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JULY 2027

Dark

Always the dark, warm, hot war Always the hot war drums, the drums that define the world It is comfortable here I aain

Dr Morrison looked up from my journal and s to be reassuring, stretching his lips so wide that he looked like he was getting ready to lean over and take a bite of my throat

"I wish you wouldn’t s itself into luive hi just how uncomfortable he made me

For a professional therapist, Dr Morrison see me twitch "Like what, Sally?"

"With the teeth," I said, and shuddered I don’t like teeth I liked Dr Morrison’s teeth less thananother one of those nightmares, the ones where his smile spread all the way around his head and met at the back of his neck Once that happened, his skull would spread open like a flower, and the mouth hidden behind his smile--his real ht? It was only appropriate, I guess I was seeing hiirl At least, that’s what the people ould know kept telling me, and it wasn’t like I could tell theot degrees in are-you-crazy I was just a girl who had to be reminded of her own name

"We’ve discussed your odontophobia before, Sally There’s no clinical reason for you to be afraid of teeth"

"I’m not afraid of teeth," I snapped "I just don’t want to look at the over to jot so it fro a lot more ti us, don’t you?" His tone was as poisonously warm as his too-wide smile had been

"I don’t know, Dr Morrison," I answered "Why don’t you tell me, and we’ll see if we can come to a mutual conclusion?"

"Now, Sally, you know that dream interpretation doesn’t work that way," he said, voice turning lightly chiding I was being a sain Dr Morrison didn’t like that, which was fine by me, since I didn’t like Dr Morrison "Why don’t you tell me what the dreahetti afterto save yesterday’s bread for the ducks It h I keep asking people to explain it Itabout the co to cope with the blank places that reree, you o back to that blankness, to a ti"

The implication that the person Sally Mitchell becah forto let him see that "Wow You really think that’s what the dream’s about?"

"Don’t you?"

I didn’t answer

This was my last visit before my six-month check-in with the staff at Sy in his reco I wanted to do was give hi twice a week, or even three ti him I didn’t want to be adjusted to fit some model of the "psychiatric norm" drawn up by doctors who’d neverup with Dr Morrison’s clumsy attempts to forceit because he hoped to write a book once SymboGen’sof Sally Mitchell He’d make a mint

Even more, I was tired of the way he always looked atto flip out and start stabbing people Then again, ht about that, on so people than iery is crude, even childish Clearly, you’re regressing in your sleep, returning to a tis to worry about I know it’s been hard on you, relearning everything about yourself So ed in the last six years" Dr Morrison flipped to the next page in ain It looked erous, than ever "How are your headaches, Sally? Are they getting any better?"

I bared , "I haven’t had a headache in weeks" It helped if I re the real banger raines anymore, the ones thatif I’d died in the accident All I got any aches atThose went away if I spent a few hours lying down in a dark roo the doctor needed to be concerned about

"You know, Sally, I can’t help you if you won’t let me"