in-treat-ment iii

“You do understand there is nothing that I can do for you?” Loomis asks me, straight faced.   

     He looks up from his desk a little and shuffles paper back into a file.

     “I get that.”

     He asks, “Then why do you act surprised all the time?”

     “I don’t know. I guess, I just expected a little more.”

     “You can’t when you’ve already given up.”   Loomis tells me, “That seems a little unfair.”

     “There is not seems.”

     “Ask yourself, why you’re here. Why you bother?  And the answer is too simple to be true.  When was the last time you've spoken with your mother?  Your father?  Your friends?  Don’t you wonder how they are doing?”

     “I do. I do wonder.”

     “But don’t you care to find out the truth?”

     “What is, truth?”

     “We are not having that conversation, we’re having this one,” he says.   He presses the issue.  “Answer the question.”

     “I can’t care.”

     “And why not?”

     “Won’t allow myself to have my worst fears confirmed.”

     “And what is it that you fear?”

     “Clowns.”   I wait for a laugh that doesn’t come, doesn’t break the tension.  “I don’t know?  You tell me.”

     “Only you can name them.  Naming implies dominion.”

     “Been reading the bible?”

     Loomis waits.

     “I’m afraid.  That none of it matters.  That we leave no mark. That I can imagine a life and go through it how ever I want, because it doesn’t matter.  No one knows, understands.   They’re all caught up in their own heads.  Why would they want to?   They’re too busy pretending some other way.”

     “That doesn’t make any sense.”  

     Loomis shakes his head.   He takes a drink from his glass of wine.   It’s nearly empty.

     “Dismissive,” I warn.

     “Fair, he says.  “But you need to seek context when you lack it.”

     “Agreed,” I say but I’m not sure what it is he's saying.

     “Empathy,” he tells me, “is a two way street.”

     And now I know he's a quack.

     I smile, amused, and wonder if he's being sarcastic.