How I love the silence of the office when my patients are under and my fees are being paid. I wonder if for them it’s like the deep sleep I promise. For me it’s a nap on a beach. Two minutes ago they were shredding the air with their grievances and then—snap! I haven’t seen them this relaxed since, well, last week. The question is should I cure them. They don’t require a cure. Their problems are solved in advice columns every day. Mom, Dad, you’re sexually incompatible. That should have been clear when you were dating, but you thought the fact that she liked to give you something “for special occasions” was charming, instead of a warning. She’s unfulfilled, but not by you; to be fulfilled she’d need a goal, and for that she’d need an imagination and she has neither. From now on, no occasion will ever be special enough. Why can you not see this? The kids can see it. They “act out” because their personal family sitcom is all situation and no comedy, plus trouble means joining their friends in detention. It’s no wonder I prefer the whole lot of them hypnotized. They dress well. If they weren’t passed out on my furniture they could be posing for a catalogue. I wasn’t trained for this. I had a calling, I thought, and vision for darkness, dead aim for the heart of the matter, finesse enough to cast into the tempest and feel through the line when the hook first caught; instead I’m solving riddles of why girls eat, or why they don’t. Unless, unless that is the deepest plumbing of the heart, and my problems are just as obvious to them as theirs are to me, and I’m the one who’s being cheated here.
Copyright © January 1, 2007 David Hodges
Very Short Novels 
5 comments
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January 2, 2007 at 3:40 am
Lola Rogers
This is a fine story to start the new year.
Hey, thanks, Lola.
–David
January 2, 2007 at 4:18 pm
timethief
Another interesting angle … hmmm … Happy New Year, David. 🙂
Thanks, timethief, and HNY to you, too. Time to get the brains back in gear, yes?
–David
January 4, 2007 at 8:59 pm
sarah flanigan
Brutal in its honesty, David. As only you can do.
Sarah
Thank you, Sarah. They say a cynic is a sentimentalist on guard.
–David
January 5, 2007 at 5:55 am
Annelisa
Ah, private musings… we all have them, don’t we? And yet they usually don’t seem appropriate things to say. Unfortunately, I tend to blurt out what I’m thinking, so don’t often hold the private stream of thoughts for long…
But, it’s the sort of dialogue that pops up in your head, when you have a moment you don’t have to respond. I can just imagine a therapist thinking like this…
(by the way, I’ve visited a few times recently, but didn’t comment, as the new layout confused me, and I couldn’t find the comments… didn’t realise they were hidden at the bottom (are they set to come up below the sidebar?)
Thank you annelisa. You’re too kind to say everything that pops into this therapist’s head. I agree, the comments do get hidden. Glad you eventually found them!
–David
January 11, 2007 at 11:40 am
red dirt girl
hello David,
while I was away it seems that you continued to play with words so eruditely; prey upon our deepest fears (is my therapist really as bored as I am by all of my wasted years???)
though i have found hypnosis to be remarkably reliable when it comes to letting go of trauma…….a train ride through horrific events – that i watch with face glued to the window, happy that my train no longer stops at their stations…….and yes, i believe, after a long, long while………the therapist’s secrets get mingled in the mire of my own……..no man can remain an island for long.
good to be back…….and thanks for your kind words of encouragment.
red dirt girl
Welcome back, red dirt girl. There’s room on the couch. After the train has passed through the station, which is more changed, the station or the train?
–David
the train……..it finds a new track to follow, through countryside of a quite different nature……..at least that is the hope – and without that small four letter word, where would we all be in this world???