A warm California sunset hung over San Francisco. Bright orange and pink clouds sat just behind the endless rows of buildings, while cars beeped their horns and trolley carts rang their bells. All across the city, the population made their way home, except for a few cunning minds who were headed elsewhere. This was a Wednesday, and Wednesday was group night. They made their way to a small building nestled between a coffee shop and a greenhouse in the Castro district: The office of Doctor James Morn.
The office itself was unremarkable, save for the bright yellow carpets, a gift from a rather unusual tech CEO client. Upon the door hung a sign reading: “Supervillains Anonymous. Session in Progress. Please keep conversations to a minimum.” It was somewhat unnecessary, as the office was otherwise empty, which was probably for the best. The thick wooden door was barely holding back the frustrated voice within.
“I was sitting there, listening to him talk, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. He just wouldn’t shut up about his kid! Why do people always talk about their kids? You don’t see me talking about my influenza strain every day!”
The voice came from a man in his mid-forties, dressed in an orange biohazard suit with a gas mask around his neck. In a circle sat four other patients, all dressed with equal absurdity, and one therapist, who’s own attire might as well say “Freud Fan Club”. Under other circumstances you might turn your head to get a second look, but amongst this group, he was the most ordinary individual in the world. He watched Joe speak and nodded slightly, as if to say “yes, of course”, then interjected as Joe came to a natural halt:
“That really seems difficult, Joe, do you want to tell the group what happened next?”, he spoke with well-rehearsed curiosity. Joe responded without missing a beat:
“Well, I was thinking about just ending it, and being done with the whole thing-”
The therapist looked concerned and cut in:
“Sorry, Joe, I just need to pause you there. You haven’t expressed suicidal thoughts before, I want to make sure we’re able to support you properly. Was this the first time you considered hurting yourself?”
Joe looked around at the concerned faces of the group, before shaking his head dismissively and continuing:
“What? No. Not ending it for me, ending it for him. You know”, he gestured across his neck with a finger while making a “khhhhhhhk” noise. He went on:
“I didn’t go through with it though.”
The therapist, mildly concerned, used his best curious-concerned face. It was always a mess when a client relapsed, but expressing homicidal thoughts was far better than committing homicidal acts.
“What did you do instead, Joe?”, he asked cautiously.
Joe was silent for a few moments, before speaking directly to the therapist:
“Well I thought about the consequences”, he said with a degree of pride in his voice, like a student expecting a gold star.
The therapist mustered all the positive regard he had and beamed at Joe.
“Good! That’s very good, Joe-”, he said with an exhale, before being abruptly cut off by a sharp voice from the other side of the room:
“CONSEQUENCES ARE FOR THE WEAK! ALL THAT MATTERS IS POWE-”
The therapist gently raised a hand and the other patient, Mary, became silent. She crossed her arms and slouched back into the heavy brown couch, becoming nearly invisible as her active camauflage reacted to her mood. The therapist spoke with a tone of kind, but firm authority:
“Mary, be mindful of cross talk, please. Go on, Joe.”
Joe took a moment to collect himself and put aside Mary’s outburst. He spoke again in a more metered, but nonetheless irritated tone:
“I just thought to myself, if this person dies here, then there will be no more talk about babies, but does it really change anything? I’ll still have to live on this planet. I’ll still be surrounded by everyone else with their babies, replicating and reproducing over and over again, making babies who will go on to make more babies one day, all the while yapping and complaining about how hard it is having babies. I just wanted some yellowcake uranium, why do people always insist on small talk about babies while they do everything!”
The therapist nodded in agreement, then spoke:
“Joe, where are we going with this? Maybe tell me how this is all feeling, and what it’s like to share with the group today.”
Joe thought, gritted his teeth, and spoke with exasperation:
“Angry. I was- am, angry! BUT, I looked at the problem, the endless sea of voices all wanting to talk about their precious offspring, and I found an answer.”
The room became silent and a few of the other patients leaned in while the therapist listened intently.
“Say more”, said the therapist.
“Let’s just turn off THE SUN!”, he yelled, leaping from his chair. With eyes scrunched in focused determination, he stared directly into the wall above the therapist, his mind 1000 miles away (or 149.47 million kilometres to be precise). He raised his hand as if cradling and removing unseen light bulb, and a wry snarl of contempt formed above his lip, contorting his otherwise handsome appearance and revealing the cruel voice hidden behind. His words dripped with venom as he continued:
“It’s the source of all life on Earth, and with no sun there are no children, no parents, and no one to listen to their endless whining. A paradise of silence and tranquillity where all that limits me are the laws of physics and my indomitable intellect. I will eliminate THE SUN ITSELF.”
