Words in the Mind's Attic

[setsuled]

There's another ominous trip to a psychiatrist office in the new Sirenia Digest. "UNTITLED PSYCHIATRIST #4", the new story from Caitlin R. Kiernan, brings us another subtly combative dialogue between a psychiatrist and her patient, the unnamed narrator. This time, the wonderfully eerie scene recalled by the patient is developed through a provoking play with language.

One of Caitlin's talents, and the best part of the Digest, is her ability to provide such a seemingly authentic transcription of human thought to a strange situation. As the patient's active mind compulsively plays with the psychiatrist's perception, deliberately withholding information about one foreign word's etymology, the modified or omitted detail becomes a poetic subtext. A strange encounter in an attic is described, a being with glowing blue eyes taking root in the reality of language and compulsion. A really nice story painted on a snapshot of the brain.