Pink-faced and portly, I, Schachter, hunched behind my computer screen, stared across the desk at the client, a woman in her forties, a Ms. Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I can\u2019t breathe. My chest is tight. I\u2019m afraid of everything! The phone makes me jump right up to the ceiling. I don\u2019t even answer anymore. All the time they want money.\u201d<\/p>\n
I watched the hypnotic movements of her thin mouth, her narrow face, her pulled-back brown hair. I wondered if I was going to nod off again, but I didn\u2019t think I would this time. Of course, I never thought I would nod off. It just happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy does everyone want money? I can\u2019t help them, because I have no money left.\u201d She left the last word hanging and stared back at me.<\/p>\n
I looked around the pathetic public sector office: Fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling, government-issued calendars on the walls. Red marks highlighted the pay periods and vacations, endless weeks leading toward some impossibly far away retirement day. I waited, to see if she would recover by herself, then asked, \u201cHow is your sleep? And your appetite?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can I give them money when I don\u2019t have enough for myself?\u201d<\/p>\n
I circled my eyes subtly to my daily schedule, flashing at the bottom of my monitor. There were already two other clients checked in and waiting.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have trouble falling asleep, or staying asleep?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe electric company. The landlord. Every month, they want more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour bills? They make you anxious?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t breathe. I blow into a paper bag. And my hands shake like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
She held out slender fingers, nails painted random colors: amethyst, gold, ruby. They did, indeed, shake. That could be her meds. A benign tremor in the first few weeks was nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot for you, because your hands are fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to remember when patients had become clients, when my belly bulged over my belt, when the clinic added a fourth appointment every hour. It seemed like yesterday when I was young and in training. How different the job I signed up for was from the job I\u2019m doing now! The fifty-minute hour? Each patient lying on the couch four times a week? Try four fifteen-minute med visits every hour, eight hours every day.<\/p>\n
I conjured thoughts of my training analyst, a white-haired, smiling man who never sat behind a computer, who relaxed instead in a leather recliner and smoked a pipe, who gazed out at an amazing view of Lake Michigan from the luxury of his twenty-third-floor office.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is your sleep? And your appetite?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI blow into a paper bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahem.<\/p>\n
I heard, or thought I heard, a deep, throat-clearing sound break the silence. My analyst, Wellington, had loved silence. Sometimes the two of us sat in the sweet cherry pipe-filled silence on the twenty-third floor, on elegant European furniture. Wellington would make that deep, throat-clearing sound, smile and say: \u201cWhat is the flavor of the silence today?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave the meds helped at all?\u201d I asked Ms. Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I take the pink one on Mondays and Wednesdays and Saturdays. It\u2019s a little pink pill, just so tiny, with water and sometimes milk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you\u2019re supposed to\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr juice, or even a little honey. You know, from the honey dripper. It drips, drips, drips off the end. It\u2019s very smooth. It\u2019s organic. I get it delivered from Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahem.<\/p>\n
I thought I heard the throat-clearing sound again. I\u2019m too young to be demented and too old to be psychotic, at least for the first break. And my hearing, I\u2019d recently checked, was still normal for my age, not a rousing endorsement, but hanging in there.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to take it every day or\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Mondays, and Wednesdays, and sometimes Tuesdays, if I feel a little utchy, or if it\u2019s raining. Or if I don\u2019t sleep, or if I sleep too well. Sometimes I like to sleep in the morning, with the sun coming in through the window. Do you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow could you know what I mean? You see me only once every three months. My family vacationed in the south of France when I was a young girl. And the sun came in through the window.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMother worked so hard. Daddy would chide her, \u2018You\u2019ll wear the tips right off your fingers.\u2019 And he\u2019d whisk us off to vacation. It was glorious. We were so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMm-hmm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s hard to sleep when I\u2019m so nervous. You have to do something about my nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is the flavor of the silence today? Old Wellington said, in my head.<\/p>\n
