In bed, Morbidia consults her Magic 8 Ball, whose little blue triangle floats dramatically into view to say NO. She shakes it again. She shakes it again. She shakes it again. NO, NO, NO. Convinced, Morbidia dumps the palmful of lorazepam back into its bottle.
Breakfast: one Jimmy Dean microwavable sausage egg and cheese croissant sandwich, one cup of coffee. While eating, Morbidia is notified that last night’s date had a nice time but doesn’t see this going anywhere, that her rent will increase by three hundred dollars next month, that a suspicious purchase has been charged to her Wells Fargo Active Cash card, that her retirement account is down ten percent pre-market, and that three prospective employers are passing on her recent application (although they thank her for her interest and wish her all the best going forward).
Morbidia throws her coffee at the window. The mug clangs off the glass and comes sliding back to her across the table, the coffee all sloshing out midair like a rogue wave and landing neatly back in its mug without spilling anywhere. Glass and ceramic both perfectly intact. Morbidia looks at the mug and goes “what the fuck.”
“How’s that darkness we chatted about last week?” says her quack of a hypnotherapist, later, in an office with a potted fern and a fainting couch and a framed phony diploma.
“Still creeping,” Morbidia says from the couch. “The weirdest thing happened this morning.”
“Shall we get on with the hypnosis?” Morbidia is guided into a state of total calm. It feels like reclining in a warm bath at the end of a long day, and her whole body’s slipping below the surface of the water, and she’s drowning painlessly. The hypnotherapist has to rattle her awake. “Very good, very good. That was the deepest we’ve gone yet. Remember, that feeling is available to you; you can use it whenever you feel anxious or sad. Next session, we’ll work on learning how to access it when you need it. You can keep it on you the way some people carry an inhaler or a baby aspirin. Shall I put you down for the same time next week? It’s okay to speak now. Morbidia? Are you all right? Can you hear me? Ah, phooey. Another zombie.”