The Doctor leans back in her chair, sighs and waves her arms in a swirling mix of exasperation and resignation.
“OK! As long as we’re clear, I can’t advise going down this route. From everything you’ve told me in the last hour there is nothing you experience that is outside of what is considered neurotypical.”
The patient sits, silently brooding. She’s not leaving without what she came for.
“You have to realize the scale here is pretty wide. If there is an ‘average’ level of attentiveness then half the world is more attentive and half the world is less. That’s the human experience. In reality there is no such thing as typical and we all have things we want to achieve but never get around to trying. I want to climb Everest but somehow I’ve never found the time!”
The Doctor glances across the room at the over-the-door clock. The hour is more that up and she has an ever-expanding list of clients. Tick Tock. Leaning forwards, the Doctor begins to type.
“Take it with your evening meal.”
Twenty hours later the patient awakes to the sound of birdsong. Spring air and sunshine fall through the open windows, flowing over the bed. She laughs. She laughs and laugh, pulling a pillow over her face to hide this new joy from the world outside. All the ideas, all the sparks, all the concepts gone. Every brilliant invention, every twisting plot, every lyric, baseline, hook evaporating with the dawn.
Downstairs for eggs and coffee, with a mind free of idea, she smiles gently to herself. Released from the clamor of things-demanding-to-be-done there was, at last, some peace. And after a glorious day of doing precisely nothing she showers ,brushes her teeth and returns to the bed. Free from the spiraling guilt that doing precisely nothing brings when there is so much to be done, she drifts away to sleep, still smiling.
And there in the warm, dark night she dreams, of nothing.
Mis-adventures 