Discharge

“Before you resume your tantrum, please consider this simple question: why do you think you’re up here in a nice little single room and not down in psychiatry?” Dr. Gagnon rolled her eyes at my look of realization. “Consider this a holiday gift. Just quietly accept it. The alternative is I hand you over to the guys in the looney bin. Though maybe our up-and-coming grand artiste would like to have a little taste?”

“. . . No thanks.” Accepting that there was no way out, I fell back against the pillow. “The literary world would weep if my meager talents were spent writing a worse The Gulag Archipelago.”

“Solzhenitsyn? I’m impressed.” She winked. “If you’re a writer who also reads, then I just might become a true believer in your potential.”