Frances’ Sessions
By: Lyda Martin
FRANCES’ SESSIONS
SCENE 1
A therapist’s office. NIKKI is seated, looking at her phone, and someone knocks on the door.
NIKKI
Come on in.
FRANCES enters and takes a seat at the armchair across from NIKKI.
FRANCES
Hi.
NIKKI
Hi.
A pause.
NIKKI (CONT’D)
We can start wherever you would like.
FRANCES
That’s always the worst part, though.
NIKKI sits quietly and looks at FRANCES.
FRANCES (CONT’D)
Do you ever feel like there must be something wrong with you? Sometimes I feel like I have to have a word, or a diagnosis, or a name for what is wrong with me in order to explain how I feel. I’m just, I’m just so distant from everyone lately.
NIKKI
Is it necessarily a bad thing? To be distant?
FRANCES
I don’t know. I do it a lot, and I always feel guilty about it. Withdrawing.
NIKKI
I’ve noticed you have a lot of feelings of guilt.
FRANCES
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how to stop it. It’s my feelings, you know? I don’t know where they come from, and most of the time it’s like watching water come out of a hot spring. It’s been underground for so long that it’s boiling, and you don’t know where it came from.
NIKKI
That’s a good metaphor.
FRANCES
Takes one to know one, yeah?
NIKKI chuckles.
FRANCES (CONT’D)
I can just feel myself drawing back, and I can see everyone getting further and further away from me, but I can’t stop myself.
NIKKI
Have you tried?
FRANCES
How do you stop yourself from doing something passive? Drawing back like this isn’t an action, it’s inaction.
NIKKI
By doing something active, maybe?
FRANCES
Yeah, I guess. I have some trouble with that.
NIKKI
That’s okay.
Pause.
FRANCES
I feel guilty right now.
NIKKI
Okay. Why?
FRANCES
I don’t know. I’m tired all the sudden. Talking with you makes me really tired.
NIKKI
Therapy is hard work. It makes sense that you would be tired. Your brain is thinking about a lot of hard things.
FRANCES
It’s hard for me to keep track of my thoughts. I feel like I’m grasping at them but they are running away from me. I’m just so tired.
Pause.
FRANCES (CONT’D)
Hey, um, do you think I could just rest for a bit? And not talk?
NIKKI
This is your session. You can do whatever you like. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to ask for rest when you need it.
FRANCES
Thank you. Um, I guess I’ll get to it then.
NIKKI
I’ll wake you when the session is over.
FRANCES
Thank you.
FRANCES shifts in her chair and rests her chin on her hands. She closes her eyes and falls into a light sleep. NIKKI sits patiently in her chair, waiting.
END SCENE