I looked up at the rotting wooden sign that hung haphazardly from rusted chains. It proclaimed that the small shop below it, which was in no better shape than the sign itself, belonged to one "T.X. Sodicurt," who was an "Illusionary Therapist."
I had tried everything before this. Shrinks, psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, medicine-therapists of all sorts. Religious figures, counselors, friends, family. Now I was going to try hypnotism.
I went to the door, all windows and paneling, but the years of grime, paired with the frost of the frigid December air, made it impossible to make out the shop's interior. I grabbed the ancient latch and opened the door. Stereotypically, it creaked open, accompanied by the tinkling of a bell. Classy. The room beyond was a dim, sad excuse for a reception area. A desk blocked access to the door opposite the one I had come through. A single chair accompanied a filthy coffee table, covered not with old magazines, but instead with deserted coffee cups and discarded paper plates.
I approached the desk, searching in vain for a bell to ring or sheet to sign in on.
"Hello?" I asked, rather weakly.
A hacking cough answered me from the back room, and the door opened to admit an unshaven, scruffy-looking man. He continued to cough into his closed fist, and wiped his head on his long leather duster afterward. He extended the same hand and looked at me expectantly, though not meeting my eyes. He might've been looking at my nose, or forehead. I reluctantly offered my hand and name. "I called earlier," I continued. "Is this a bad time?"
"No, not at all," he said. "Allow me to introduce myself," he went on, releasing my hand from a gentle shake. "I am Mr. T.X. Sodicurt, Practitioner of the Art; Illusory Therapist, in other words. Please, come into my office."
He gestured to the door he had come through, and I stepped past him. As I went by I caught a bit of his scent, and despite his poor appearance, he didn't smell unpleasant. Rather, he smelled of reassuring nature: of rain, and trees, and flowers on the wind.
His office was not impressive, though it lacked the garbage and squalor of the waiting room. It was brighter than the other room, lit with long fluorescent lights, and was sparsely furnished with a couch and a pair of squishy-looking armchairs. Beside them were small end tables which held interesting-looking archaic baubles (perhaps abstract art of some sort). At the far end of the room sat the therapist's desk, and behind that, a single bookshelf. His desk was covered with papers, open books, and a few nibbled snacks.
I stood a few feet in the door a few moments until I heard the door click closed behind me. A second later Sodicurt made his way past me and sat in the squishy chair on the left, which faced the other furniture. He smiled a tired man's smile, something forced and for my benefit, and nodded his head toward the other chair.
I sat. He looked at me, patiently, never meeting my eyes. "Well?" he asked. "Remind yourself why you're here."
"Well," I began. "I'm depressed; haunted, really. My sadness devours me, day after day. I try to hide from my pain, try to use reason and logic to discard these feelings, but it doesn't work. I've sought help of all sorts. I have no other options, sir."
"You have sought material answers for an issue with your soul," Sodicurt concluded.
"That's not true! I even turned to the priesthood…"
"They know nothing. Worse than being ignorant of the existence of illusion, they create and strengthen such veils. They could only worsen your problem."
"What are you talking about; illusions and such? I thought you were a hypnotist or something."
Sodicurt laughed, and then fell into another hacking cough. "A hypnotist? Those that seduce your mind into holding layers of the veil in higher priority than others?"
I was puzzled at this point. I slouched in my chair and rested my chin on my fist. "What are you then?" I asked. "What is it you do?"
"I do what others cannot do. What others refuse to do. I peel back the illusions; lift the curtain; cut through the veil. I show people things as they truly are." He said all of this calmly, as if he were stating simple truths. It is for that reason that I found myself believing him.
"And so you intend to show me things that are real?" I asked?
"Not merely things. You can perceive things, after all. The problem is that you see a distorted view of reality. A representation: dull and muddled. I will show you that which you already know exists, but with such profound clarity that you will better understand things as they are."
"What things?"
"Your soul," he said. "And your pain." He said this with an underlying sorrow, as if he pitied me, knowing how very sharp and acute my pain and sadness were.
"Look into my eyes," he requested softly.
I did. What happened next I can never perfectly describe. We connected, his will taking hold of my mind. I felt him reach out to me, and all at once everything before me was torn away. What I saw was glorious and terrible all at once. It humbled me, and dwarfed my existence and mortal perceptions. Gone were the walls with their cheesy wallpaper. In the place of the small office I was surrounded by a miraculous glade, encircled by trees, ancient and wise. From them flowed feelings; the only accurate analogy I can create is that those trees radiated reassurance, peace, and kindness in the way that a fire gives off heat.
