First page Excerpt

Here is the first page of "Ragged Edge: Cry of the Phoenix." Enjoy.

You don't actually lay on a psychologist's couch. I mean you can if you want but usually you just sit there, face to face, with someone that's trying to understand what is going on in your head. It's intimidating the first few times, then you get use to it and sometimes, for fun, mess with the headshrinker.

I wasn't having fun. My shrink likes sounding smarter than he is. He's full of nonsense phrases like "I see" and "that seems only natural" and my personal favorite, "I understand". When he uses those phrases I want to reach out and break his nose then ask him if he still sees and understands, and how natural does it feel. I haven't done it... yet.

My shrink has me classified as “functionally deranged”, meaning I'm delusional but I'm not a danger to myself or society as a whole. He's wrong on both counts but its nice having someone I can talk to about everything. Sure, he didn't believe me when I told him what I am, and he doesn't believe some of the things I say I do, but that's not important. It's just important to have someone I can talk to about the ragged edges of my life.

Those ragged edges, everyone has them, some people notice them, and most don't. Those are the edges where the reality you think exists clashes against the edges of the reality that truly exists. Seeing shadows out of the corner of your eye, strange lights in the sky, hearing voices with no one around to produce them. Those are the edges people try to ignore, pass off as hallucinations; or mental illness. The problem however, is that they are real.

Those edges brought me to this shrink. I have friends I could've talked to but I didn't want them thinking I was nuts or worse, turn their backs on me. Doctor Johnson had become my closest confidant. I could tell him whatever I wanted with no worries about what he thought of me. Most of the time he didn't believe me anyway.