Written by Helen Currie Foster

 The first week after the book is finished. Horrible. Finishing a book feels a bit like having a broken spring. A cartoon clock where the springs go SPROING out the back, twisting like Little Orphan Annie’s ringlets.

Post-book dementia has been ignored by the scientific community. Yet it’s a known syndrome, leaving the writer desperate.

Symptoms? Apathy. Refusal to read headlines. Compulsive retreat into mysteries from the sixties—John MacDonald. Helen MacInnes. Waking at three a.m. and staring into darkness, lost without a plot tangle to unravel. Executive function area of brain on unauthorized vacation.

Cures? None known. One wise practitioner advises Tincture of Time. Thyme? What did he say?

Anodynes?

Hard runs, uphill both ways. Try to beat your own best thyme. Time?

Locate small child. Ask child about book plot for witch and wizard story, using “Yes And!” for action sequence.

Eat…