{ ... }

 

۞

  The truth is brought forth with laughter.  If only we could just banish the sound of it, sometimes.  

  Psi-Qolog was very good at peturbing his unusual sense of humour, cracking up at the best of times.  Peturbations in situations at the worst of times.

  “If you've not got a problem I can't charge you.  See me anyway,” as Psi-Qolog likèd to say.  “But, if you've got a problem or a complaint, then no matter what I'm charging you because there's no such thing as either one of them.”  

  Those that were curèd were curèd instantly if mirth gesturèd ensuingly.  If they didn't get the joke, though, patients would return again.  

  {patience returning again}  

  “I don't get it,” said one patient.  

  {returning}  

  “Call it what you want.  I'll try and explain it.  What is it?” replièd Psi-Qolog.  

  “My problem extends to a host,” said the one in question.  

  {confidentially}  

  Confidentiality meant maintaining anonymity.  

  “Does it satisfy you, your psychology?” askèd Psi-Qolog.  

  Psi-Qolog was prescribing psychogeography, long walks outside the city, a proper getaway for a Sunday in the village or the valley, and to return to work refreshèd on a Monday, rising early.  

  “You could have invented a ghost,” said Psi-Qolog, “any obsessive behaviour patterns?”  

  “A few.”  

  “Like what?”  

  “I lock my door, get half way down the hall, wonder whether it's locked or not, force myself to go back and check because if I'm not reassured it might turn into a bad coincidence somewhere else.”  

  “Well, I can't live with that on my conscience,” replièd Psi-Qolog.  “Your coincidences, they are references to the past.  That they are recurring in the present means that there they remain, in the past, unaddressèd, stuck within the living past.”  

  The past was tense.  The present was amending the past to create an alternative in the future.  Psi-Qolog was referring to an obscure gloss over a Talmud passage that describèd the past as living.  Living, and active in creating.  

  The present environment was giving Psi-Qolog a headache.  Business was good so he was having to spend more-and-more time in the office-misrad.  

  Misrad-qatanah.  

  °This misrad needs a house-plant.  I can't treat a recurring headache any other way° thought Psi-Qolog.  °Cracking headache.  This case is a hardcase to crack.°  

  He lookèd toward his briefcase.  

  All Psi-Qolog wantèd to do was make his patients laugh but some of them weren't that funny.  The patients, that is.  Psi-Qolog crackèd up everytime, if not for the mirth then for the madness.  

  “I mean, it's not even funny.  My life is tragically empty,” said one.  

  { … }  

  “It doesn't have to be funny.  Just emote for me.  Insult me, patronize me, reach me,” said Psi-Qolog, selfishly and self-indulgently, in an attempt at transference of free association according to the Jungian interpretation.  

  Psi-Qolog didn't prescribe pharmaceuticals.  Somebody had told him that laughter was the best medicine but it didn't always work for the people.  It got his goat every time.  The scapegoat was speaking to him.  

  “I mean, it's not even funny,” she said.  

  “Just emote for me,” said Psi-Qolog.  Psi-Qolog’s hands were moving repetitiously, gesturing rhetorically.  

  °Is he ignoring me?° thought the scapegoat.  

  The scapegoat was a psychoanalytic archetype; a monstrous Jungian symbol of semiotic betrayal, one who would blame themselves for the problems of others.  Middle-class dilettantes taking on the problems of the world.  First world problems.  

  Psi-Qolog cast his mind to the Solomonic allegory.  °It was a bad day for ritual purity when the blood of the scapegoat was dripped upon the mercy seat° he thought.  

  The scapegoat was sat across from Psi-Qolog, in the seat, in need of mercy.  

  “Insult me, patronize me, reach me,” repeatèd Psi-Qolog, repeatedly.  

  Psi-Qolog was a very selfish and narcissistic managerial personality.  His ego had fillèd the entirety of the building completely.  He thought that his own conundrums, problems, complexes and illusions applièd to every one else's.  He was the master in the art of projection and transference.  

  Somehow, it workèd, even though Psi-Qolog had been trainèd as a physician to interpret it as wrong.  

  “We must understand it,” said Psi-Qolog, “no matter what it is, it's human, and that's good enough for me.”  

  “Me too,” said the patient.  

  {patience returning}  

  “You're cured.  I can't charge you.  See me anyway.  Same time next week?”  

۝