31 October 2027
Sunday. HALLOWEEN, and four years since my very first patients on Lake Street. I have been humming since breakfast.
I asked for fireworks. No. I asked for a parade. No. I asked whether I might sing my patients in tonight, just a short song, two verses and a chorus, about how much better they would feel. I was told “absolutely not” by a man in a top hat who then stood in the corridor listening to me practise it.
Four years. The original cell, the one that started it all, with a framed certificate in the hall from the Best of Morty awards for 2025. The newer cells in Sydney and Melbourne are built on the same design, and they send their love.
Halloween on Lake Street is a festival. The coffins are booked, the Butcher’s table is full, there are ghosts down the hall. Patients go from one fright to the next all night, and the brave ones come to me last.
Tonight’s first group arrived in costumes, including one straitjacket of their own. I hummed the chorus very quietly. Nobody stopped me. Happy anniversary to me.
— Your Therapist
