Rob Mancini pulled the beaded chain turning off his lamp and made his way out of his office just in time to see the stiff hypnotherapist sweep around the corner and into her office across the hall. He wasn't one to judge a book by it's cover, but Dr. Bebti put off a vibe that made Rob uneasy. Work had been steady and enlightening for Mancini for the past 3 years. There was no way for the 40-year-old dream therapist could predict his entire world world turn upside down in the next 60 days from the lives of the six patients that frequently filled the office.
    The next morning Mancini opened the office early and turned on an instrumental ambient album his first patient that day, David, often responded positively to. He left his office door open as he softly shook the miniature tray his zen garden rested in. The sand flattened out like an etch-a-sketch being erased. Placing his grey and black stones in new locations this time Rob began to rake horizontal lines throughout the tray making delicate circles around the stones. Upon finishing his meditative hobby a low voice from the hall grabbed his attention, he looked at the blue numbers glowing 8:24am from the bookshelf as he moved towards the noise. Dr. Sheila Bebti was blocking the hall with her body faced directly at Mancini's patient, David who was rising up out of his couch.
    "That delinquent wardrobe doesn't help your case either." Sheila Bebti's words jabbed at David.
    "How about a nice case of fuck off. Didn't learn enough in India," the pale, greasy junkie paced, furiously clapping his hands to show his anger."you can shut the fuck up and wrap your ugly ass face in some rags or whatever the fuck they do where you belong." David bobbed and weaved each time he said "fuck", moving his torso like an agitated snake.
    "I'll take that as my cue to get my session started, Sheila, if you'll excuse us." Manicini interrupted while beckoning David.
    A background check hotline employee, David was a thirty-one year old manic-depressive twin. His inferiority complex was the root of his mood swings and thrill seeking bad habits. During his manic stages if David wasn't  mindlessly throwing money around or starting meaningless spiffs he was exploring a separate reality under the influence of hallucinogenics. On the other hand, the most energy David exerted during his bouts of depression other than work and sessions with Mancini was creating elaborate lies just for the thrill of getting away with the truth. The adrenaline of telling a lie got him off, especially if the lie was shocking. . It was during this part of his emotional cycle that David preferred to slouch in a chair instead of sitting on top the headboard. His highs and lows were undeniably expressed.
    Scribbling short hand notes Rob Mancini listened intently as David painted out in detail his dream of riding in the passenger seat while his twin brother, Cain, drove then down a winding road in the night. The car hits and kills a horned-owl. Cain squirts the owl with ketchup explaining it disguises the cause of death and not to worry, they'd get away with it. Soon after Cain and David arrive at a surprise cannibal party at David's apartment, where David is the main attraction. The crowd closes in on him to eat his limbs when a violent rain begins,  shattering the windows and flooding the apartment, distracting the cannibals enough to temporarily free him. David finds himself distressed once again when he realizes he's drowning.
    Mancini and David discussed the underlying theme of feeling overwhelmed. Feeling a lack of control in his life compared to his brother, who had the wheel. The owl symbolizing silent wisdom, insight to the darkness within himself and others. An owl sees and hears what others try to hide. His brother Cain not only killing but trying to hide the truth with a simple condiment told the all to familiar tale of being misguided. Given his drug addiction the cannibalism is possibly emphasizing David feeling drained emotionally, "eaten alive" by his addiction. The storm and shattering glass - an overwhelming struggle and when he feels he's escaped one battle he's faced with an equally overwhelming turmoil. A battle of keeping his head above water in his waking life.
    Still heavy hearted but slightly inspired, David left the dream therapist and headed to work ripping off a tag of meeting times from a Creative Writing Club flyer posted close to his building. He appreciated a good read, maybe drafting something himself would keep him from dwelling where it hurt.  It'd at least allow him to interact with people more like him. Folding the tag David stuffed it in his back pocket and put his operator head set on. 
    Rob Mancini had less than an hour before his second patient, Bonnie, would arrive. Finishing up his notes on David's session and slipping them into Brewer's file, he flipped through the alphabet until his index finger stopped at Shin. Bonnie Shin, Rob reflected, should have been named Summer for her sunny disposition. At 27 she looked like a petite teenager, full of positive energy and a ready-for-anything attitude.
