Kara's Law

By Kell Smith

Kell was diagnosed with OCD at the age of 21 and created Kara as a way of reflecting on her illness. She has often found other media portrayals of OCD to be lacking, relying too much on stereotypes and not truly connecting the outward symptoms with what’s going on inside the person’s head, so Kell wrote Kara’s Law to convey what this illness is like from the inside, while ending on a note of hope, showing Kara evolve past the roadblocks of her illness.

Her cats, all named after Norse gods, like to offer suggestions as she works. Mostly Loki’s suggestions are “fill my food dish, peasant”, but she gave Kara’s Law a purr of approval.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adelaide Books Publishers
• Release date: Apr 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950437573

Kell Smith

Kell Smith is a Latin teacher/adjunct professor/comic book illustrator who loves words, whether teaching languages, writing novels, or making terrible puns. She graduated in 2010 with a double major in Classical Studies and Art History and is currently juggling work, grad school, and taking care of far too many cats. She is a member of the Providence Writers’ Guild in Rhode Island and has been writing novels since she was ten.

Book preview

SESSION ONE

I

A Meeting

The chemicals of the brain are strange and subtle things. I think of the chemicals in mine as volatile, explosive, powerful and shattering, but indiscriminately destructive.

Or maybe not. Maybe they combine to form an acid, seeping, insidious, gnawing.

That's what OCD feels like: a corrosion of sense.

_________________________________________________________

Patient’s Name (Print)

It’s a simple enough request for a college student, but that cramped box with its cramped writing mocks me.

I write my name, but one a loops more than the other. The pen leaves blots on the paper when I retrace each letter, trying to reconcile their differences, and then I notice that the dot of the i is off-center and the f tilts too far at an angle and—

I hate pens.

The receptionist is a middle-aged blonde with caky make-up and a gap between her front teeth, and I count my steps to avoid the waiting room’s gauntlet of eyes. I ask her for a fresh sheet, offering my best I’m-sorry-I’m-being-a-pain-but-I-can’t-help-it look, and she smiles in that puzzled way polite people do when I’m being neurotic. I return to my seat and tilt the clipboard so that no one can see me using the straight-edge of my license to block in the letters of my name:

KARA S FISCHER

Jack would laugh at this.

Speaking of, it takes forever to block in my reason for being there, even though I only write the one word: HALLUCINATIONS. It makes Jack sound more distant if I call him that, and distance has a way of making things easier or at least harder to see. It’s not the right word for him, if I’m honest, but what’s the harm in lying to a sheet of paper?

The next parts are simpler, checkmarks next to the descriptors meant to sum up my life. Under Marital Status, Single hangs off to the side, alone. I wonder if they did that on purpose.

"…university student, Kara Fischer…"

The TV in the corner is background noise, easy to ignore until the sound of my name pushes it sharply to the foreground, another box trying to sum up a piece of my life.

It’s been a week. How are they still running this story? My cheeks feel hot, and my clipboard becomes a shield. I almost don’t look up at the TV, but I have to know if they’re using a better picture of me than the last—nope, same godawful picture that makes me look like I have a double chin. I wish Wela had never taken that picture, God rest her beautiful, if spiteful, soul.

The image on the screen switches to the Van Gogh I know too well, and somehow that is worse.

Emergency contact. Should I put my parents, even though they’re 1300 miles away? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. My aunt’s name and number go there instead. By the time I finish filling out the Insurance Information section, the story has moved on to something less personally mortifying, and once the clipboard slides back across the receptionist’s desk, I don’t know what to do with my hands.

The doctor’s running a bit late, the receptionist tells me. Her voice has that smooth, automated quality you would expect from a recording. It might be a while.

I should have brought a book, maybe a sketchpad. I glance at the magazine rack in the corner, but there are eyes in the room, watching me, so I sit down, empty-handed. The cushion makes a noisy exhale as I sit.

What am I going to say? Is he going to ask me about my childhood and say how does that make you feel, or is there more to it than that?

Don’t think about everything so much, Jack would say. Thinking too much was what got me here in the first place. Except… no, listening to Jack is what got me here.

I stutter out a breath. Would the doctor believe that? That it was all Jack’s fault? Did I believe that?

Kara?

This time, my name isn’t coming from the TV, and I look up at the man in the doorway with a clipboard in hand. Everything about him is understated: medium height, medium build, dressed in pastel blues and tans. His voice is soft, as though he were speaking to a frightened animal, and I wonder if that’s what I am to him. There’s something about his eyes, though, deep, weary and knowing. It’s unsettling.

Here, I say as though he’s taking attendance. He smiles, and I stand, trying to ignore the gauntlet of eyes that looks up curiously.

Hello, Kara, he says, again in that soothing voice. He extends his hand. I am Dr. Milton.

I shake his hand firmly, keeping eye-contact to show that I am not some wounded animal, even if I feel like one. I am aware of the imprint of his palm after he lets go, and I know I will continue to feel it until the next time I wash my hands.

I wonder what kind of soap they use here.