The therapist, who had been a dirty, tired, aging and pained man, was now a being enshrouded in the gray and heavy robes of painful truths and harsh wisdoms. From within his body shone the golden light of goodness, and care. He was righteousness and humility; self-sacrifice and love, given shape and form. Here was a being that shone with the white brilliance of the just.
The beauty and power of the place shattered my resolve. I wept for a time, and when I regained my control, I looked upon the therapist again. He stood in the same place, patiently watching with the sympathy a parent might have for their distressed child.
"Where are we?" I asked shortly.
"Exactly where we were before. We're in my office, a place of healing," Sodicurt answered, his voice resonating within my being.
"What are you, really?" I asked, in awe of him and his glade.
"I am a servant of the natural universe, and a guardian of truth. I am a vessel for the sight, and self-sacrifice is my sacred duty," he explained.
I took in his statement (I had resigned to refer to him as a wizard from now on, for that was what he seemed to most resemble) before looking around me with greater attention. There were paths that led from our glade. One such path was marked with a certain gloom. While Sodicurt's realm seemed to shine with a light of its own, this path was devouring the golden warmth of the area. It looked cold; hungry, in the most sinister and painful way.
"What am I to do?" My voice lacked the power of conviction that carried the voice of the therapist, the wizard. The stark difference only sharpened my mental image of a lost child and a benevolent stranger.
"I have liberated not only your sight, but your mind. You are free of your body, and free wander from this place. Search for your answers."
I couldn't do it. I couldn't find my courage. I turned once more to the path, my path. It terrified me. I felt horror, a sense of mortal peril, and I was paralyzed by that fear.
I felt the wizard approach me, his golden radiance warming my back. He put a hand on my shoulder, and the weight of his wisdom fell upon me. I accepted strength from his wisdom, and stepped on the path. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that the wizard, my guardian and guide, had gone. I was alone.
I began walking a path I had been down before. The first time I had been along it I was blindfolded, guided by one who hid the pain from me. Now I could walk it with true sight, freed from mortal mis-perceptions. I could feel the pain of the trail now. The wind blew through the trees, and the leaves rustled, whispering to me.
"I love you" they whispered. "I shall be with you, always."
At first I believed the wind, eager as I was to have a companion, any presence to suppress my fear. But I was different from before, not as foolish as I was the first time I had been here. A part of me demanded that I distrust these empty words. I addressed the wind.
"You lie," I told the wind softly. "You care not at all. You caress me for your own sake, not mine."
The wind rose and howled in my ears, threw the folds of my clothing about, tugged at my hair.
"You miserable wretch!" shrilled the wind. "You're pathetic! You're nothing! Greedy, selfish, disgusting, hateful," the wind went on, throwing every insult it could summon.
I ignored the wind, condemned it as insubstantial, unable to trouble me. The wind died away, and I was left with my thoughts and the light crunching of dry twigs and leaves beneath my feet.
I breathed deeply as I walked, trying to keep calm. The voice the wind had used was a haunting one. It had belonged to someone I had held dear to me, years ago. The pain dredged up memories and feelings associated with my lost love, and they threatened to overwhelm me. I concentrated on my path, and my purpose, and carried on. There was time enough for remorse later.
As I walked I noted that the plants were becoming more insidious. Brambles, thorny and sharp, were intruding upon the path with more and more frequency. At times they were in such abundance that I could not avoid them. I squeezed through one such group, and the thorns pierced my clothing and cut my skin. The pain was far sharper than was reasonably possible, but the place I walked in was a place beyond normal reason. The cuts blazed, as though the thorns were envenomed. They drew out my anger, and I struggled to free myself.
In a furious rage I tore free. I looked back at the shambles in which I had left the thorny plants. Dripping from their broken limbs were considerable amounts of blood, so much that it could not have all been my own.
I walked further now, slowed by my wounds, acutely aware of the grief they caused me. Wounds of betrayal, deception, regret; deep and terrible.
The way ahead was misty. A thick fog was creeping in, obscuring the path. As I strode into it my pain vanished. I became numbed to all feeling, all thought. For a moment, I nearly forgot myself. I remembered, though. I would not allow myself to succumb to numbness, or consign myself to emptiness and the void. That would be worse even than suffering.
A moment later I was through. I stepped into a large circular area. The area was enclosed not with trees or any physical barrier, but with the same dark fog from which I had emerged. The area was not empty. At its center floated a sphere of the deepest, most intense blue. Its surface was not still. It was a roiling thing, dark and violent, parts occasionally flashing brighter, as if a storm were caught inside and trying desperately to break out. It was perhaps a hundred feet across, and try as I might I was unable to see through or into it.