Joe stood cradling the air and breathing heavily while the group watched silently. A few moments passed, before Joe slowly returned to the present, and the look of contempt hid itself away behind his handsome features. Most of the group seemed somewhat disinterested, except for Amir, who was fighting back the urge to kill Joe, and was having a very difficult time hiding it. The therapist gave him a concerned look as if to say “you ok?”, and Amir nodded his head ever so slightly. The therapist interrupted the silence by returning his attention to Joe and speaking gently:
“Well, Joe, that’s quite a plan, but last time I checked we still have the sun,”, he gestured out the window, “so what stopped you?”.
He raised eyebrow and eyebrow and waited for an answer. Joe sat back down and spoke, his zeal replaced with the confidence of a man who had just solved an extremely difficult crossword puzzle:
“Well, I thought about the group, and realised it wouldn’t be very fair. Ben is trying to cure every plague on earth so he can sell the cure for profit, and while his methods are unorthodox I respect his goals. Mary wants to build a sentient computer that trolls people online while it steals their cryptocurrency, which needs people, and Amir is trying to build an army of solar-powered robots. If I destroyed the sun, what would they do? It’s kind of a dick move, especially to Amir.”
Amir, still fighting back frustration, settled and looked almost touched. The therapist smiled at Joe and looked him straight in the eyes. He spoke with genuine care:
“You put the group above your plans, Joe. I really mean it when I say this is progress. I want you to be kind to yourself here, your dick move as you called it”, he gestured with air quotes, “wasn’t just a reaction to an unbearable stimulus, it was a maladaptive attempt at self-protection, but when you put the needs of the group above yourself, you practised a critical skill: making meaningful connections with other people, something you were never taught to do as a child. Joe, today you made a step towards a healthier self. Well done, truly, well done.”
Joe smiled for a moment, but it was short-lived. He looked away from the therapist and spoke quietly:
“It also wouldn’t work”, he said with dismay.
“Hm?”, said the therapist, confused.
Joe rolled his eyes and spoke directly to the therapist with irritation and condescension:
“Well, bacteria can survive without sunlight, using the geothermal energy of the earth, so life will just evolve to avoid the need for the sun, and in a few million years we’ll be right back to reproducing and replicating, and some poor genius-level amoeba will be stuck listening to chemically-coded stories about asexual reproduction and how proud everyone is of their latest cellular division. No escape is possible, life just keeps finding a way.”
Another member of the circle interjected with a thick german accent:
“Vhat if we destroyed not just ze sun, but ze conditions for life itself? Perhaps by modifying ze fundamental constants of ze univer-”
The therapist cut him off with a grimace and a look. “Thank you, Perry, for adding that. Insightful as always,” he said, before returning his attention to Joe and continuing:
“But let’s keep the focus on Joe’s progress towards his healthy self. Joe, look around this room and bring yourself to the present moment. Focus on these people here now who respect and understand you. You put them above yourself this week and made progress towards a more stable and healthy version of you. Let yourself just take that in for a moment.”
A few moments passed as Joe thought about his friends here and how many terrible ideas they had helped him avoid. He remembered the time Perry prevented him from accidentally vaporising the Transamerica pyramid, the time Ben had built him a custom strain of smallpox to deal with the rat infestation in his ceiling (for a small fee), and all the times the therapist had walked him back from the edge of a rather terrible plan. He took in the moment, noticing the rhythmic clicking as Mary tapped her long black fingernails against the wooden arm of her chair, before letting his irritation go:
“Thank you, doctor,” he said calmly as ease washed over him. He was reminded how hard it was to find tranquillity, and why he paid his therapist so generously.
The therapist met his gaze and smiled warmly, then spoke again:
“You’re welcome, Joe.”
The clock chimed, and the group was snapped out of the session. The therapist addressed them swiftly, lest someone begin a story that was hard to interrupt:
“Now, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today, so I’ll see you all next week, and Ben, good luck with the double-blind this week.”
The group shuffled out of the room, and Dr Morn closed his office door. He sat in silent meditation using mindfulness to manage countertransference, while the seconds ticked by on his grandfather clock. He looked out the window, to the rosy orange and pink sky, and smiled. He was quite sure his clients would never succeed at their hare-brained schemes, but even still, it was best to enjoy the sunset while it lasted. As the sky began to darken, he departed his office, but noticed a briefcase left behind by Joe, and took it with him, making a note to contact Joe the following morning. He rode on the Muni towards his house and smiled as he sat down next to a short blond woman in her late 30s. She paid him no attention, and continued listening to the news podcast through her headphones, where a reporter was discussing missing weapons-grade yellowcake uranium. She shook her head at the incompetence of the factory security, blithely unaware that the uranium in question was, in fact, safely tucked away in the lead-lined briefcase sitting right beside her. Halfway across the city, a man in an orange biohazard suit listened to the same podcast and suddenly became very aware of exactly how few briefcases were on his person.
To be continued.