I am the Therapist

As I was clearing out some old draft blogs I came across this. I don't know when I first made the draft, but it was sometime during the year 2009.

---------

The black hole of a sky is pouring rain. She is desperately stumbling through the middle of the street in one high heel; she seems to have physically and mentally abandoned the other of the pair. Clutched in her grasp is a tattered and soaking shoe box; with white knuckles she holds the box at the corners, as if she's trying to force the length of it through her core. Her mascara is almost all washed away, her hair is a rat's nest. Her shirt slumps off to the side of one shoulder. Everything is gray. Almost tripping, she finally reaches a man. A man in a black suit - a professional - carries an umbrella too small to share... not that there's any reason to share one with this woman who approaches him frantically. With a wild grip on the box, she thrusts it towards his face, "please tell me where I can find this person! I must know where I can find this doctor!" At first the man flashes a most curious, scared, unbelieving expression, and then it's gone. Replaced by the face of a man who knows what he's doing. The man exchanges his briefcase to the same hand which holds the umbrella. With his free hand he firmly, but gently, holds the woman's left arm. He looks her straight in the eyes and says, "Ma'am, it's written here, on this shoe box lid, that that YOU are the therapist." And with that he let her arm free, returned his briefcase to his right hand, and walked away in a purposeful manner, as if he had not even stopped for the woman. She didn't turn to watch him walk away. She didn't collapse on the spot. Instead she just looked down at the box. Disbelief. The distant entertainment of the truth in the statement "I am the Therapist." She just stared at the words on the box until the sky fell away.

---------

I just had a dream that was of the story told above. When she reads the lid of the shoe box, I was suddenly her, and I felt heavy. Something significant came with that realization of "I am the Therapist," but I don't know what it was. I don't know what to make of the dream. I keep wanting to put the dream towards something religious and having to do with faith. I was scared to type up the story; I got one sentence of the dream typed before I realized I was scared. But why? What am I scared of? Why did this dream leave such an impression on me that I felt a moving desire to record it in the form of a short story? Will I transfer this blog entry (draft) to a journal entry or make it a public blog entry. Sometimes I hate the question "why."

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

When I learned that the movie was based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story I knew I'd read it in the near future. It was incredibly short, but, like all FSF work I've come by thus far, well done. For being so short it still drew me into the story; I was somehow able to get to know the characters. I could feel their emotion.

One of the main reasons I love this story is because it's a story which revolves around time, but it's not about time travel like most other time stories. What would it be like to see a newborn which had the mind, skin and eyesight of an old man but the size of an infant? What would you tell people? And how would you react as that old man met your own age as he continued growing younger? Could one call it growing? Or would it be wilting? It's fascinating to think about.

I've not yet seen the movie, but look forward to it.

Official Movie Website
Wikipedia Article

Amanda