Wellington was dead, three years now. I\u2019d read about it in Psychiatric News<\/em>. Turned out he was analyzed by someone who was analyzed by someone who was analyzed by Freud, which warranted a half-page spread in The Psychiatric News. Lung cancer, who\u2019d have thought? From pipe tobacco that he said he never inhaled.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re on meds for your nerves already. Aren\u2019t they helping at all?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019m up and I\u2019m down. Doctor, do you think I\u2019m bipolar? Because I\u2019m up and I\u2019m down all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut the meds. Are they helping?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet me finish. You always interrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are other clients waiting. We\u2019ve already gone over\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUp and down, like a yo-yo, or one of those thingies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA yo-yo?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like a yo-yo but it turns.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a yo-yo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. They light up and \u00a0\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA flashlight?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt twirls and swirls and whips.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAn eggbeater? The Taj Majal? China?\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Green turned to the side; her face fell. She took out her phone and sighed. She started typing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re grumpy today,\u201d she said, typing away.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not grumpy. Is that a\u2026\u201d I craned my neck to peek at her phone.<\/p>\n \u201cDoctor is very irritable,\u201d she self-dictated.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that a Yelp review?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 because he is very grumpy. And his office is cluttered.\u201d<\/p>\n It was, indeed, cluttered. Stacks of papers lined the walls. Drug company paraphernalia, Prozac pens and Zoloft coasters piled up in the corner. The rickety chair that she sat on. And next to her, a six-by-six cardboard box open to the side, flaps hanging, a present from the county, new regulations paperwork that I had filed away. I hadn\u2019t had time to digest the new rules, or to clear the box.<\/p>\n I escaped into the scene in my head: the cherry tobacco\u2013filled office on the twenty-third floor, the flavored silence, the view of the lake. Wellington\u2019s shiny bald head, Italian suit, the shuffling way he greeted me at the door and guided me to the couch. He never spoke until I spoke, and this seemed kind to me rather than rude. It was my time.<\/p>\n I just don\u2019t know what to say today, I thought.<\/p>\n And what is stopping you? That slow, calming voice. The manicured eyebrows that curled up into the forehead, lined with gentle concern.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you think we should change your meds?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019m very anxious,\u201d Ms. Green said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, they\u2019re not helping?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t take them away, will you? With all I\u2019m going through right now? They want to take my car. Without my car, how would I get around?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn the bus?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe bus? With the crowded people and my agoraphobia? You know I can\u2019t be around people at all. Haven\u2019t you heard a word I\u2019ve said? I\u2019m anxious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy money is gone. I waited in line all day at the Social Servants office.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSocial Services?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey gave me this form for you to fill out.\u201d She handed me a stack of papers. Its weight was familiar. I saw several of these forms each week at the clinic. Avoiding private practice, working in the public sector, had its pros and cons.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, this is a disability form.\u201d I studied her answers. On question number three, Why do you feel you\u2019re disabled? she\u2019d written, I followed my bliss. It got me nowhere.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen was the last time you worked?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cMy last job did not make me happy at all. The medicine is the only thing that keeps me afloat, and now you\u2019re going to take that away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re still anxious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLook how I shake.\u201d She jammed her fingernails toward my face.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you said it\u2019s working.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, except for the anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s what it\u2019s for.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy friend Lorraine. She takes Lexapro. And she\u2019s very, very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n To the analyst in my head, I said, I\u2019m in a quiet mood today, is all.<\/p>\n A quiet mood?<\/p>\n I said, \u201cYour meds are supposed to boost the serotonin in your–\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy serotonin is very low,\u201d she said. \u201cI can feel the serotonin dripping down, drip, drip, drip, right here past my ear.\u201d She pointed to an earring, some past heirloom she had possibly managed to hang on to despite hard times.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t feel serotonin.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA little trickle, it goes whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and the chemicals in the little bags, zapping from one side to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the synapse. Yes. To balance–\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy chemical imbalance! Doctor, my friend Lorraine said to ask you to do something about my chemical imbalance. Like the people in the commercial, running at the beach. They\u2019re so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you want to pass the whole session in silence?