a person attending a type of group therapy is coerced into volunteering for an extra curricular interview with student therapists, so they can practice their trade. before the interview starts they point out to him that the room the interview is in has a viewing mirror built into the wall so the teachers can watch the students from the room behind the mirror.
when the interview is over and as he leaves the head therapist reimburses him twenty dollars for the hour he spent with the students. for no apparent reason the bill is origami folded into a pinwheel and the therapist smiles strangely as he gives it to the volunteer.
as he is leaving the building and looking at the twenty dollar pinwheel in his hand he recalls an incident from thirty years ago in grade one, a similar incident with student teachers. the class had been taken to the university of saskatchewan where they listened to some student teachers read stories and they also folded a sheet of paper into a pin wheel and thumb-tacked it to the eraser of a pencil.
that room also had a large mirror built into one wall and an other student said something about how he had done this sort of thing in kindergarten and there were people behind the mirror watching, the person recalls how he kept looking over at the mirror while they were making the pinwheels and being scolded for it by the teacher from his school.
in the days after the interview with the student therapists he begins to notice a larger than usual number of people carrying pinwheels in their hands, some elderly, some younger and some children, and all of them looking at him like the head therapist did when he gave him the twenty dollars.
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