“Fine,” Brooks conceded. Irritation flared like a heat wave up his neck and made sweat bead along his brow. “I’ll play your games. Let me see the pictures, dickhead.”
Roger held up the first inkblot photo from the Rorschach test. The ink spread from the crease and out like a monochromatic angel’s wings. In the center, the stains formed two raised hands with straggling dots blotting the outside of the lines.
“It’s a herald.”
Without missing a beat, Roger said, “Elaborate.”
“The two larger stains spread to form wings, the center stain is the body, and up at the top,” he pointed, “are the hands.”
“You could have said an angel or a bat or body part. Maybe even an X-ray. Instead, you named it a herald.”
“I don’t know, Roger. Its hands are lifted like it’s shouting. Like it’s shouting a warning. A fallen angel calling a warrior to battle. A fucking herald, okay?”
“I see.”
More pencil scratching against paper.
“Oh, great.” Sarcasm coated his tongue like honey.
Shit. Reel it in.
Roger put the card face down and reached for another.
“What about this one?”
Black spread across the page with mottled red spatters placed strategically toward the top and bottom.
“It’s a face,” Brooks answered without hesitation.
“Elaborate.”
“It’s the bottom half of a jaw. Skeletal. That small stain in the crease is the nose bone. Its mouth is open, yelling. And the two red spots up top are like eyes. Angry eyes.”
“Angry because they’re red?”
“No,” he mused. “The way the red spatters at the bottom and around the image aren’t rounded but spiked? The image is angry. I can just feel it. Like it’s been wronged and is set on revenge.”
Roger writes and nods. Without skipping a beat he replaces the image in his hand for another more sinister than the last.
“Have you ever met the devil, Roger?”
The pen stops scribbling and those calculative eyes flick up.
“Come again?”
“Have you ever met the devil?”
“Who is the devil, Brooks?”
“I think the devil is subjective. To a drug addict, the devil is heroin. To a widow, he is death.”
“And what is the devil to you, Brooks?”
He smirked at Roger and with a wink threw back, “Asked you first, dickhead.”
“Refer to the inkblot, please.”
“Must have been hard to keep that eye-roll under control.”
