Falling, Fallen (bxb)

Proverbs

"Kit, Kit, Kit! Glad to see you for this check-up at the scheduled time!" Mr. Delany said, pulling an elastic band off of the ball of a seemingly infinite ball of bands.

Last time, Kit skipped his check-up because he felt like it. It ended up being rescheduled and resulted in Mr. Delany being even more worried about him.

"Here's the sheet, you know what to do, correct?" He slid a stapled bunch of papers over to Kit, tapping at the paragraph at the top of it, stating that 'everything is confidential unless you are deemed a harm to yourself or others'.

"Considering I've filled out like 5 of these, yes, I'd say I probably do." He snatched it, knocking over a clay pot of pens.

"You can take one of those to fill it out, while you are hitting them over." Mr. Delany scoffed, picking up most of them but leaving one of them out for Kit to use.

He skimmed over the page, reading all of the little checkboxes and small dotted lines, it's the questionnaire filled with different symptoms of a lot of mental health issues, that if you select the wrong one it results in you getting interrogated further.

1. Do you feel extremely tired without any apparent reason?

He selected no. It was actually the opposite for him.

2. Do you feel lonely or extracted from others?

He selected no. He has plenty of friends.

3. Do you find it difficult to concentrate?

He selected yes.

4. Do you find it difficult to think logically?

He didn't know if it is exactly what they meant, but he felt it hard to concentrate on life in general. Sometimes he'd feel a dissociation of his senses, an inability to think clearly or pinpoint emotions or determine what he hears and sees. It feels slow, and fake, like a simulation; he once kicked the wall repeatedly to try and feel something, and it worked, so this became a habit.

Yes, he circled, with a large question mark.

He glanced up from his sheet to see Mr. Delany tapping away at his keyboard.

5. Do you ever go blank?

There were a few times. Once, after an altercation with his dad that happened a few hours before, he laid on the floor for 45 minutes, just staring up at the ceiling- his brain still. He was too drained to move from the bathroom, where he'd just brushed his teeth, to his bed, even though both were in view and he could very easily stand up and move a few centimeters from the floor into the comfort of his sheets. But to him, it didn't feel so easy. So he just laid there.

He went through the other questions, the last few he just inattentively checked, not really thinking back and trying to remember things.

"Done." He flipped the back page over to the front again and slapped it down on the table.

"Excellent." Mr. Delany wiped his finger over the words, skimming his eyes along with the pages of countless questions and answers, "Kristopher, this is actually a big improvement. Definitely not 'good' by any means, but you are doing well."

"Okay." Kit said, bluntly, drawing his eyes to the clock, he noticed they'd gone over the time slot but he felt pretty content knowing he was missing Spanish class.

"Okay, back to general questions. I'll log this into the system afterward."

"Okay." He repeated.

"How are you?" Mr. Delany knew very well there was no use in asking this question, however, he had to follow protocol so asked it every time anyways.