It was a big, brand new house. Modern, understated, and elegant. Empty, never having been lived in until we bought it. To ask that it be filled with life, and a visible history, and old tasteful furniture would have been too much. We would have to do that ourselves. It was a blank canvas, an irresistible emptiness waiting to be filled up. It was solid, its foundation was bedrock, the walls were well constructed, the windows were wide and the doors were tall and strong. But the house had a malleable idiocy to it that made me unafraid to do something wrong, to make a mistake by living in it. It told me that to be good cannot be achieved by doing no harm.
We painted it and started to furnish it, and it was all the kind of romantic caper that dissolved the boundaries I spent my whole life building. Confidence, identity, trust in my instincts and my own senses, I surrendered those first and gladly, for the sake of the private, undifferentiated bliss between the two of us. Then I gave my whole heart away, knowing that I could use my brain for everything else. I could see my heart beating in the palm of his hand and I knew it was safe. It was the kind of love that was heavy and dangerous, like he was holding a loaded gun. Then everything crystallised into something real and sharp for the first time.
“You don’t trust me,” I said. We didn’t have a dinner table at that point.
“I didn’t say that, I said never go into that room. I need an office and a space for myself.” He replied, unwrapping the mattress we had bought.
“I know what that means, it means you don’t trust me.” I said again.
“Never go into that room,” he said, and then gave me the key. “I trust you.”
I took the key, and gave my brain away last.
—
I was alone on a desert island. There was no horizon. I was surrounded by the ocean stretching out to infinity. I could hear the waves, endlessly encroaching, attacking the shore. I knew I was dreaming. I knew I was asleep in our bed, the mattress was now too old and too soft. I didn’t try to wake myself. On the island it was impossible to have a condition that made me ‘unable to work’ until it had passed. If it passed. When I woke in the middle of the night, I saw him next to me, his chest rising and falling with quiet breaths. Daniel was my husband before he became a practising psychiatrist, and empirical to lengths that I thought were absurd before he was my husband. When we were younger and he was unsure of himself in his trade he would ask for my insight into difficult cases. Older and more experienced now, he was a professional at the peak of his powers, and I was his most difficult case. I took his injections and his pills without a fight. It was hard to tell if they worked. I exercised and I went outside by my own initiative, but I would not let him eviscerate me, not even with his words. I would not let him break me down to better catalogue me. To chop me up into bite-sized pieces, more easily devoured, but so small and disarticulated that I was unrecognisable even to myself. I would not participate in my own autopsy. I wasn’t escaping reality by taking the key he had given me years ago and leaving our bedroom to face the door of his office, I was running towards it.
—
I walked down the hallway in the dark, knowing every step. “Threshold barriers” was a term Daniel used in his work to describe the faculties of the mind. They had to do the job of keeping harmful things out, anything else it did was a distraction. Daniel had told me that normally people knew too well the limits of their own minds, that the malignant forgetfulness of their blunders let them sleep pathologically well because their minds were full of closed doors, and nothing can hurt us on the other side of a closed door. The insane often saw things invisible to others, harmful things because they did not know that. All the doors of their mind were open. He said neither had any greater claim to the truth, and the only difference was being better or worse at making their feelings make sense. When I came to the door of his office, I knew that he couldn’t have been talking about me, that I was neither, because I had the key.
—
I stood before the door until I could see faint sunlight coming through the window at the end of the hall. I had only wanted to use the key to let myself in because I was convinced I was escaping something I couldn’t see but was intensely dangerous. I put the key in, turned it, and entered. I closed the door behind me. I knew Daniel would be up soon, and that I wouldn’t be able to withstand him, but now that I was standing in the mostly bare room I never wanted to leave. That only changed when I tried the door again but it was locked from inside, and the key that had just let me in would not let me out. All I could do was wait for his inevitable knock on the door. The sound of waiting was not unpleasant, there was nothing special in his office, there were no hints, clues, or answers. Nothing was outside of the ordinary, but the question that existed only in my head deafened me. Had this been his plan all along? There were two powerful knocks on the door and then a pause.
“Maybe you’re the one who needs to see a psychiatrist.” I preempted him. It took everything I had.
“I am a psychiatrist.” He reminded me again.
“Just because a carpenter can make a chair, doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to use one.” I said with nothing left.
“What does that mean?” He replied, and it sounded like he was genuinely asking, it felt like a real question, and his voice betrayed no impatience. “I will open this door, if you promise me that you know I love you, and that you’re sick,” he said through the thick wood.
“I’m feeling better. In here I am fine, but if you open that door I am insane.” I said, my own voice sounded different, as if I was hearing it from a recording taken a decade ago. It was so fragile, vulnerable, liable to be hurt, on the verge of breakdown.
“You don’t love me,” he said.
“I didn’t say that, I said never go into my head.”
“I know what that means. It means you don’t love me,” he said, and I was gone.
“Okay,” I said. “I love you.” I said, and he opened the door.
