Popping a squat in the chez lounge, I lie down and relax for a second. Listening to people complain all day can be really trying on the mind; I need some down time between each patient. Especially before working with a patient like Luke Skywalker; that boy has got some serious, serious, issues to ponder about: with his aunt and uncle both being brutally murdered the same day while he was off the farm, then he finds out he has some super power type business going on, his mom dies in child birth, he hooks up with his sister, his mentor Obi Wan Kenobi is murdered, and then his hand is chopped off by the infamous Darth Vader, who he finds out is his biological daddy. The kid has definitely got some issues, but he seems to handle it well, focusing instead on his studies of his “force”. If I were in his shoes, they would have found me Kurt Cobain’d in some deserted house a long time ago.

The clock bells ring, and I hustle to my desk chair with my notepad and pen waiting for his arrival. He may be loon as a toon but at least he’s interesting; having my day consist of hours of broken marriages is not only depressing, but boring. I catch myself daily dozing off during all the “he said, she said” nonsense. Keeping Red Bull within close reach is an excellent decision to keep my clients from noticing my drooping eyes or bobbing head, neither of which are good things to broadcast amongst people paying top dollar to have someone listen to them whine. Luke, however, keeps me particularly interested, and I enjoy his visits.

As the door opens, I lean back in my chair trying to look like a well put together professional. Luke has a seat and shuts the door behind him with a flick of the wrist; the force is an incredible thing. Crossing his legs Indian style he still doesn’t fill the LazyBoy. A lean build, he couldn’t have weighed more than 170 at best. It baffles my mind how he goes about cutting people left and right with that wonderful contraption, that light saber he keeps at his side 24/7.
“So last we left off, we were discussing your family, correct? We had just concluded that whole situation with your sister, and I feel we were making some serious progress on your thoughts about your father.” Seeing him wince when I mention his sister gives me a little laugh. This poor boy grows up on a farm on some far away planet dreaming of joining the resistance and fighting the emperor; then out of all the people he comes across in the universe, the poor kid from nowhere starts to develop a relationship with a beautiful princess he saves from certain death. The irony is that the princess is his twin sister! Who he hooks up with unknowingly! Score is: Irony 1, Luke 0.
“Yes, that would be correct,” he replies in his monotone voice. The voice of someone who’s seen some stuff go down in his short time alive.
“How do you feel about him?” Luke takes a deep breath before unloading what seems to be a never ending torrent of mixed feelings. I’ll save you the dribble drabble, and sparknote it for you. Luke is filled with so many mixed feelings about his father; he can’t sort the good from the bad. He admires his power and influence that he has garnered for himself, but despises the fact that his father drifted to the “dark side”. I thought he would have dwelled more on how he had killed Obi Wan or chopped off Luke’s own hand, but Luke seems to be fine with all of those and focuses on his father’s last dying act. It seems his father, who had blindly followed his master, the Emperor, for years, had some clarity in his last moments and killed the Emperor, removing the leader of the infamous Empire. I can only marvel at the kids’ optimism; always looking for the silver lining. Then again, this could very well be the abnormally high dosage of Prozac I have him on. How could I not prescribe him antidepressants? The kid’s a walking time bomb by society’s standards. Everyone he becomes close to either winds up dead or in some weird dilemma of their own. Good thing he’s just a patient or I might have to worry about somehow being related to him or dying in some horrific fashion.