<\/p>\n I\u2019m fine, I said to the voice in my head.<\/p>\n And how much energy does it take to be so fine all the time?<\/p>\n I turned to Ms. Green. \u201cWe have to stop for today,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re not done analyzing me,\u201d she pouted.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not analyzing you. You don\u2019t know what analysis is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, because you\u2019re not doing it right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was in analysis for six years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey couldn\u2019t fix you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFour times a week.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re still so unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not unhappy,\u201d I shouted.<\/p>\n She typed at her Yelp review. How could I expect her to understand analysis? My analyst was a kind, gentle old man. The time I spent in his office added a richness and depth to my life. Analysis is not advice. It\u2019s a process you\u2019re in. It wasn\u2019t so much what he said.<\/p>\n I never said anything.<\/p>\n It was the relationship. He was like a father to me.<\/p>\n Schachter? I hardly remember him.<\/p>\n His office was a sanctuary. Every detail spoke of quality. Every fabric carefully chosen, Old World soft.<\/p>\n I did go to Europe every summer.<\/p>\n It was a sacred space. A time to explore the mysteries of the mind. The couch could take you anywhere.<\/p>\n It paid the bills. They say if you can find the right caf\u00e9 in Paris, and listen carefully enough, you will hear the mother of the world giving birth to each new moment.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be in analysis,\u201d Ms. Green said.<\/p>\n \u201cYour insurance wouldn\u2019t pay for it,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t meet medical necessity. Or you\u2019re not sick enough. Or you\u2019re too sick. Or you\u2019re not getting better. Or you\u2019re getting better so you don\u2019t need it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m not getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOr you\u2019ve run out of sessions. Or your primary care provider didn\u2019t preauthorize\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou haven\u2019t helped me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m helping anyone at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Go on.<\/p>\n I tuned Ms. Green out of my head for the moment and spoke to Wellington in my head.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m helping anyone at all.<\/p>\n I see.<\/p>\n I spend half my time on the phone with insurance companies. And it\u2019s some Bachelor\u2019s level non-clinician who\u2019s telling me I didn\u2019t dot my t\u2019s right and there are no sessions left. The contracted rates go down every year. My malpractice premiums go up.<\/p>\n And?<\/p>\n And everyone just wants meds. I\u2019m not against them. God, I\u2019ve been on them for twenty years. I don\u2019t think I could do this work without them.<\/p>\n Oh?<\/p>\n These people are not clinically depressed. They\u2019re suffering. I know they\u2019re suffering. But it\u2019s not clinical depression. It\u2019s more complicated than that. And every fifteen minutes another beastly set of problems that has to be fixed. My waiting room is bursting with \u2026<\/p>\n With what?<\/p>\n One after another.<\/p>\n What\u2019s in your waiting room?<\/p>\n They want this. They want that. Disability. A note for a support animal. Excuses for school. More time on tests. Adderall. They all want Adderall now. Am I supposed to give them all Adderall?<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about Adderall?\u201d Ms. Green said. \u201cFor my ADHD. Because my friend Lorraine \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s in your waiting room?<\/p>\n A beast! A beast is in my waiting room.<\/p>\n And what does this beast want?<\/p>\n It \u2026 it doesn\u2019t know what it wants. It\u2019s in pain. It has dreams it can\u2019t reach. It has regrets it can\u2019t get past. It has needs it doesn\u2019t even know the words for. It\u2019s stumbling in the dark.<\/p>\n The dark?<\/p>\n It\u2019s blind and stumbling and groping and it needs to be fed, and I don\u2019t know how to feed it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hungry. It\u2019s pre-verbal. It\u2019s blind.<\/p>\n It\u2019s angry. It\u2019s lashing out. I want to get out of the whole business. But at my age, what would I do? I\u2019m stuck in a box.<\/p>\n A box?<\/p>\n Ms. Green waved a hand in front of my face. \u201cMy friend Lorraine,\u201d she said. \u201cShe saw on TED talks where they put magnets up your nose and it spins your brain in a circle, and\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t care about your friend Lorraine!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a very nice person.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never even met her and you say such mean things about her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t put this on Yelp.\u201d<\/p>\n Tell me more about this box.<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing to say about it. Any way I try to go I\u2019m stopped.<\/p>\n \u201cLorraine is my friend. She had her serotonin dripping down past her ears and Adderall didn\u2019t work so they put her on Lexapro and she was happy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour meds,\u201d I said. \u201cWe really need to talk about your meds. There are people waiting, and we\u2019re out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd before Lexapro, she was a real bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t want to talk about the box.