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The maroon business card is unobtrusive, pinned up in the lower right corner of the crowded bulletin board outside your community center. It catches your eye, though. You never even look at the notices pinned there each week. Notices for tennis sign-ups, guitar lessons, cleaning services. Things like that. You’d only stopped in for a sip of water from the fountain.
The card is elegant, with scroll designs around the edges in silver ink. You take a step closer to the board, squinting at the small font in the center of the card. Magic Shop Healing Therapy and underneath, an address. Your brow creases in confusion. What is that supposed to mean? You step back, out of someone else’s way, intending to leave. But you find yourself instead snatching up the card (there are others in a neat stack underneath) and slipping it into your pocket.
You look up the address and walk to the Magic Shop Healing Therapy office after work one evening. Your phone GPS could give no details on the building itself, but it is small and tucked between shops that have already closed for the evening. You wouldn’t have come in the evening except for the fact your phone also said the office was open still.
You open the front door to a reception area paneled in dark wood. To the left is a small reception desk. A young man stands behind the desk. He is quick to smile and greet you. Your palms are sweating and you can feel your pulse in your ears.
“Welcome,” he says.“You must be the next appointment.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question. You feel your nerves spike.
“No, I uh, don’t have an appointment. I–” you trail off, not sure how to continue. The man nods, unphased.
“It’s no problem. All we take are walk-ins.” He opens up a leather-bound schedule in front of him, pen poised to write. You give the man your name and health card, though the man glances at it for only a second before handing it back to you. Task completed, the receptionist gestures over to the sitting area with another smile. His blonde hair shines even in the dim light. “A doctor will be available shortly.”
You take a seat, your stomach in knots. What are you doing here, exactly? Before you can convince yourself to stand up and leave, a purple light turns on next to a set of double doors to your right. The receptionist looks from the purple light over to you.
“Right on time,” he says, moving to hold open the door for you to pass through.
I.
Rather than a hallway lined with other offices, the doors open onto a single room. A man who you assume is the doctor is pouring tea from a steaming decanter into cups.
“Come in, come in,” he says, gesturing you forward with a free hand. He is younger and more handsome than expected.
“The tea is ready, though I hope it’s not still too hot for your tastes?” he continues, waiting to seat himself at the table in front of you until you’ve cautiously taken your own spot on the cushioned bench across from him. When you hesitate, he gestures again for you to take the first sip.
Bemused, you raise the cup in both hands and inhale the familiar scent of green tea. The nerves twisting your stomach settle.
“Is this a tea house, then?” you ask the doctor, meeting his gaze across the cup’s rim. The tea has been prepared exactly how you like it. “I thought the card said you offered healing therapy.”
“We offer many different things here,” he says, pouring you a second cup.
II.
This doctor wants you to dance. You don’t know how. Well, you don’t really know how, but you enjoy it regardless. To dance in front of someone else, like this doctor even, is too embarrassing.
“I’ll keep count for us, we’ll do it together,” the doctor says cheerfully, standing next to you in front of the mirror. The beat of the music flooding the room through hidden speakers rises.
“Let’s go, that’s it!” the doctor yells over the song. “Let go!”
III.
“Can you tell me why you came here today?”
You can’t answer that question. You cannot even bear to sit across from the doctor on the couch. He is staring at you too intently. You are afraid he might see something he should really avert his gaze from.
You stand up silently and walk to the far corner of the room. You sit facing the wall with your arms hiding yourself from his gaze. You breathe into the enclosed space between your arms and the wood paneled wall, which feels easier.
Time passes.
The doctor comes over to you. He neither touches you nor says anything, simply sits with his back supported against the wall. You find you can bear that.
You raise your head some time later to see him looking over at you. He smiles, and his entire face is alight with it.
“It was nice to meet you,” is all he says.
IV.
“Aren’t these the cutest dogs you’ve ever met?” the doctor says, enthusiastically petting a droopy-eared hound. The dog doesn’t move a centimeter away from his spot at the doctor’s side on the couch.
The room is alive with a band of elderly dogs of all breeds, sizes, and colors. You have taken turns petting and cuddling them all.
