Dancing atop the Cellarium Ceiling

Coming Home

It’s said that nothing good happens after two in the morning Noah Riley stretched his ninety-six Corvette around an empty street corner. “Wouldn’t it be a stitch if you inherited the practice someday?”. He remembers his Grandfather William Riley saying earlier that year with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He doesn’t recall finding it as humorous as his Grandfather might have intended it. He didn’t believe textbook methods cured anyone. “Yeah, a real stitch Grandpa “.

“Darn it. Noah chastises himself as he hunts for the house with the burgundy door as its odd coloring gives it just the right measure of Verdean gossip to keep things interesting.

The last topic of note happened fifteen years ago today. If memory served him correctly, the subject of town gossip was churned out by a group of bored housewives whose collective theory was that the burgundy door got that way because one night while coming home from counseling a grieving widows group when s jealous boyfriend of one of the patients sauntered in and decided the elder Dr. Riley been having an affair with his girlfriend Grace and brought a rifle to bring him a little comfort that was the rumor that was floating around town, but the actual death was listed as accidental because the shooter was mentally unstable. Noah never meant to take over his Grandfather’s practice, but the presence of psychological practice is nil because the twenty-five- thousand people who filled the town of Verdean were too ashamed to seek therapy on their own. Eventually, patients started trickling in and started to form a reliable patient list. William Riley didn’t have a lot of money, but the elder Riley started taking the younger around the hospital to relieve the fear of the stigma of the mentally ill. Of course, this meant that Noah would have to deal with some post-traumatic stress issues himself.

Insomnia made his body heavy, but his pulse slowed to a normal rate. He’d like to try to see Renee tonight, but it wasn’t going to work if he couldn’t relax his mind because his body was too rigid to appreciate what a gift. The mind-body connection is to a person who has no hope, to begin with. Noah couldn’t see Renee anymore, but he could still sense her around the house. They were going to live and raise their children who they had just found out were twins on the day of the incident Noah couldn’t remember. He still smelled her perfume and heard her voice when he was still close enough to miss her.

The minute Noah fell asleep Renee would give the “come hither look ”and if no one was there to wake him in the morning., He’d stay in the ever after with Renee which at times, he had to admit was a hell of a lot easier than staying in the present life. He only admitted that to himself because he could hear the critics of his family resurfacing. He had assumed correctly that the Verdean gossip moguls were still talking about his family issues; they were just issues that hit him more personally now. Noah couldn’t sleep in that house he bought for his family because he had blocked it all from his memory that he could only see specks of them where he used to see whole pictures of the family he made. If he stayed in the office, maintaining the family legacy of providing good mental health was still intact.

This is usually summarized as a good day if he was able to get a quick nap between patients, he could stay focused enough to be of service to any of the patients, and if he was thinking about where his family might now be still in shambles over his missing family. Technically, he didn’t have a family yet. The twins weren’t born for another three months, it was agreed that the young mother would for both of their sakes go visit her mother. Noah wanted to stay as far away from her parents as possible.

The Verdean gossip Mongols as they were known about town and trusted by no one because their intel was frequently incorrect, they told so many stories to so many people their stories had become enmeshed in each other. The Verdean gossip Mongols were the group behind the rumor that killed his Grandfather, so Noah paid no attention to any ramblings coming from their direction.