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a cardboard box.<\/p>\n Thank you.<\/p>\n This dirty little public sector clinic office. Fluorescent lights. Posters reminding about policies and schlocky sayings: \u201cThe ten things you can do to improve your day.\u201d The rickety chair that Ms. Green sat on, and next to her, the six-by-six cardboard box open to the side, flaps hanging, empty.<\/p>\n Get in it.<\/p>\n What?<\/p>\n Get in the box.<\/p>\n No. I have clients to see.<\/p>\n Stop being such a baby and get in the damn box.<\/p>\n I got up off my chair and climbed into the box. Sitting there, on the floor, in the box, I looked helplessly at Ms. Green, who got up and walked toward me.<\/p>\n Feel the walls.<\/p>\n They\u2019re just walls.<\/p>\n Feel them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to feel the walls.<\/p>\n Are they supple? Firm? Do they give? Or are they fixed in place?<\/p>\n I looked at Ms. Green, thought of all the Ms. Greens waiting for me. Everyone wants something from me that I can\u2019t give them.<\/p>\n You feel squeezed. Is it a constant squeezing, or does it let up?<\/p>\n In the morning it\u2019s tolerable. As the day goes on, it gets worse.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a rhythmic squeezing. A series of contractions.<\/p>\n Ms. Green kicked the side of the box. BAM.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about my serotonin?\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019re frustrated. They\u2019re angry. They\u2019re hurt. And I\u2019m the only one who can do anything about it.<\/p>\n The walls are alive. Feelings move back and forth across the walls as they squeeze rhythmically.<\/p>\n But I can\u2019t do anything about it.<\/p>\n They\u2019re elastic. You push against the box. The box pushes against you. You and the box are a living, breathing organism.<\/p>\n I want to help someone. I want to make a tangible difference in someone\u2019s life. But I don\u2019t know how to make anything better.<\/p>\n You feel as if you can\u2019t move. You\u2019re wedged in.<\/p>\n Ms. Green kicked at the box again. BAM. BAM.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can have your Lexapro,\u201d I told her. \u201cBut I won\u2019t sign your disability form.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d She kicked rhythmically at the side of the box, a growing heartbeat. BAM. BAM. LUB DUB.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause you\u2019re not disabled.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow will I live?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll have to work, like I do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t stand it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t stand it either.\u201d<\/p>\n The old voice in my head: You can\u2019t stand, in this box of yours? Is it small, or is there just no standing allowed?<\/p>\n I can\u2019t see a way out.<\/p>\n Like the beast in your waiting room, you\u2019re blind. You want something, yet you have no words to describe it. The box squeezes you with rhythmic contractions until you think you can\u2019t take it anymore.<\/p>\n But what is the box?<\/p>\n Yes, what is it, indeed?<\/p>\n It struck me that the box might represent a womb, and I the baby, waiting to be born. The walls pressing in on me, rhythmically squeezing, pushing me out into some new kind of world. But what should I do?<\/p>\n But what should I do?<\/p>\n What do you want to do?<\/p>\n Am I being born? Do I need to push through it? Or stay put?<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have to pick up there next time.<\/p>\n \u201cMichael Moore,\u201d Ms. Green said, \u201csays there was this pill that made you so fat, and the FDA didn\u2019t want anybody to know. So they hushed it up, and they told all the doctors not to say anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said you could have your Lexapro.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going to make me fat, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt might.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it better not make me fat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen stop the meds. Get off them altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut the withdrawal. Michael Moore says the withdrawal will drive you out of your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen why don\u2019t you get Michael Moore to prescribe your meds for you?\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t mind him. He was always so unhappy.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere did you come from?\u201d Ms. Green stared at Wellington, seeing him, I supposed, for the first time.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t see him,\u201d I shouted. \u201cHe\u2019s just a thought experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s quite lovely, with his broad shoulders and his suit.\u201d<\/p>\n I screamed at Wellington: \u201cYou come up with these fancy interpretations. You\u2019re being born. You\u2019re squeezed by life. They sound great. They make you feel like you\u2019re getting somewhere. But you never really get anywhere, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s your therapy, not mine.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what you say when you can\u2019t think of anything to say.\u201d<\/p>\n All my other patients got better.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get in this box and see how you do.\u201d<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t get in there if you paid me.