"When would you say these issues began?" questioned his therapist, Dr. Milli.
"It's been nearly my entire life. My father is not a good man, he is constantly getting into mischief and I've had to cover up for him, trying to make things right. Sometimes I wonder if he does these things because he wants to torture me." replied Kweku Tsin, a sigh escaping from his body as he speaks. He looks over to see his doctor scribbling on his notepad. He's always writing on that notepad, making Kweku Tsin wonder if he's truly listening, or just drawing something. His answers rarely amount to more than "I see."
Dr. Milli looks up from his notes, reading the body language of his patient. He can tell the young man doesn't want to be there, and is doing the bare minimum to get through the session. He's not surprised by this; most patients seem to share this attitude, especially the younger ones. "Kweku Tsin, I'm here to try and help you. I understand the pain you're dealing with, that your father is causing you so much grief. What are some examples of the things he's done?"
"He tried to keep the rest of the world from acquiring knowledge once. The only reason he failed is because he was unable to climb a tree to hide the jar inside. Another time, he killed his friend Nothing simply for having a larger fortune than him and having a better life. He also withheld the food he had found from me and my mother during a famine. These aren't even all of the stories, these are just some of the ones that stick out the most in my mind."
"Have you confronted him about these things before?"
"Once. He swore to stop these actions and live an honest life, but this didn't last more than a few weeks. I'm not sure how to fix him and make it livable with him."
Kweku Tsin pouring his heart out
Source: 123rf
Seeing Kweku Tsin open up brings a smile to Dr. Milli's face. He sees a new person, an anger and frustration that he knew existed, but hadn't been able to tap into until now. He looks at his patient with a new outlook on these sessions. They continue these discussions until they hear a loud ringing sound. They both look to the source of the sound. It's the clock on the wall signaling the end of their session. "I think we made some good progress this week. I'd like to see you the same time next week. My assignment for you this week is to record what your father does to frustrate you this week, and why it made you feel this way. Think you can do that for me?"
Kweku Tsin looks at his doctor warily, but realizes this is the best he's felt in months. "I can't promise it will be perfect, but I'll do my best. See you next week, Dr. Milli!"
Author's Note: In many of the stories throughout the West Africa unit, Kweku Tsin is having to deal with his father's mischief, often being the one to stop him from performing terrible deeds or making other people's life worse. I wanted to take the idea of his father's constant actions wearing on him to the point that he is unable to live a normal life, and the covering for his father and putting up with his antics has caused him to suffer. This reaches the point that his mother believes he needs to work with a therapist to even have a chance of clearing his mind and becoming a normal person again.
West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).
Hey Sam!
ReplyDeleteI liked this story a lot. Although it may not have been your intention, I like that your story's focus on therapy is normalizing. I am a strong advocate for anyone struggle to visit a therapist and spend some time just talking out what is going on in their life, like Kweku Tsin is doing. So kudos to you! In the future maybe slow down just a moment as your writing. You have some typos or spelling errors in there that are easily fixed. Anyway! Great Job! I look forward to reading more of your work.
-Cat
Hey Sam! I enjoyed your story. I thought it was a really creative rendition of the Kweku Tsin's story. I didn't get a chance to read that story, so your author's note helped. I agree with Cat, also, that it's really cool to encourage therapy. I feel it can benefit a lot of people to speak to a professional about their mental and physical state. Really good job!
ReplyDeleteHi, Sam! First off, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading your story and seeing how you were able to put your own spin and personality in from the original version. I have not read the original version, but after reading your rendition, I have a pretty good idea as to what it's about and what happens. I do think it is really cool to encourage therapy and I think you have done a wonderful job of writing this story! I look forward to reading more from you in the future!
ReplyDeleteHey Sam! It was so creative to reform your story to where one of the character's is talking about his experiences to a therapist, as the conversations one has with a therapist usually entails them talking about their deepest feelings and troubles. If you were to expand this story, I think it would be beneficial if we see more of how Kweku Tsin evolves from this therapy session, possibly from having some kind of revelation in his therapy session that helps him better deal with his father
ReplyDeleteHey Sam, I really like how you have framed your retelling! It would really be interesting to get some cognitive psychology mixed into the section, but that would take a great deal of analysis and investigation. I wonder what other characters might have interesting therapy sessions. This could even be a cool storybook theme: fairy tale therapist haha. Overall great story!
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