Are you in there?" He is getting angry. It is masked, but I can smell it.

"Baal, I think we should go back to your own childhood and look at your ideals of purity."
Surely not? Have I finally broken him? in front of the woman as well...

"Baal, why don't you tell me about your mother?"

I smile...