Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) by David Jester Read Free Book Online Page A

pleasant woman, clearly very professional and certainly very sought-after, but there was something about her that Michael found intimidating. She had a constant beaming smile on her face, a smile that hid her own thoughts and exposed those of others. It put him on edge.
                  “I’m fine,” he said guardedly, adding: “I think.”
                  “If you were fine you wouldn’t be here.”             
                  He shrugged his shoulders dolefully.
                  The doctor looked away, just as Michael's ill ease at her penetrating eyes began to grow to discomforting levels.
                  “So, what’s bothering you?” she asked, pretending to look over a few notes on her lap.
                  “Do I really need to tell you?”
                  She made eye contact again, briefly this time -- her eyes doing all the smiling for her face. “No, but I prefer it that way.”
                  Michael wasn’t going for it. “It would save a lot of time if you just did your thing,” he told her.
                  “Because the art of psychiatry is about building a relationship.”
                  “I mean why do you even bother communicating with your--” Michael paused, hesitated and then frowned. His eyebrows narrowed disapprovingly at the grinning psychiatrist.
                  Unprompted the doctor said: “no, but I wanted to prove a point.”
                  “Did you have to do--” again Michael stopped himself, this time he wasn’t frowning. He shifted agitatedly on his chair, glanced this way and that around the spaciously isolated room and then finally relaxed, albeit with feigned comfort.
                  “Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it the normal way. No mind reading. It’s off-putting.”
                  The doctor seemed pleased. She made a few notes. Michael stared absently at the nib of her pen as it scrawled its shorthanded squiggles.
                  “So,” she said, slowly lowering the pen and Michaels’ eyes. “How are things at work?”
                  He raised his eyes to meet her. “A nightmare,” he explained with a reflective nod of his lethargic head. “I’m still on the bottom rung, working with the worst; the scum of society.”
                  “Aren’t all people equal?” she wondered. “You deal with death all the time; you should know that better than anyone.”
                  Michael shrugged his shoulders apathetically. “Dead, everyone is the same. It’s their life that depresses me. Some of them have so little to lose that they see death as a minor distraction.” He slumped back, lowered his gaze. “Last week I picked up a drunk driver, he drove straight into a wall and died on impact, when I found him he was so fucking cheery that I wanted to kill him again.” He sighed heavily and wrapped his arms across his chest.
                  “Isn’t it good to see that?” Doctor Khan wondered. “Doesn’t it make a nice change?
                  Michael shook his head for a few seconds before answering. “You come to expect a certain something from the dead. A mix of anger, fear and loss. It’s a happy ritual that they all abide by. It’s the only part of the job I feel comfortable with, as disturbing as that may sound.”             
                  “Is this man the reason for your visit?”
                  He shook his head, unfolded his arms and leant forward listlessly. “I want to know what I’m doing here. That’s why I’m here; I want you to tell me. I should be dead.”
                  The doctor didn’t flinch, didn’t lower eye contact. Michael had hoped for a note of sympathy, something different from the norm, but he got the