No one showed up at the clinic this morning. We usually have 15+ patients. Today we had four. After two hours we started packing up and a social worker came in and said "Slow day, huh? They all got their GR checks this week, so they're out smoking. They'll be back tomorrow."

I'm so naive about drug addicts. Most of the patients claim that they're clean. I guess I choose to believe them because I don't want their situations to be as bad as they obviously are. Or I just believe them because I have no reason not to.

I still have this Fisher King fantasy for most of these patients, but obviously they're not all going to get off the streets. And that's not the mission of the doctor I work with, anyway. He's just trying to serve an underserved community. I don't know. It's too much to think about; I told myself that my favorite patients must have just been... too busy to drop by.

(Actually, things didn't end so well in Fisher King, did they? Did I rewrite that ending in my head?)