PTSD… Episode 4.
-Drake*
Unpublished Works, © 2026, BillyPauleyJr.*
Episode 4.
Wednesday.
“So how are we today, Sergeant Pauley?” asked Dr Stone, the Veterans Administration (VA) psychologist as I entered her office on my first appointment.
“Fuck you,” I replied, showing no love.
“What makes you so angry today?”
No answer.
“Better yet, are you angry?”
I closed my eyes and sat with my head down. She let the question hang between us.
“Fuck!” I hit the arm of the chair I was in. Taking deep breaths, “Fuck… fuck… fuck.” My voice fading into my mental awareness.
Dr Stone smiled, “So… no? Not particularly angry?”
“She’s taunting me,” I took offense, but not about to let her win that easily. “This is a mistake.” I stood as I looked toward the door.
“No,” she spun my head back around with her sharp, yet gentle zinger. Looking at her note pad, “Master Sergeant Pauley, Wednesday 2pm, my office. This is my office,” waving her hand around, “it’s Wednesday 2pm,” looking at her watch, “and here you are!”
“Well, fuck.” I sat down and put my head back to look at the ceiling mostly to avoid her. I smiled a half-hearted smile and let out a muffled laugh as I saw on her ceiling, right above my seat, was a STOP sign. When I looked at her she knew she’d won. She pointed her two fingers at her eyes, at me and back.
“Right here, Sergeant Pauley. Here I am.”
“Ok, doc… but you don’t understand”
“I actually have a PhD in understanding,” pointing at her framed certificates.
“I mean…”
“You? Your situation?”
“Right.”
“What your life is like.”
“Pretty much.”
“What your paaaaiinnnn is like.” She drew out the word pain for emphasis. It hit.
“Yes.”
“Fuck you.” She stood up in front of me. Her intensity deliberate, calculated. Suddenly, I trusted her. Still, it was too hard to ask for help.
So I stared; not at her, just into the depth of me.
“What do you see?” she reacted to my immersion.
No answer.
Silence between us.
“I can’t stop the nightmares. They’re so real. I sometimes wonder if it actually happened that way.”
“Help me out here. You have, let’s call them bad dreams.”
“Yes… very bad.”
“And once you’re awake and in control, you initially thinking it’s a bad dream still consider it may be an actual memory… not just a dream?”
“Fuck!” I was breaking.
“It’s ok,” she said with uncertain caution.
“I don’t know what to say. What good it’ll do.”
Silence.
“I mean… maybe I should go.”
“Maybe you should. I’m no help without you and your presence.” Long pause. “Next Wednesday?”
“Sure.” I left.
The ride home was haunting. The tho’t of talking about anything was everything.
Wednesday.
“So how are we today, Sergeant Pauley?”
“Fuckin’ great,” my words full of sarcasm. I took my seat, looking up to confirm the STOP sign was real, not imagined from my first visit.
“I’ve been thinking,” Dr Stone began.
“Dr Stone,” I started. “I’m not feeling good about this. I’m lost. What the hell am I doing here?”
“Do you always give your answers before your questions?”
“What?”
“You’re here because you’re lost. I can’t find you… only you can. But I do well in map reading… knowing which way to go. Will you give yourself that chance?”
“Myself…” I laughed at the notion. “Fuck.”
Wednesday.
“So how are we today, Sergeant Pauley?”
“Fuck.”
Wednesday.
“So how are we today, Sergeant Pauley?”
“Fuck.”
Wednesday.
“So how are we today, Sergeant Pauley?”
“Fuck.”
Wednesday.
-Drake*
PTSD …is a Smokey the Toad™ production.
Please find me here Sundays for more PTSD episodes… be safe!
Dr. Stone has her work cut out for her. I really like the idea of a stop sign on the ceiling of a therapist's office.