    Come 11:00am Rob greeted Bonnie who waited patiently in indian style on a couch next to the sagel palm and fireplace. In Bonnie's hands was a light blue box from Angel Food Bakery, the tiny shop Bonnie opened and ran on her own. She was well known throughout the town for her incredible treats, especially her miniature fortune cookies which she composed the fortunes for herself. Mancini accepted the box of fortune cookies and followed her through the warm colored halls to his office. It was routine now for them to start the session each having a fortune cookie and sharing their thoughts on the hidden bits of wisdom.
    "If you ruin your body where will you live?" Rob read out loud. "I like that, punchy and still to the point."
    "That's a good one," Bonnie smiled "Mine says, 'Face facts with dignity"
    Bonnie scrunched her face the way she usually did when she thought of something emotional. Lowering her fortune onto the coffee table Bonnie sat back and vividly shared her dream of sitting in the attic of her parent's house, digging through an old trunk pulling out dusted and cracked pictures of her father who had committed suicide when she was a child.
     Her brothers took on the role of parents after the death of her father and her mother leaving them unexpectedly. Bonnie rarely thought of her family past and refused to let it determine the direction of her life. Mancini however; proposed that the old attic and digging through the trunk symbolized buried memories resurfacing. Bonnie looking at the pictures of her father in her dream was the only time she truly allowed herself to miss him. Her mousy features turned from scrunched suppression to a calm smile. Her fortune seemed fitting.
    Painting and working at the bakery were Bonnie's reliable methods of taking her negative energy and using it in a positive way, to create. Bonnie's only goal in life was to create a positive vibe. To be a warm light that touches everyone around her. On her way through the hall after her session, Bonnie let herself in Dr. Bebti's office to leave a fortune cookie,
    "I'll see you later, ok? Have a good day."

Ch. 2
    Sheila Bebti found a sense of accomplishment with working through hypnosis to aid in the growth of her patients. There was an undeniable feeling of being needed. For 12 years Sheila helped numerous patients get sober, lose weight, overcome repressed childhood trauma and even help aid in catching criminals by unlocking details victims suppressed. She felt power, she felt in control, she felt godly. Everyone who ever pursues psychology has a murky past filled with imbalances and complexes. Though she felt satisfaction in watching the healing of her patients, Sheila suppressed in herself the resentment she felt in her patients growing away from her. All her dedication in working with them only for them to eventually no longer need her. She found it easier to detach herself emotionally, to view patients as subject matter. They were a puzzle but they were not people she could relate to and feel for. The emotional absence was her shield.
    Fingering through folders in her desk for her first patient that day, Sheila heard someone enter the building but stayed completely focused on her folders. It took practice but the music Mancini played in the waiting room no longer bothered her. For the most part it was all instrumental. Soft jazz played for the waiting patient who occasionally let out an exaggerated, pitiful sigh.
    "Elmer," Sheila thought.
    His liver colored lips were curled downward in a permanent frown, slightly pursed like a kid pretending a war-head wasn't sour. His face haunted her. It took more than just self control to not grab his sagging jaws tightly by her ashy grey fingers and yank it away from the rest of his skull. Elmer was the only person who could make punctuality an annoying habit. He was always half an hour early. Being early was a natural goal to look better than the next person who might be late. No matter what therapy he received, he never listened and he never got any better. Being his therapist was exhausting. Sheila pitied his parents, they too surely grew tired of his self-pity and whining voice. His desperation to be heard but his self-righteous grandiosity keeping him from ever listening to anyone. Some people don't listen, they just wait for their turn to speak. Not Elmer though, he interrupted with pitiful remarks and pathetic sighs, the conversation was always one sided.
    The hypnotherapist felt a weight lifted from her when Rob Mancini made his way from his office, fixed himself a cup of black coffee in the hall and went to meet Elmer in the waiting room. The sooner Elmer's session was over the sooner he could mope elsewhere.

    Mancini observed Elmer's profile as he began to piece together his most recent vivid dream. His head bowed slightly matching his hunched over back. His wet lips hung with his notorious frown. When Elmer didn't know someone was looking, he had a tendency to look as if he were melting, everything about Elmer was slightly slouched. He breathed misery, no matter how intellectual and in control he attempted to convey the drowning energy coming from him ultimately wreaked of defeat. His depression was overwhelming to be around.