Come with me, he says, and I trail after him down the hall and into an office. The room is cozy-small, the walls a warm shade of off-white paint that’s starting to peel at the corners, and there is a desk in the corner facing two cushioned chairs. Dr. Milton gestures for me to sit.

I panic, unsure which one to take. Is this a test? Does sitting in one say something about me that sitting in the other doesn’t? Is there a right decision? A wrong one? Which chair does everyone else use?

In the end, I slip into the chair closest to the window, deciding that a lack of choice would probably say far more. I still don’t know what to do with my hands.

Dr. Milton sits behind the desk without even blinking at my choice of chair. Over his shoulder, a picture frame hangs crookedly off the wall. Just two degrees clockwise, and balance would be restored.

I remember the last time I was in an office like this. Another doctor with a soft voice went through a checklist and gave a name to the devil on my shoulder: OCD. I still meet with Dr. Sten every few months to watch him fill out little square prescription papers. His Swedish accent is pleasantly distracting.

So, I say before the silence reaches the point of awkward. I fold my arms across my chest to keep from fidgeting. How does this work, exactly? Is this where you ask me about my parents and my childhood?

Was that too direct? That was too direct. I was confusing fake confidence with rudeness again.

"Do you want to talk about your parents?"

Not really, no. There’s not much to talk about. Mom used to bicker with Wela constantly, but aside from that, my family is full of perfectly good, mostly normal people. Kind of screwed up my angsty artist persona, actually.

Okay.

Okay?

We won’t talk about your parents.

I blink, wrong-footed.

That’s it?

That’s it. Dr. Milton makes a mark on the notebook on his desk. I wonder what he could be writing already and picture him playing Hangman with himself just to look busy. We won’t talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.

Sounds good to me.

So… I draw out the word. "What do we talk about then?"

Whatever you need to talk about. Didn’t I see you on the news a few days ago? The story about that art forgery? You sounded impressive.

I cringe. Please don’t use that word to describe me.

Oh? Dr. Milton folds his hands over his notebook. Do you not think what you did was impressive?

It’s not… You just don’t know the whole story, okay?

I see. Dr. Milton glances down at his notebook. I wonder if his stick-figure is in peril yet. Why don’t we set that aside for now? It says here that you’ve listed OCD and depression as pre-existing conditions?

I don’t squirm. Not much, anyway.

Yeah. That’s what Dr. Sten says anyway. You talk to him, right?

Dr. Milton hums and nods. And how has your mood been lately, Kara?

The Persian rug is faded and frayed, pressed flat under my chair’s feet. Its colorful whorls distract me from the thought of tiny round pills in orange cases.

Not great. Hours’, days’, months’ worth of anguish stuffed into two flimsy words. "Dr. Sten recommended counseling the first time I saw him. I didn’t think I needed it at the time, or I… I didn’t want to think I needed it, if that makes sense."

So what changed?

I wince. It was hard enough blocking in the words in great, shouting capital letters.

Your paperwork says you’re here because you’re suffering from hallucinations?

I clear my throat and look up from the rug. I end up staring at the crooked picture frame instead. I wonder what Jack would think about that label, but he’s been quiet for weeks now. "I suffered from hallucinations, I correct him. Past tense. I like to think that makes me marginally less crazy."

My smile doesn’t reach my eyes, and I know he doesn’t buy it.

Tell me, he says in that too-soft voice.

I pick at the skin around my fingernails. Jack. How could I sum up Jack?

He was a bit of everything, the expressive lips of a friend, the voice of a singer that made my knees melt. The Frankenstein’s monster of my imagination, ideas and fantasies sewn together with the little experiences that make up a life.

He offered me a way out of loneliness, offered excitement, meaning… all the things I told myself would come but never did, all the things I told myself I didn’t need. He offered me a chance to live.

He was perfect, I murmur, but nothing perfect exists.

Dr. Milton writes something down, the scratch of his pen against paper loud in the small room. He? he prompts, and I realize I don’t know how to bridge his not-knowing with my knowing. The gap is too wide, but there’s nothing for it but to lay down a path one word at a time.

Jack, I repeat. That’s what I called him, the voice in my head. One voice. The nice voice.

He doesn’t need to know it was a voice I gave him. Dr. Milton doesn’t even blink.

It’s… And before you ask, yes, he had something to do with that painting. The whole thing was his fault, really.

I’m a child pointing fingers, and I know Dr. Milton sees it.

Still, he nods, patient. Too patient. I see. Then I really don’t know the whole story.

There’s an invitation there, the way he says it, but I’m busy pulling at the skin around my fingernails. It’s a long story, I hedge.

Some of the more interesting ones are.

II

A Beginning

My phone’s alarm beeped out a gratingly cheery tune. I groaned and pressed my face back into the sheets, trying to will time backward. I’d already hit the snooze button three times, and I swear it grew more insistent each time, as though it knew I needed to be ready for the seven fifteen bus.

By the time I extricated my legs from the tangle of sheets, the clock read six thirty-one.

By the time I shuffled in and out of the bathroom, the clock read six thirty-six.

By the time I was done making coffee—Monday’s Salvation—I was running late.

Shit.

