I've Lost Count...

Conversation Number, I’ve Lost Count:

“Threats are meaningless.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“That is the rest of it – there’s no more.”

“Hey, hold it, you’re beginning to frighten me now.”

In a universe that nearly parallels yours, in a profession that is comparable to your Psychiatry, there is a certain practitioner who treats all his patients by asking them to tell him everything – absolutely everything, about their “problem,” no matter how long that might take, and after they seem inclined to cease the chatter, and he asks them, and is satisfied that that is all they have to say on the matter, he makes a note in their file, closes it, and says to each patient,
“Ahh, now forget it.”  (He is most successful in his practice, although on their world they have no word for success and thus he does not know he is, but I thought you’d still like to know.)

Most of the City’s attitude, in certain matters,
would be wrapped up in this cry:
“Immediate fucks – not distant romances.” 
(I should note, that even as we speak, there are
those in town wanting to reverse this.)

A guy who lives by himself writes to say
that not infrequently he catches a glimpse
of a shadowy figure suddenly darting past
a doorway just at the edge of his peripheral
vision; he says he’s not all that bothered by it,
but just wanted to mention it to someone.

J.