Family photographs and floral arrangements cluttered the sterility of the psychiatrist’s office in a weak attempt to put the ‘subject’ at ease. Filling the desk, photos of a little girl in a tutu, staged family portrait, a black-ribboned frame of a boy in a football uniform, -- along with the usual collection of pens, pads and memo books.

The sun streamed through the open window, as if battling to suppress the dark stories that were lay bare in that room.

Doctor Victor Allen’s voice was now one of desperation, combined with anger. He knew that his job was to not antagonise his patients but ten years of failure after failure with Mitchell Swinbourne was enough to push even the most hardened professional to the limit.

"Mitchell, you came to me over ten years ago as an obsessive compulsive, and yes we’ve managed to rid you of the bulk of your behaviour yet you still retain this compulsion about losing your ant farm. Regardless of how many times I’ve told you that ants, although a living creature are nothing more than workers for a common cause and to replace them would be of no real significance. I buried myself in my work, ‘you,’ because I needed to when my son disappeared."

"I know doc," Mitchell responded. "But they all had names, there was Hercules, Samson, De.."

"Mitchell, ants can’t be told apart, you may have given them names but drones as they are, it would have been impossible to tell them apart unless you marked them somehow and we both know that you didn’t."

Mitchell dropped his head as the doctor’s venom bit deep into his psyche.

"Your obsession is nothing more than a delusion. I’ve shown you a dozen times that ants as useful as they are, are no more than a replaceable commodity. It is how their life goes, whether they’re trodden on or eaten by an ant-eater, they ARE replaceable."

"I think it’s time now for you to face this reality, I feel I can’t do anymore for you so I shall make a few phone calls, and see if I can find another doctor who can spare the time to work with you on this one issue."

Mitchell raised his head and thought about speaking, but chose not to. He stood up quietly, shook Victor Allen’s hand and walked out of the office – that was the last time Victor Allen saw or heard from him.

Mitchell spent the next few years talking to Doctor Winston Arrowsmith, a doctor who neither cared about is obsession nor his wellbeing, all he cared about was his bank balance, but it kept Mitchell in the loop.

"Doc, will I ever get better?"

"Well that, depends solely on you Mitchell."

"I have got another farm you know, well not so much a real farm anyway. I’ve had it for years but I couldn’t tell the other doctor – he’d never of understood." Mitchell replied.

"Another ant farm? Ok, so are these named like the first?"

"Oh no, I just let them talk to themselves and name themselves – it’s so much easier that way."

"So is there a chance you could knock this one over and lose these ants as well?" The doctor queried. Mitchell shook his head determinedly.

"Nope, no way, I’ve cemented it to the floor."

The doctor gave Mitchell a strange look when he said cement but shook it off as Mitchell’s mistaken ramblings for glue, but why the floor?

"Well Mitchell, it’s that time again, do you have any questions before we end the session?" Mitchell shook his head, his lips parting in a weak smile. "Ok then, same time next week," Mitchell nodded then shuffled out the door.

The restaurant had always been a great place to unwind, sitting at his favourite table and ordering his usual meal and wine, Doctor Arrowsmith was still toying with the cement and floor puzzle -- a heavy Italian accent breaking his chain of thought.

"The food, she’s a’no good? You no eat, you just a’look, I tell you a story I see on’a the TV today."

Sitting across from him, the waiter began to recount in broken English, the story of the naked and filth encrusted old lady found two weeks previous, half walking, half crawling, making clicking noises as she did.

It turned out she’d disappeared twelve years prior, now she’d returned as mixture of human and animal. Doctor Arrowsmith, bit his lip, shaking his head as he did. His brow knitted in thought, he stood up and apologised for leaving the meal then dropped the money on the table -- this was all too odd for his liking.

The automatic doors made a whooshing sound as he passed through them, approaching the front desk; he took his medical card out and asked for who was in charge of the mystery old woman, he was told Doctor Victor Allen.

Knocking on his door, he made his way in and saw Doctor Allen standing in front of a two-way mirror, a pensive look on his face as he stared at the old lady as she scurried about the opposite room shifting what furniture there was, from one corner to the next then back again.

Coughing softly to indicate his presence to Doctor Allen, he moved forward to look through the mirror.

"I’m terribly sorry, I’m Victor Allen, you must be Winston Arrowsmith, the nurse said you were coming up – what can I do for you?"

"Firstly, let me apologise for interrupting you." Victor Allen just waved the apology away. "Secondly, I was curious about the woman – any ideas?"

"Not a one, all she does is collect her food, take it piece by piece to that far corner, then goes back to shifting things around the room – only stopping every few hours to nibble on the food."

"She’s like a drone, a worker, a bit like an ant really. If it wasn’t so disturbing, I’ve got a patient that would probably know the ideal way of taking care of her."

Pointing to a chair and beckoning Doctor Arrowsmith to sit, he asked him about his patient.

"He’s nothing more than a nuisance really, he lost an ant farm but apparently he’s got a new one so I’ll be working with him on that."

"Not Mitchell Swinbourne?"

"Yes, that’s him, do you know him?"

"He was my patient for at least ten years, he was a severe obsessive compulsive when he came to me, I needed something to keep me occupied or I would have gone mad at the time, my son had disappeared just before I took him on. We managed to control the bulk of his compulsive actions but that ant farm was always there, in the end I just dropped him in the too hard basket."

"He said something strange to me today. He said he had a new ant farm, or was it just a farm? Either way, he said he cemented it to the floor, this has been plaguing me all evening."

"He may have meant glue or something," Doctor Allen replied.

"I thought of that, but once a compulsive, always a compulsive. Yes we can control it to a certain degree, and yes there have been many cases of a complete cure but Mitchell is far from that."

"True, but what’s your point?"

"That’s it, I don’t have one."

"I’ve got the number of the detective in charge of this case, I’ll let him know about Mitchell, you never know. It’s getting late, I’ve had enough for one day, it’s been a pleasure and I’ll let you know if they find anything." Shaking hands the two men parted company in the car park, each walking slowly to their cars.

The drive home through the woods was slow for Doctor Allen; thoughts of Mitchell’s ant farm were filling his tired mind. As he pulled into his drive, he pushed the button on the garage door remote; it rose quickly and lowered the same as he pulled into the garage.

Turning the car off, he rubbed his eyes and climbed out. Walking to the far wall, he pushed on it and made his way down the long twisting stairs. Flicking the light switch, he stretched his arms, and then rubbed his shoulders. Flopping into his comfy chair, he poured himself a scotch and surveyed the room.

He stared hard at a glass panel, some sixty feet long, forty feet high and twenty feet deep, crammed with loose filling earth, his ‘ants’ scurried around.

"Mrs. Grandmere shouldn’t have escaped, one of you helped her, I know it, but who? No matter, no one else will escape, I’ll make sure of that."

One worker stopped in a tunnel and stared hard back at him. If he could get one old lady out, he can get the rest out.

Once a psychiatrist’s son, always a psychiatrist’s son.

Copyright ©2002 Carl Bratcher.  All Rights Reserved