The Rhythm of The Same Old

A ceiling fan whines and clicks as the loose blades spin.

In answer to how the week is going, the patient replies: it’s the same old bullshit, a hamster wheel every day, all the while a soothing song in the next room sticks, repeating words until someone hits the search function, and stations roll by jerkily with squeaks and tiny snippets of songs until a selection finally lands.

Blinds crackle and clack on the windowsill, a staccato rhythm. The doctor’s pen clicks with each thumb press, keeping to the blinds’ rhythm, while the patient scratches their arm and neck. The scribbling pen digs like a shovel, scrabbling across the yellow-lined paper, as the patient says they want to be sitting on top of a mountain, meditating, filled with love, while rocking back and forth, in rhythm to the curtains’ whooshing. Click, clack, whoosh.

Jostling on the couch, and tiny cowlick hairs caught in static standing on end, the answer to what if you won the lottery is barely audible under the squeaky rubbing of eyeglass lenses, the nick, nicking dirt from the frames with a pointy painted fingernail.

Broad fingers snap, leg jerks against the sofa. The answer is spoken aloud: I won the lottery. Lips meet scalding lemon balm tea. Too fast, it enters and sizzles the tongue. Eyes roll back in pain, and static lightning snaps those fingers while tea sizzles onto the carpet.

The money was for good in the world. Politicians got elected; nothing changed. Subsidized businesses closed. Money wasn’t enough. Feet shuffling, pacing, static electricity snapping against ankles on the nylon carpet.

The patient's experiment began with mass firings, followed by all-new management. An orchestration for the patient to be hired, so how did that work out?

The pen gnawing stops. A moment later, the clicking of the pen alternates with scratching as the painted nails dig the pen deep into the paper. A tiny shovel getting nowhere; just like the therapy for the lottery winner, ongoing for the past 15 months.

Those broad snapping fingers keep rhythm with the pen's clicking, while the blinds clack and the curtains whoosh, but the off-balance fan stops spinning.

Copyright © 8/2/2026 by Andrea O. Corwin