seymoure

The office was dark. Dr. Seneca liked it that way. The darkness seemed more freeing. People opened up more if they couldn’t see you reacting to what they had to say.

Quentin Nebbish reclined on the couch. Most people would have been relaxed in this setting. Nebbish was a bundle of nerves.

If nervous energy was something you could harness this man could light a small city and still hover over the couch.

“You see, Doctor, I took out this girl. Her name was Valerie...or maybe it was Natalie, or Sarah Lee, something with a Lee on the end. Any way we hadn’t even ordered yet and she got up to go to the rest room and she never came back. That’s the fourth time that has happened in the last couple of months.”

“This is not the problem, Quentin.”

“It’s a problem if you’re lonely, Doctor.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“It’s a problem if you’re sitting in expensive restaurant eating two meals because you’d rather look like a glutton than a loser.”

“There is something much deeper going on here. You have to open up to me, and I mean really open up.”

Quentin sat up, and looked at the Doctor. The therapist’s face was shadowed. The only light in the room came from the lamp on the other side of the desk.

“Doctor, I’m afraid to open up.”

“I know.”

“Doctor, there are so many demons within me that I fear for the safety of the world should they somehow ever be released.”

The Doctor leaned forward until his face was lightly lit. “Don’t you know everyone feels that?”

The statement took Quentin aback.

“We all think we have some exclusive on hideous evil thoughts, but everyone has them. The good people don’t act on them. But everyone thinks they have the worst and most awful demons within their soul.”

“They do?”

“Yes, but here,” Dr. Seneca assured him, “Here is the place you can get them out of your system. A trouble shared is a trouble halved. A demon brought out is just a silly thought. Let them out, Quentin, let them go.”

Nebbish leaned back, and then said, “Are you sure, Doctor?”

“That’s why I’m here. Open up.”

With that Quentin Nebbish relaxed.

He opened his mouth, and the demon Cthulu erupted from him and devoured the screaming psychologist.

Then the room was silent.

“Damn,” muttered Quentin.

Now he had to get another new Therapist.