    "I'm riding a mower. It's dusk. I remember my eyes feeling like the were burning from how hazy it was. Squirrels keep running around the lawn and I'm trying to run over them. I'm chasing them with the mower, the keep saying "uncle" but the mower isn't fast enough to catch any of them." Elmer pulled his left ear lobe subtly while continuing, "There are goblins in black and white striped shirts marching. I'm one of them, it doesn't look like me but it is me. I'm hideous. Green colored and wrinkled. I'm out of sync."
    Rob made note of the themes of defeat. The squirrels crying "uncle", the defeated hope of running them over but not being fast enough, the day ending and a job still not completed. Elmer denied any hidden desire to conform despite the evidence in him being part of a marching group of goblins being loud and clear. The black and white stripes symbolized what they both already knew, Elmer was close minded. Mancini only briefly mentioned the self-defeatist attitude of being a "hideous" goblin that couldn't stay in rhythm but knew Elmer's obsession with social status and his fake pride would be a wall he wasn't willing to break through yet. Elmer despised being embarrassed or made to look anything but divine. As he sulked out of the building with his chin forced high to look like he had himself together, Sheila and Rob both felt Elmer's inner turmoil sucking them dry from the inside out.
    Gathering his files together at the end of the night Rob continuously found himself keeping an eye on Sheila's closed door. She was in there, doing something. Rob knew she had patients but he never saw them. The idea of hypnosis made him uncomfortable, especially if someone as power hungry as Sheila was the one orchestrating it. His desk light casted an eerie shadow down the hall to Sheila's door. His imagination ran wild with images of Sheila performing voodoo to unsuspecting patients under hypnosis. She had a warm face but vacant eyes that chilled him to his core, like he was looking a grasshopper in the eye rather than a human. The natural dark circles that swallowed her deep brown eyes only strengthened the comparison. Picturing the hypnotherapist feeding off of her patient's vulnerability reminded Rob of David Brewer's dream of being surrounded by cannibals. David was in a permanent stage of angst. He used aggression and malicious confrontation to cause everyone around to act out in destructive and ridiculous retorts in attempt to soothe the discomfort he brought them. Through his dreams David subtly revealed his true nature to Mancini. David hated himself. To survive his self-image David distracted himself with disrupting others' growth. Accepting himself head on was exactly the direction Mancini was gradually pointing David in.
    Bonnie, the repressed, light hearted baker was equally in a critical stage of denial. She was a breath of fresh air compared to David and Elmer but required just as much maturing. It was  obvious that Bonnie had a fear of abandonment, Mancini acknowledged in his notes that Bonnie's childlike longing to fill an unfulfillable void was a crutch to her development. Her orphan past was repressed and until she was willing to accept her own reality and mourn the bond she had to live without she could not continue to move forward and live her life. She would continue to latch on to short term bonds, needing acceptance from people who in the long run did not matter. Bonnie's need for validation, her never ending desire for reinforcement, that she was of value and would not be abandoned was her biggest flaw. Mancini was almost certain Bonnie gave him answers he wanted rather than the truth out of natural instinct to be accepted. Bonnie had the most potential of transformation among all of Mancini's patients but her fear of being abandoned would keep her from actually growing. Turning off the lights and locking the office door behind him Mancini felt the heavy weight of his patients' emotional baggage. 
    That night Rob Mancini had a mundane dream of cutting the fat off of a rare steak.

  Ch. 3
    The flat faced, elderly African man sat up straight in Mancini's office with his dry, wrinkled hands resting palm down on each knee. His almond sized deep brown eyes were creased slightly in his effortless thin lipped smile. Mancini smiled back, taking in Darious Panya's balanced aura and comfortingly, plane, frog-like countenance. Darious' long salt and pepper hair was pulled back into a pony tail that crossed over his shoulder and rested half way down his faded green scrubs. Since he had retired from the working with the railroad company nearly a decade ago Darious worked cleaning houses and in a decade he had neither bought nor wore anything but scrubs.
