The story's really engaging and intriguing and provides much scope for all sorts of storylines, and the idea of the stone and the mystery surrounding it is developed well, but I think that perhaps you should develop your character further. It's nice that you mention she's a psychiatrist (I'm not wrong, I hope) but maybe you can elaborate more on her lifestyle, her personality, her appearance and maybe create another mystery about her. It'll lengthen the short story a little bit but it'll make the story seem more profound.

Thank you very much.

And, you guessed correctly, she is a psychiatrist. I'll have my next edit posted in a day or two...

I like your second draft! It adds so much more feeling and atmosphere to the story! I see nothing that needs to be improved.

I also liked it. Despite the apparent uneventfulness of it, there was continual compulsion to keep me interested.

I also liked the way the title (working though it is) seemed to suggest the character was driven out of their mind, when in the end she resolved to drive the stone out of her mind instead.

There's only one thing I have a problem with, the ending...

I MUST KNOW WHAT THE STONE IS

But seriously it definitely has much more impact and meaning when you leave what the item is as a mystery. It links the reader to the character in that both want to figure out what it is, but neither does by the end of the story.

I guess I'll just have to try to put it out of my mind as well

Thank you both so much! I'm going to do a quick edit (spelling, grammar, etc.) and then post in in the final draft.

I love the message this sends. After reading this, you keep thinking to yourself, "what the heck it that thing?" Then you realise you have to do what she did, and forget it.

Can you tell me anyway? Thats if you have an answer. If it was me, I wouldn't have thought of one to go with the theme of the story.

Anywho, it was great. And there wasn't a single dingle thing wrong!

Need I say more? Your final edits makes the story draw to a close naturally. Yay!

Thanks sooo much, Pen.

And to answer your question, Phoenix, I don't have an answer as to what the stone is. In the literal sense, it is just a mysterious stone. I made no back story for it, because I wanted to remain as befuddled by what it could be as my main character was. Symbolicaly, the stone is the main character's repressed stress and her "know-it-all" tendencies all coming back to haunt her. But other than that, it is basically nothing.