With Arms Outstretched

My therapist didn't know what I was talking about.

"I never put any book in my waiting room," he said. "I only put magazines. I know people aren't likely to start reading a long book in a waiting room."

I showed him the book. He said it wasn't his. He said that a previous patient must have left it. I asked if anyone has come looking for it, but he said that nobody has asked about it.

He asked how the book made me feel. I told him I felt confused; the resolution was not just disappointing, but didn't actually resolve anything.

"Much like life," he said.

Sure, I replied. Life has no resolutions, no endings.

"The only ending life has is death," he said. "And, unlike in fiction, death rarely resolves anything. If anything, death brings up feelings that we may not think we had."

He's had this conversation with me before. He wants me to talk about how my mom's death is making me feel. I tell him that my mom's death and The Ninth Hour of Night have nothing in common whatsoever.

"They might," he said. "Why were you drawn to the book? Why did it appeal to you so much? From what I can tell, it's kind of a mediocre pulp fiction. Why did it pull you in?"

I didn't want to talk about it, so I tried to change the topic. I talked about Rilo Kily. I talked about my job. Finally, I talked about The Ninth Hour of Night. "It was about a dark world where there was a glimmer of light," I told him. "Just a single glimmer, but it was enough. It was better than nothing."

"But at the end of the book, it wasn't enough," he said. "And that made you disappointed."

Finally, the hour was up and my session was over. I thanked him and left, the book clutched in my hand.

...and then something else happened. I'm not sure if it actually happened or if I just imagined it. I had just finished talking about the book, I mean, that's possible, right?

I walked out of the building towards my car and I saw a man. I saw a man who seemed to grow taller and thinner, whose face was filled with nothing. I saw one of the None.

I don't know what I saw. I just remember hiding behind my car and when I looked out, he was gone. I must have imagined it, right? Right?

See you later,
Lonny