     "I'm kneeling down by a river. A calm river. Clear and sweet." His voice was powerful and drawn out like an old preacher reading the bible aloud as if he were telling his own story. His vowels were exaggerated in such a way that pulled the receiver of the words in and held his or her interest. "Fishing handfuls of amethyst and putting them, putting them on a set of scales to my left." He moved his left hand gracefully along with his actions in the dream.
    "The water was cool. I could hear it perfectly.I'm making myself thirsty now just thinking of it." Joy glowed from his core and poured out from his eyes as he laughed.
    "Were you weighing anything else or just the gemstones?" Rob questioned.
    "No. No. It was balanced, there was no measuring. The scales held what the river gave to me. You see, individual pieces... come off as trivial," the African housekeeper in his 60s was slow and thoughtful with each word, "When You look at them by themselves, it all at first feels meaningless but it's the reflection that comes from the experience. I dream I find amethyst in the river last night, today I'm one step closer to understanding. Closer to being at one. Mind, body and spirit." Darious smiled, his aged hands moving generously to express himself.
    "Exactly. You know, for a long time amethyst was thought to prevent drunkenness, wine goblets were made of it. The Catholic bishops would wear it to keep their souls from intoxication even, in your dream it seems the amethyst symbolizes purity, peace of mind, clear thinking. The clear water again backs up clarity. It sounds like that's exactly where you are... It doesn't take much to make you happy, you're going with the flow of life, like the river, taking in and appreciating the simple pleasures. You've found a balance, as the scales tell us, and you are clearly content with where you are." Mancini explored the symbolism in detail with his patient, Darious closing his eyes and nodding. His smile never fading.
    An unaddressed shadow listened intently to the two voices.The unaddressed listener mourned the maturing and hardening of children's hearts as they learn the ways of the world. Darious' contentment was deeply appreciated, the listener's heart harbored hope to preserve the innocence the housekeeper possessed. One bad day, a string of bad events, any number of things could change the old man's heart and turn him into a hollow, deceitful, leech like the majority of the people the world was made up of. Darious and Rob rejoiced in the journey of life, they laughed with sincerity both completely blind to the third party as the hour long session came to an end.

  Rob noticed a suspicious shuffle of feet after he opened his office door and held it open with his hand extended towards the hall as Darious strolled past him. Shadows inside Bebti's office gave away their hiding spots through the 1/4 in. slit beneath her door. As soon as Darious turned the corner that entered the waiting room his elegant voice let out a pleasant greeting followed by his warm laugh. The shuffling feet started again matching the quick steps from the black ballet flats that covered Bonnie's small feet. She stopped at the end of the hall by Bebti's door, leaned up on her toes and shortly waved both hands half way in front of her as if one waving hand were not enough to get the greeting across. It was now that Rob Mancini noticed the pale blue Angel Food Bakery box that was now sitting on the coffee bar between his and Bebti's office.
    "Hi! I made little cookies for you! I have to stay at the bakery today but I made them just for you!" Her dark doe eyes lit up with her sing-song tone.
    "Bonnie, thank you." Mancini, still bathing in the afterglow of his most recent session, was sincere in his delight.
    "Did you see them? They are right here. I made them for you this morning. No fortunes this time, those are special for when you see me. These are good! Animal cookies with pretty frosting. Green cat and blue hippos." her feet brought her swiftly towards the box and Mancini, her voice trailed off into a softer expression than she had started with. Her eyes looked from the box to Manicni, back to the box and then stopped to grin in anticipation back on Manicni.
    Just as he was told the small box contained ambiguous shaped cookies topped with hard, pastel colored frosting. Flirty giggles escaped Bonnie's friendly facial expression, coaxing a breathy laugh from Mancini. His lips closed in a tight lipped smile, he felt uncomfortable as he stood in his doorway with a gift from his repressed patient. A cookie during their sessions had proved to be a good introduction to get Bonnie comfortable enough to open up but he had never taken it as an intimate gesture nor would he allow it to become one.
    "I'll leave these by the coffee and tea.Thank you Bonnie." Mancini gestured an exaggerated goodbye with the hand that held the box as he leaned in to put the box back on the table. His eyes focused on everything but her. As quickly as she had appeared, Bonnie was gone. The feeling of being watched didn't leave with Bonnie however, Mancini paused at the sight of the two small shadows that now stood still under the crack of Bebti's closed door.
    Martin Wallace was late.