The seats of the chairs in her office were covered with a thin blue material that greatly resembled Berber carpeting.
"Hello, Mr. Woodley. It's very nice to meet you. I'm Lydia."
"Lydia, how nice how nice. Unfortunately it is not as nice to meet you as it apparently is for you to meet me. I apologize for the inconvenience. Really quite rude of me, keeping to the societal values that I really ought to abide by according to the force of society. And you're quite pretty. I ought to behave myself in an appropriate manner for your sake."

"...Um, uh uh ok, oh thank you. Thank you. You may have a seat if you wish. Please do. Please take a seat."
The young woman is outwardly uncomfortable in her inexperience.
"On the grounds of?"
Her lips quiver in deciding how to answer.
"...Uh, um because I would like to talk with you for a little while, if that's alright with you."
"Oh! Oh. So purely selfish reasons." He gives a friendly smile and nods his head approvingly, finally transferring his hands, interlaced at his front, to the task of sitting in the carpeted chair. Woodley’s eyes, exceedingly clear and sharp for their age, barely leave Lydia's face.
"Well, so, Mr. Woodley, firstly it is nice to meet you. And welcome to the facility. I hope you have been given the opportunity to make yourself acquainted? If anything else, I hope that you know that we are here to help you."
Silence, but not the type of painful silence, ensues. More expectant.
"You are here to help me."
"Yes, that is correct."
"Under assumption here, forgive me, but it seems a s though you are insinuating a burden of need on my behalf."
The young looking woman with neat, shoulder length brown hair and a mildly offensive grey suit, partially buttoned, crosses her legs. Tan pantyhose. Her eyes search the deep wrinkles in the face of the man in front of her. The sickly light of the fluorescents glints off his olive skin, worn and thick from years of tribulations unknown to Lydia.
She abruptly straightens herself in the carpeted chair, eyes reseated into Woodley's.
"Of course this must be a difficult time for you. I understand that the new Milieu and fear of the unknown may be a startling adjustment. Facing new circumstances can be very frightening."
"On the grounds of."
She silently escorts her befuddlement with smooth dismissal.
"….I'm sorry?"
"On the grounds of what?"
Lydia swallows.
"I apologize Mr. Woodley, but you must be a bit more specific with me regarding your query."
He sat back a bit, eyes never leaving Lydia's face. His body was relaxed and not at all suggestive.
"I hear the slight formality in your voice, Lydia. The reason I say this is because I can tell you are not foolish. Although there is a great worth in foolishness."
A robin darts past the single paned window.
"The crux of the matter remains that you most definitely know what I am inquiring about; whether you are conscious of your knowledge of this is a story in itself."
"On the grounds that you have been admitted by someone who obviously cares for you very much, and thinks that you are very ill,” Lydia counters, as an answer.
The man’s eyes pause, exhaling a quiet breath of moderate surprise at her answer.
"What are you comparing me to.” He barely skips a beat. This time the woman can't mask her bewilderment.
"...Excuse me?"
"In order to call me ill you must compare me to something. What are you comparing me to?"
A shirt rustles.
"You must compare the ill to a higher ideal in order to deem them as ill. Compared to something that is different from it. Something that great amounts of society consider more favorable: as if society is to know what things in life are favorable over others!" His hearty laughter refracted off of the white silence.

Later in the Week

“PhD, I see.”
“Yes, I have a PhD in psychology.” She adjusts the badge affixed to the breast of her blouse.
“Whereabouts have you studied?”
“Well, I took a couple of classes elsewhere, but mainly Stanford University.”
The man sits, legs crossed, on the carpeted chair, face revealing nothing. His index finger is touching his chin.
“Oh, what an impressive façade you show to the world, then.”
Jesus, will the woman ever unmask the true meaning in his words. Inexorably perplexed.

Nodding his head to the moderate tempo of his rocking, a peaceful, amused smile crosses his lips, as if he has been reminded of an old friend, recounting the memories behind his closed lids and relaxed brow.

“I'm sorry?”
The words are barely out of the woman’s mouth when he utters his reply: “Hundreds of thousands of dollars and an exhaustion later, where are you, Lydia?”
She is silent. Though she knows she should speak up, but she swallows hard.
“Where are your teachers, Lydia?” Silence ensues.
“Where are your classmates, who you surely competed with in a nonverbal rivalry for grades and awards and scholarships?”
Lydia remains mute, like a scolded child, eyes locked with Woodley’s. Even her eyes do not talk.
“Why do you care so much what all the others think?”
It burns. Lydia winces.
“One hundred years from now, you will be dead. And no one will remember or exhibit a particular interest that you scored a ninety four on your final psychology exam. Or, perhaps, that you even went to Stanford University at all.” He gets up and walks past Lydia, eyes guided straight past her. She is left alone in the fluorescent glow of her office bleeding into the hallway.
“Do not do things to please society Lydia. Do things to please yourself.”

It was the most direct comment he had made all week.

Later in the Year

Silence.
The man slips an old photograph out of his breast pocket, one edge creased from a fold that had since been flattened out. The back of the photograph is yellowed.
"This is my daughter, Caroline."
"Oh how nice!"
The woman is quite genuinely delighted and equally relieved to see the man have a bit of sentimental emotion for God's sake. Surprising.
"She died twelve years ago."
The woman looks up abruptly, mouth still ajar from the preceding surprise.
“Oh, um, oh my. I’m so, so sorry for your loss.” She consciously avoids whispering her words of condolence. Instead, clunky and loud, the condolence settles stagnantly in the air between the woman and the man. The air is thick.

