Not on Fire, but Burning by Greg Hrbek
Author:Greg Hrbek [Hrbek, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dystopian, Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781612194547
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2015-09-29T04:00:00+00:00
10
When Jaddi had spoken of therapy and serious issues requiring professional help, Karim hadn’t been sure what he meant. Therapy, the old guy explained, was merely talking. Talking about what, Karim had asked. And the old guy took a deep breath and started to respond, but then seemed to forget; and then said, in a voice that was gentle in a strange way: “Anything, bud. Anything that’s on your mind.” Karim nodded. Then said: “Did you ever do it?” “Do what?” “Therapy.” “Me,” Jaddi said. “Yeah, I did—a long time ago.” “So you had serious issues, too?” And then the old guy breathed another breath. He seemed to be going deep inside himself for an answer, which turned out to be: “I’d say everyone does, at one time or another.” Again, Karim could not quite find the meaning. Yet there was something clear about the vagueness, a comforting blur of sense.
So, on Monday morning, he did not resist getting into the Argo Electric for the drive across town to the appointment with the psychologist. In fact, as he sat in the passenger seat, securely strapped (thinking about the night before, of going outside and speaking to the boy next door, whom he could now, in a way, call a friend), Karim’s heart was seeping a feeling so long unfelt that, if asked to name it, he would have hesitated, unsure, before saying:
Hope.
They arrived ten minutes early at a small white building on a residential street. A sign by the door read: THE PLACE WITHIN—PEDIATRIC WELLNESS. Jaddi opened the door. They spoke to someone at a desk. Then paged through magazines until a door opened and a woman (not old, not young; in a dress not bright but colorful) introduced herself as Dr. Khaled, and guided Karim, hand on shoulder, into a room that was windowless and dimly lit, and furnished with a couch, two chairs, a low table, and a small machine emitting a constant shushing sound, like an urging of secrecy. At first, it was just as the old guy said it would be. A simple conversation (in a weave of English and Arabic) about what was on his mind. Her told her, for instance, that he now had five friends on Lifebook. The fifth he had made just last night. And he told her willingly about the party—what he had done to the boy who was now his friend, and why he thought he’d done it: because of the drugs he used to take, which led him to the subject of his other friends, his old friends from the camp, their names were Hazem and Yassim … All of this spoken of his own free will—and as the words came out of him, that long unfelt emotion flowed more freely from his heart. More than confident, he felt certain, as if life were a math problem with only one possible answer, that everything was only going to get better from here on. Then Dr. Khaled said she wanted him to try something.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Sita - Warrior of Mithila (Book 2 of the Ram Chandra Series) by Amish(53749)
The Crystal Crypt by Dick Philip K(36389)
Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut(14721)
Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han(14433)
Ready Player One by Cline Ernest(13928)
The Last by Hanna Jameson(9774)
Year One by Nora Roberts(9274)
Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey(8920)
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro(8349)
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro(8262)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown(8217)
Dark Space: The Second Trilogy (Books 4-6) (Dark Space Trilogies Book 2) by Jasper T. Scott(7885)
The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood(7415)
The Circle by Dave Eggers(6815)
Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6 by Frank Herbert(6670)
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood(6452)
Legacy by Ellery Kane(6371)
Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1) by A.G. Riddle(6157)
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty(5791)
