I didn’t object when Mom took me to the shrink. I’m a good son.

I answered all his questions truthfully.

The doctor told Mom it’s worrisome, my playing with fire and torturing small animals.

I reassured her. Those are symptoms for small boys. They don’t apply now that I’m forty.

Paul Lees-Haley used to be a psychologist and will be again when they let him out. His work has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, The Alabama Writers Conclave’s Alalitcom, Voices, G/C/T, Hypertrophic Literary, CoEvolution Quarterly, Trial, Spectrum, and numerous psychological and legal journals and magazines.