The fluorescents are messing with her vision.

"Sometimes I imagine that this is all a dream and that I'll wake up and Caroline will be making breakfast in the kitchen, and Caroline please will you stop that banging I am trying to catch a bit of sleep and then, defeated by sunrise I get out of bed and prepare myself to go to the barber shop because a certain mister that I am not too, shall I put, fond of, has a seven thirty appointment before his financial meeting at eight o' clock and he will be quite surly as to point out my faults if I am but a minute late to work."
The man looks up from his focus on the blue linoleum and meets the woman's eyes with an innocent, matter of fact expression.
"And then I realize that no, Caroline is not here and is not coming back and that I have never cut hair in my life."

Two paperclips drop from the woman’s desk.
He looks up expectantly, purely vulnerable and unabashed. He searches Lydia's eyes expectantly and leans his face forward, as if his life is dependent on her understanding. Lydia abandons her rigidity and sits back in the carpeted chair. Her face softens for the first time since she has met the man.


Woodley’s Purpose

She flicks the light switch.
“AAGGHH!”
She trips backwards in a pair of matte black pumps and braces herself against the open door.
“What are you doing here?!”
No hesitation in response. “Editing your report.”
Suddenly conscious of her appearance, the woman takes a moment to hastily straighten her button down blouse and brush the hair off of her face, steading her feet. She rewinds.
“Um, if, if I may ask, Mr. Woodley, aren’t you supposed to be in the Resident Milieu?
“Well, perhaps according to you or the other staff of this facility, that statement may be correct.”
The woman is getting used to this and holds conversation without hesitation.
“Well then I suppose you should be heading back. I will escort you if you wish, or if you want me to call another staff member that can be arran- wait.” She takes another moment to herself, wide eyed.
“Did you say that you are editing my report?”
“Yes, you are correct, those are my words.”
“My weekly report? About the progress of my patients?”
“I presume that you are referring to the only document that resided in the filing cabinet. In a manila folder, which, I might add, was not properly labeled.” For the first time he looks up from his work at the woman’s desk, pen in hand, getting a bit impatient with the redundancy of her questions. After all he doesn’t exactly have extensive periods of time to do such things what with the security conditions of this institute, g--------.
His eyes light up in sudden recollection, “Oh, and, Lydia,” looking a bit concerned, “I hope you don't mind a bit of literary advice, which I predominantly assume that you will actually mind, but of course, to be compliant with societal politeness here, of course you wouldn't be so harsh as to reject it."
She stares dumbfounded.
"I've used affliction, in many places to substitute your word of choice, torment,” Woodley shakes his head, chuckling, “Because I, myself, consider my thoughts an appliance of a particular affliction rather than a torment."

She is noiseless for a long time. They stare at each other.

"Well if you consider yourself the host of an affliction, what type of affliction are you referring to?"

He is silent for a long time, staring at her. A slow smirk crawls across his face, eyes wrinkling at the edges. He laughs, a bit darkly.

"Well, Standford, isn't that what you're here for?"

The Fifth Year

“Lydia, I've come to like you a great amount. May I be granted the appropriate societal permission as to share something with you?”
Exhaling, the woman forces her lips into a plastered grin.
“Sure.”
The man’s face is soft and kind. “Please, don’t be hollow dear."
The Last Day
"The dominance of youth is showing through, Lydia."
"..Um, I'm sorry, Mr. Woodley?"
"You try very hard. For what it’s worth, which is most definitely not very much, I pity you, Lydia. You work very, very hard."
Her pale skin finally creases where her brows are knit, truly puzzled. Against the rules, of course.
"I see your suit, and your pantyhose, but I also look at you and I see a girl's face."
Silence. For a long, long time.
His voice is a whisper. “And if anything else, I hope that you know I am here to hel-
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-
A woman’s hand slams on the alarm clock and falls back into bed. With a sharp breath she purses her lips and eyebrows in attempt to stand. The wrinkles have deepened around her mouth and last Wednesday she had to use the pair of tweezers upon her findings of a first gray hair.
A man’s voice calls her name from downstairs.
The morning news is playing on the television and tells her that it is Saturday. She gets in the car after a cup of coffee, still wearing the flannel pajamas and slippers that her daughter gave her three years ago as a Christmas gift.
She parks and exits the vehicle, skimming a sign that tells her she is at Crestwood Burial Grounds, a Peaceful Place for Families since 1972. What a bleak Saturday morning for such a diplomatic phrase.
She is traveling in a path that is not unfamiliar to the sensible walking shoes she got from Macy's for thirty five percent off as a substitute for the really supportive ones that she had wanted, because one hundred and twenty five dollars was an unnecessary cost and she could use the money better to pay for Jack's student loan payment, oh s*** the payment is due on Wednesday, why the hell didn’t her husband remind her of such important things.
The less expensive walking shoes stop in place, eyes locked on the short, weathered stone in front of her. They fall upon the inscription.
Sum ut docerem te semper. Memento quod interest.


God, did her a-- hurt from those carpeted chairs.