Matthew Cameron 
It was a big, brand new house. Modern, understated, and elegant. Empty, never having been lived in until we bought it. To ask that it be filled with life, and a visible history, and old tasteful furniture would have been too much. We would have to do that ourselves. It was a blank canvas, an irresistible emptiness waiting to be filled up. It was solid, its foundation was bedrock, the walls were well constructed, the windows were wide and the doors were tall and strong. But the house had a malleable idiocy to it that made me unafraid to do something wrong, to make a mistake by living in it. It told me that to be good cannot be achieved by doing no harm.
We painted it and started to furnish it, and it was all the kind of romantic caper that dissolved the boundaries I spent my whole life building. Confidence, identity, trust in my instincts and my own senses, I surrendered those first and gladly, for the sake of the private, undifferentiated bliss between the two of us. Then I gave my whole heart away, knowing that I could use my brain for everything else. I could see my heart beating in the palm of his hand and I knew it was safe. It was the kind of love that was heavy and dangerous, like he was holding a loaded gun. Then everything crystallised into something real and sharp for the first time.
“You don’t trust me,” I said. We didn’t have a dinner table at that point.
“I didn’t say that, I said never go into that room. I need an office and a space for myself.” He replied, unwrapping the mattress we had bought.
“I know what that means, it means you don’t trust me.” I said again.
“Never go into that room,” he said, and then gave me the key. “I trust you.”
I took the key, and gave my brain away last.
—
I was alone on a desert island. There was no horizon. I was surrounded by the ocean stretching out to infinity. I could hear the waves, endlessly encroaching, attacking the shore. I knew I was dreaming. I knew I was asleep in our bed, the mattress was now too old and too soft. I didn’t try to wake myself. On the island it was impossible to have a condition that made me ‘unable to work’ until it had passed. If it passed. When I woke in the middle of the night, I saw him next to me, his chest rising and falling with quiet breaths. Daniel was my husband before he became a practising psychiatrist, and empirical to lengths that I thought were absurd before he was my husband. When we were younger and he was unsure of himself in his trade he would ask for my insight into difficult cases. Older and more experienced now, he was a professional at the peak of his powers, and I was his most difficult case. I took his injections and his pills without a fight. It was hard to tell if they worked. I exercised and I went outside by my own initiative, but I would not let him eviscerate me, not even with his words. I would not let him break me down to better catalogue me. To chop me up into bite-sized pieces, more easily devoured, but so small and disarticulated that I was unrecognisable even to myself. I would not participate in my own autopsy. I wasn’t escaping reality by taking the key he had given me years ago and leaving our bedroom to face the door of his office, I was running towards it.
—
I walked down the hallway in the dark, knowing every step. “Threshold barriers” was a term Daniel used in his work to describe the faculties of the mind. They had to do the job of keeping harmful things out, anything else it did was a distraction. Daniel had told me that normally people knew too well the limits of their own minds, that the malignant forgetfulness of their blunders let them sleep pathologically well because their minds were full of closed doors, and nothing can hurt us on the other side of a closed door. The insane often saw things invisible to others, harmful things because they did not know that. All the doors of their mind were open. He said neither had any greater claim to the truth, and the only difference was being better or worse at making their feelings make sense. When I came to the door of his office, I knew that he couldn’t have been talking about me, that I was neither, because I had the key.
—
I stood before the door until I could see faint sunlight coming through the window at the end of the hall. I had only wanted to use the key to let myself in because I was convinced I was escaping something I couldn’t see but was intensely dangerous. I put the key in, turned it, and entered. I closed the door behind me. I knew Daniel would be up soon, and that I wouldn’t be able to withstand him, but now that I was standing in the mostly bare room I never wanted to leave. That only changed when I tried the door again but it was locked from inside, and the key that had just let me in would not let me out. All I could do was wait for his inevitable knock on the door. The sound of waiting was not unpleasant, there was nothing special in his office, there were no hints, clues, or answers. Nothing was outside of the ordinary, but the question that existed only in my head deafened me. Had this been his plan all along? There were two powerful knocks on the door and then a pause.
“Maybe you’re the one who needs to see a psychiatrist.” I preempted him. It took everything I had.
“I am a psychiatrist.” He reminded me again.
“Just because a carpenter can make a chair, doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to use one.” I said with nothing left.
“What does that mean?” He replied, and it sounded like he was genuinely asking, it felt like a real question, and his voice betrayed no impatience. “I will open this door, if you promise me that you know I love you, and that you’re sick,” he said through the thick wood.
“I’m feeling better. In here I am fine, but if you open that door I am insane.” I said, my own voice sounded different, as if I was hearing it from a recording taken a decade ago. It was so fragile, vulnerable, liable to be hurt, on the verge of breakdown.
“You don’t love me,” he said.
“I didn’t say that, I said never go into my head.”
“I know what that means. It means you don’t love me,” he said, and I was gone.
“Okay,” I said. “I love you.” I said, and he opened the door.
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