I walked slowly around the monstrous thing, searching for a way into it, a way to discover its secrets. Finding no way to plumb its violent depths, I approached it slowly. Despite its violent nature, it gave off no wind, only a pressure. The closer I got to it the more the pressure increased until, a foot away, my skull felt fit to burst.
In a thoughtless effort to release this tension, I reached out with my hand and touched the storm. All the pressure was released into me in an instant, like lightning. Pain filled my being, and I blacked out. I awoke an unknown time later to my own sobs.
I knew then what the sphere was. Deep, dark, violent and turbulent, my depression had become a dark tempest, mercilessly tearing apart my spirit.
"What's wrong my dearest friend?" someone asked.
I wasn't sure that I had heard right. I forced my arms beneath me and got up from the ground. I looked at him, the newcomer.
He was beautiful. He looked at me with dark eyes, his slightly freckled face set in a sort of puzzled, concerned expression. He shook his medium length black hair from his eyes, and continued gazing upon me.
I was at a loss for words. Faced with this specter, this being I had long thought lost to me, I froze. He took a step toward me.
"What's wrong?" he repeated. "You look so sad. Come, let me hold you."
He stepped closer still. He raised his hand toward me as he neared, as one might approach a stray dog, unsure if it will attack.
"Everything will be fine. I can make all your pain go away. I can hold you. I can kiss you. I can love you."
His words wrapped around my mind. I could envision his promises; see myself in his beautiful hands, giving in to joy. My eyes began to close, so enamored was I with his guarantee. Just before he reached me, just before my eyes closed tight I saw a flicker of change. His expression faltered, became something sinister. It was the look of one who had bested a rival, or successfully captured prey.
I shook myself from his alluring words and cried out.
"No! You liar!" I snarled. He recoiled, a look of fury distorting his beautiful visage. "You wish me no healing. You would do harm to satiate your own need to elevate yourself above others; to hold power."
He looked at me. Then he smiled. It was a cruel smile that marks a madman, a monster, who's caught, but feels no regret.
"You speak nonsense," he purred, a sly tone in his voice.
"And you speak with a forked tongue. You will not coerce me."
Fury gripped him once more, and his face literally warped because of it. He became a monstrous thing, with sharp teeth and black, lifeless eyes.
"You are mine!" it hissed, its voice inhuman.
It lunged at me, clawing at my arm. It fell short, gashing my forearm instead of taking hold of it.
For an instant I was elsewhere, in my bed years ago, with my love, embracing him.
And I was back, facing the monstrosity. Pain, emotional and not physical, assaulted me. I was in a place where emotion was far more real than a physical blow, however. The thing charged me again. I leaped away, but it managed once more to drag its fetid claws across my flesh.
The landscape vanished, replaced by a room that was not my own. I was in my dear love's bed. He knelt beside me, caring for me as I recovered from surgery.
That too, vanished, leaving more pain behind.
"Come back," hissed the thing. "You cannot escape me. I am everything."
I felt hopelessness, the most consigned sorrow possible. I believed the beast. I fell to the ground and allowed myself to be dragged toward the swirling darkness. I envisioned what would become of me as a slave to sadness. It was an unbearable thought, and it incited my defiance.
"You are nothing," I told the fiend. "A memory of love and a false one at that."
The thing snarled and its flesh burned away, revealing muscle and cartilage.
"You never had love in your heart, and cared not at all for anyone save yourself. You are empty. You are nothing."
As I invoked the truth the creature's muscles, organs and bones sloughed away and joined the dark foggy nether twisting above us. All that was left behind was a translucent image of a youth, frustrated, cornered and depressed.
"Be gone," I muttered as I approached the ghost of the boy. "Disperse, and plague my mind no longer.
He winked out of existence, and the stormy torrents of my sadness ebbed away, the orb becoming a white globe of serenity. It shone with a comforting aura, and within it I saw a figure. It was a boy, the same age as the specter boy; though a different person I was sure. He had curly brown hair, eyes of the same color, and a yellowish complexion. He was wrapped in barbed chains and cutting manacles, but these things released him as I watched.
Released from his agony, he rested; regaining his strength and allowing time to begin healing his wounds. I left that place, walking through the fog to find myself on a deserted street on a cold winter afternoon. I passed a grimy shop, noting its disgustingly moldy windows and a rotting sign on rusted chains.
"Excuse me," a gruff voice interjected, scattering my thoughts. An unshaven scruffy man in a leather duster passed me to enter the shop. He stopped before he stepped inside to look over his shoulder. He looked older than I remembered.
"Thank you," I said.
"Wisdom and peace," he replied, his steady voice lending strength to the phrase, making it sound almost like a blessing.
Sodicurt smiled, though he looked exhausted, and went into his office, a tinkling of bells welcoming him back to his temple of truth and old coffee cups.
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