Ruffling Feathers

Don doesn’t know how it started really. Probably in increments. Probably inconspicuously, the screws slowly loosening, without anyone noticing until it’s too late, the machinery imploding. Or exploding. Or falling out. Into something. Or onto someone.

When the psychiatrist asks him what happened, how he got there, if there was any trauma leading to the string of incidents, his brain shuts down, refusing to participate, and his train of thought liquifies, transforming into murky waters, similar to those of the duck pond by which he was arrested.

The psychiatrist insists kindly for him to open up and reminds him that it is a safe place though she can’t quite disguise her disgust, the slight crunching of her perky nose being the giveaway.

“Please Mr Perkins, try to provide some useful information. It will help with your case when you go to court.”

Don tries to remember how it started. When it started.

There was that whole year when nothing happened and he could feel the screws loosening, his grip with reality blurring.

He thinks of that suspended bridge in Genoa whose structure slowly rusted, hidden away encased in concrete. How it just snapped one day, with no apparent warning.

Or maybe it was even before that. Before the year when nothing happened, there were another 6 years when not much happened. Just the same few things, over and over… boring mundane life moments kicking his marriage into a mushy pulp. The veneer of this partnership fading, revealing an ill-suited middle-aged couple, no longer talking, a clock ticking away tedium into eternity, a picture of children that had long stopped visiting. Maybe his marriage fell apart when he started sticking brandy in his morning coffee. Seeing his wife through the blurry lenses of alcohol softened the perpetual scorn that her face had gathered throughout the years. Or maybe it was because she didn’t want to have sex to “Don’t Fear the Reaper”. Maybe that’s why.

“Mr Perkins? Shall we go through the facts again? You were arrested on 18 June after witnesses reported seeing you masturbating by the duck pond of Colton village green,” Again, her nose rose and crinkled as she re-explained the facts. “Following up on that there was a further investigation in which you were spotted on CCTV camera practising similar activities 14 times this year alone.”

Could you talk me through your actions?

Don tries to swim back to the surface of his pond water brain. He swims against a violent current of disorderly thoughts, tries to cling on to some rushes, his survival instinct kicking in. Better explain things straight. If he doesn’t he could risk prison. Don wonders what prison inmates would do to a guy that wanks at poultry. Probably nothing nice.

“The ducks…”

The psychiatrist leans forward, pen in hand, ready to register a valid explanation to the unsavoury behaviour, hoping they might be able to wrap this up in under half an hour.

“The ducks, they bring me excitement.”

The psychiatrist sits back, violently enough that it makes her desk chair spin, and she has to stop it by stomping her boot onto the ground. She rotates her chair slowly back to face him, her forehead turning a deep shade of crimson. Don regrets his choice of words. That is not what he meant. Ducks don’t turn him on. Neither did the penguins at the London Zoo last month, or the neighbour’s cat. It’s not that kind of excitement.

“Mr Perkins. We have already used 15 of the 60 minutes of court-mandated time and we’ve made no progress whatsoever. I need to ensure that you are not going to molest yourself, or ducks or – she flips the page in her notebook briskly – alpacas in public places. People do not want to see that, Mr Perkins, there is a whole consent issue here. Colton Green was very busy that day, there were children queuing at the ice cream van a few feet away, luckily no-one of them saw, but the elderly lady feeding those same ducks on the other side of the pond did. And her daughter has filed against you.” Don remembers an old lady being taken away in an ambulance as he was being cuffed.

He thinks that this is the most exciting week he’s had in a very long time. He got to spend several hours in custody among the coming and going of policemen and criminals, saw so many new faces, talked to strangers. He got to speak to his kids and wife, though they were mainly calling to insult him; but he felt needed, alive.

And now he gets to spend another 45 minutes with a pretty psychiatrist insisting to find out more about him.

So he looks at her, took a sip of water, and starts talking.