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    The problem wasn’t that she believed in reincarnation; it was that she advertised herself as being different than she was. However, if reincarnation were to happen to her, she might not like where she was headed.

The Therapist

Brian C. Slaughter

    “Don’t let him pull the depression card,” she snapped again, adding that perhaps I had been making up my depression as an excuse, as if I didn’t want to do my daily activities. Mom was taken aback by the remark.
    Passing a beautiful rose garden, we had walked into her spacious house. My mother and I had entered a warm, cozy room. The golden glow emitted by the lamp and the soothing scent of lavender made us feel relaxed. It seemed like a hospitable place, but in reality it wasn’t what it appeared to be.
    Looking back, I was in a serious depression since Dad had died of cancer. The ad for family therapy had claimed Dr. Clark was a Christian psychologist, and she had assured my mother over the phone that she was for gentle parenting. Both had been important to my mother.
    Awkwardly Dr. Clark rose from her chair, the cushion rebounding once her heavy frame was no longer burdening it. “And by the way,” she added to my mother, “you shouldn’t be letting him come into your bed at night. As a happily married woman who’s raised three boys, I know what I’m talking about —you know, Social Services could have him in foster care in 24 hours.”
    Mom later asked a friend to call Child Protective Services to see if there was any truth to this. The social worker was almost offended that anyone would even think those who were there to protect, would do such a thing to a family.
    Let’s be honest – when I was 7, night was a disquieting time. After Dad died, I was frightened. Could Mom die too? Could I get cancer? When my dad had been close, I had been more secure. If I needed a glass of water, I felt free to go downstairs to get it. Now I had thoughts of creepy crawlies again.
    Mom began to object, “But Dr. Clark, don’t you remember what it was like being a kid?”. Dr. Clark stiffened her back, tilted her chin, and put her nose up at my mother in an arrogant gesture as if to make her short, fat body look taller. “Our time is up now,” she said.
    “Some day you’ll have a pet, and you will know that your husband has come back to you,” Dr. Clark had said to Mom. This statement disturbed her. Considering Dr. Clark had been clearly advertised as a pro attachment and Christian therapist, she now seemed like a fraud. Fraud contaminates believability like a disease-ridden insect biting a trusting person.
    The problem wasn’t that she believed in reincarnation; it was that she advertised herself as being different than she was. However, if reincarnation were to happen to her, she might not like where she was headed. Considering she believed she would receive her position in the next life based on her past, it could be assumed that she would move to a lower species. This being said, Dr. Clark’s next life would probably be that of a bug – a very hated bug.
    First, Dr. Clark would be an unwanted ant at a picnic, trying to steal food from a perturbed family. She would quickly be shooed away, but she would persistently return to bother the unhappy group. As she was driven away from the family’s lunch for the last time, she would be blasted with Raid. Crippled by the pesticide, she would limp away and die while paralyzed. Then she would become a fly.
    Now, because she hadn’t done any good as an ant, Dr. Clark would become an even bigger pest. Filthy from being in the garbage, she would fly into a formal restaurant and buzz around a family celebrating a birthday, landing on their food and sitting on the rims of their crystal drinking glasses. Seeing the outraged family, the waiter would call the manager, who would bring a giant fly swatter and furiously swipe at Dr. Clark’s feeble, disgusting wings. Barely dodging the first blows, she would take cover at another table, where the manager would finally have had enough. He would take his shoe and smash Dr. Clark, turning her into a blood-sucking parasite for her next life.
    As a flea, Dr. Clark would bite cats as she hopped in the street, and this would infuriate people when they found their distressed pets itching. This time, though no one would be able to kill her, Dr. Clark would still die, and always become a flea again. She could do only one thing – harass people and animals. According to her own belief, since she had deceived and provoked people in her past, consignment to perpetual rebirth as a worthless and hated creature would be her fate. She would have had many chances to change, but in her arrogance she would decide that she had never committed wrong in her previous lives. Now Dr. Clark would remain a flea forever, able only to torment her fellow creatures, just as she had in her life as a therapist.

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