I couldn’t see it, but I knew the clock read seven fifteen as I stumbled to a halt under the bus stop’s canopy, my lungs and throat burning, my hair dripping a wet line down the back of my shirt.

I checked my watch.

Seven sixteen.

That semester, the seven fifteen bus was always ten minutes late, but everyday I’d skitter here at seven fifteen on the off-chance that maybe—just maybe—today it would be on time. But I knew it wouldn’t be on time today because I was on time, and I’ve always had this theory that God has a deep-seated love for irony. It was Kara’s Law of the universe. Murphy said, what can go wrong will go wrong? I said, wherever there’s a chance for irony, irony there will be.

But no irony today, I realized with a sigh of relief. That was a good thing, since Kara’s Law was usually in full effect on days like these, when passing moments of irony just weren’t as funny as they would be in a few years.

"Freshman?" Dr. Milton cuts in.

"Sophomore."

"Ah. A seasoned veteran."

The campus was quiet. A few bleary-eyed students prowled the sidewalks, but most were still asleep this early in the day. Only an unlucky few had classes before the crack of noon.

Fall was a few weeks early this year. The leaves were already lined with gold, and the sun was warm on the side of my face in contrast to the cold air. I could only admire the campus for a moment before I was looking down and counting my steps.

One, two—like I was marching to a rhythm. I counted the steps I made on each block of pavement—one, two, one, one, two, one—carefully spacing my steps to avoid the cracks between blocks. Counting steps on pavement was easier than eye-contact with strangers.

Even now I have a hard time meeting Dr. Milton’s stare. It is easier to follow the rug’s pattern, to trace one line and then the next, to find, catalog, memorize all the tiny imperfections.

The first class was Ancient Philosophy, the lecture hall tall and sloping, curved and tiered like a theater. It was intimidating, and the number of seats presented too many choices. A classmate jostled me as he passed, and I climbed the steps, silently counting, until I found an inconspicuous corner in the back row. I set my backpack on the empty seat next to me and pulled out a notebook, then blinked down at the sea of twenty or so identical pencils. I remembered throwing in a few just in case, but apparently, I’d had a few other just in case moments that week.

Minutes later, the herd began to trickle in. Seats filled at random, until only a seat or two separated clusters of bodies. When the clamor grew too dense, I distracted myself by doodling in my notebook, retreating into a bubble of solitude. I barely noticed the man standing beside me until he parked his butt in the seat next to mine, heaving a familiar melodramatic sigh.

"Jack?"

"No. Greg. Greg was—is—very much real. I think. I hope." And that was a line of questioning I did not need.

I’d met him last year on my first day of classes. He was a year ahead of me and one hundred percent my type, with dark spiky hair, high cheekbones, intelligence, and a caustic sense of humor. We’d both taken Intro to Archaeology and gravitated towards the same emo corner in the back of the room. I’d been in danger of falling in love with him, when he broke my heart with the same two words as countless guys before him:

"I’m gay."

Story of my life.

A part of me wanted to hug Greg when I saw him, but I caught myself, twisting my writing implement of choice instead. There were too many variables at play, too many unknowns, and I was afraid to chance it.

Greg gave me a curt nod before pulling out a scuffed notebook and stretching gangly legs out before him.

’Sup, he said gruffly.

’Morning, sunshine. Tension eased from my shoulders, and slowly, I started to relax for the first time that morning. Greg was a security blanket, safe, warm, and shielding. I tried to picture the face he’d make if I told him that. I would never have taken you for a philosophical person, Greg.

A slow, half-smile curled his lips as he rifled through his notebook. I am a man of many talents, Miss Fischer. I snorted, and he furrowed his brow as he began digging in his backpack. I knew the question before it was asked. Hey, do you have a pencil I could borrow?

I handed him my open backpack.

We agreed to meet for coffee after our next class. Or, rather, I would have a coffee. Greg would eat a bagel whole, like a spiky-haired rattlesnake.

I’d chosen a seat by the window, angling myself so that I could watch everyone in the room. I sipped my coffee and smiled as it burned a line down my throat, leaving a warm glow as it passed. It was pleasant, this cramped, hurried, over-sugared coffee. I spent as much time drinking it as I had my first cup that morning, and yet here, soaked in the autumn sun, it felt like I had all the time in the world.

A TV hung overhead, and a newswoman’s measured, confident words drifted down to me. I listened as I waited for Greg, idly toying with the cover to my coffee. The reporter was telling the story of a dog who had saved a baby from a burning building. It was the kind of feel-good story that warmed me as much as my coffee, and I smiled when the reporter pretended to interview the dog and he woofed in reply. Her voice gave way to another’s, slightly deeper but just as authoritative, and the tone shifted.

"New development in the world of Art History, she said, and I looked up, frustrated when I could only see the lip of the TV. A Van Gogh previously thought to be destroyed was—"

Greg flopped into the seat across from me, bag in tow, and slurped his beverage of choice. The crinkle of his paper bag drowned out the rest of the reporter’s words.

"Two papers for Philosophy, Greg groused. That’s bullshit. You remember Chelsea Lemon? From Archaeology 101? She took this class last year and didn’t have to write any papers. There is no justice in this world."

By the time his bag had stopped