<\/p>\n \u201cI did pay you. Four times a week. You sat there and said nothing. You drove a Maserati. You took all of August off to traipse around Europe. What do I get? Pens that say \u2018Prozac\u2019 on them. Four clients an hour and I can barely pay my overhead.\u201d<\/p>\n He was always negative and irritable. Horribly fixated at a pre-oedipal stage. I\u2019m not surprised his life turned out this way.<\/p>\n \u201cI read on the internet that irritability is a sign of bipolar,\u201d Ms. Green said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get in here, too,\u201d I said to her. \u201cTry living in this box.\u201d<\/p>\n I reached for her leg, her bony ankle in hose and high-heels. She jumped to avoid my hand. Wellington, that ghost, caught her and the two of them started waltzing around the small fluorescent office.<\/p>\n \u201cOh!\u201d she gasped.<\/p>\n Careful. You\u2019ll knock the tips right off your fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re so strong.\u201d<\/p>\n Your hands are soft, like you haven\u2019t worked a day in your life.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s trying to get disability,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n Disability. That\u2019s fascinating. She\u2019s a marvelous dancer.<\/p>\n \u201cShe won\u2019t get it if I don\u2019t sign her form.\u201d<\/p>\n Have you ever been to the south of France?<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n You know the way the light shines in the window in the morning?<\/p>\n \u201cYes. It\u2019s lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the light of understanding. When we make the unconscious conscious, then we have a cure.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re a much better analyst than that other guy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the light of laziness,\u201d I howled. \u201cYou can\u2019t live your life on vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n Did you ever want to sleep with your father?<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d she said. \u201cHow did you know?\u201d<\/p>\n Mature men have a lot to offer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about dead men?\u201d I\u2019d had about enough of these two. \u201cWhat can they offer?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel so happy,\u201d Ms. Green said. \u201cThis analysis really works. I\u2019ll have to tell my friend Lorraine.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a very fruitful session. I think we made a good start on some important issues.<\/p>\n I watched those ghostly old feet shuffle out the door.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere did he go?\u201d Ms. Green asked.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, the analyst always disappeared after the session.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut this won\u2019t do at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe relationship is the cure, he told me, and it takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n She bent down and got into the box with me. \u201cI don\u2019t have time,\u201d she said. \u201cMy money is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me I would integrate him little by little, until I felt strong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIntegrate him back!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never could.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, he danced like a prince. He made me feel full.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMe, too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so quiet without him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs it supposed to be this quiet?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. I think so. Exactly this quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s way too quiet.\u201d She shuffled on her bottom, struggled to hold her knees in a comfortable position. The box was cramped and dark.<\/p>\n \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut what do we do now?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wait.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor the session to be over.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow long will that take?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut then we\u2019ll be happy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s terrifying, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be.\u201d Like each new moment being born, over and over again. If the world is a woman in labor, each of us bears a small amount of her pain.<\/p>\n \u201cBut how should I live? What should I do?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just thinking the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you want a Prozac pen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike the man in the commercial, doctor. I just want to run in the sand with the waves.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt the walls of the box, firm, smooth, old as time itself.<\/p>\n Did someone schedule a return delivery? The door opened.<\/p>\n \u201cWho is that?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Amazon. Did you have something you need to return?<\/p>\n Was it Wellington\u2019s feet that entered again, with the blue vest of an Amazon delivery man? He taped up the box and everything went dark.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m too young to be demented and too old to be psychotic, at least for the first break. And my hearing, I\u2019d recently checked, was still normal for my age, not a rousing endorsement, but hanging in there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-david-bobrow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21694,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21164\/revisions\/21694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}