“Could you stay longer this afternoon?” the doctor inquires, stroking the hound’s graying head. “I could use your help taking care of them all. It feels like a lot of work at times.”
“It doesn’t seem much like work to me,” you say, laughing as a tiny pomeranian lets out a dramatic huff at being ignored by the doctor.
V.
There is a different receptionist this time, darker-haired and subdued looking. You have walked through the rain to get here.
“Oh you’re not–sorry, would you happen to have an appointment available?” You stutter, thrown off by the unfamiliar face. You’d grown used to the blonde receptionists' smiles.
The new receptionist looks understanding, though, and gestures to the purple light next to the double doors, which is illuminated already.
“You can head on back,” he says, opening the door for you.
The blonde receptionist turns to greet you. You take a step back, halfway in the door’s threshold.
“You? But you're usually at the reception desk when I come in?”
“I’m not just the receptionist,” he retorts, raising an eyebrow. You can tell he is teasing you gently. “Sorry, doctor.” You feel your cheeks warm.
“It looks like you’re hurt,” he says, taking in your rain-spotted clothes. You are holding your arm oddly.
“It’s nothing, really,” you say.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”
“I’m fine, it's not a big deal,” you try.
“Please, let me take care of you,” he says. He looks so sincere you find yourself giving in.
He leads you over to a doctor’s office exam couch and cabinets. You haven’t noticed it until that moment.
Gentle hands support your back as you stretch out on the couch. A warm light hits your face but it doesn’t blind you.
“It happened on the way to work this morning. Another person on a bicycle hit me coming around a corner and they didn’t even stop, just kept going and I couldn’t brake in time. There was a barrier right there but I was already running late to work and there was an important meeting. I didn’t have time to waste.”
“Try to relax,” the doctor says, nodding encouragingly. Water is running in the sink. Gauze squares crinkle in paper. The doctor-slash-receptionist hovers in and out of your line of sight, tending to you.
You begin to shiver from your rain-soaked clothes, and you suppose, the shock of crashing your bicycle. You don’t attempt to hide this.
“This should stop hurting you soon,” the doctor says, carefully wiping away blood from the scrapes on your arm. “You seem like you’re in need of a rest.”
“Mmm, maybe,” you reply. The doctor’s touch is soothing. Your shivering subsides; your eyes slip closed.
VI.
“I thought you might like to play this game with me,” the doctor says. This time he is tall, with close-cropped honey blonde hair. You nod, taking a seat across from him at the low table. The board game in front of you is familiar. Candy Land was your most favorite game to play as a child. You haven’t played it since, but the board and brightly colored gingerbread children pieces are just the same.
Your eyes rove the games' familiar illustrations. There are the rosy-cheeked children in blue overalls, Grandma Nut Brittle’s cottage, Queen Frostine floating up in the clouds. You remember getting stuck often in the gooey gumdrops. You used to draw card after card waiting to draw the one with two blue squares in order to keep playing.
Even the box is exactly how you remember it. Not exactly. Your eyes land on the tagline for the game underneath the title in smaller text. A sweet little game for sweet little folks. Your finger traces the words. Suddenly, swallowing becomes difficult.
“This is a sweet little game, isn’t it?” the doctor remarks, drawing the first card. Two purples.
“It is,” you reply, nodding. You look at him, then back to the board. You feel some tension slide away you didn’t know you were holding. You feel relieved this is all the doctor is currently asking of you. You do not need to worry. You know how to play this game.
The doctor moves his own red piece, then you begin your turn.
VII.
The pork belly is burning, and so is the tofu.
“We’ll try this again, you’ll see. Now you know how to make this dish the wrong way. That’s all.” This doctor is less expressive on the surface, but he is calm and methodical as he walks you through the recipe.
You nod, wiping the sweat from your brow. You can try it again.
***
One day you return to the community center. You stop in the entryway with the bulletin board where you first saw the card for Magic Shop Healing Therapy. The board is completely empty. You go so far as to ask at the front desk.
“Oh that?” the teenaged worker replies, looking confused. “We haven’t used that board in years. Who uses a notice board like that anymore?”