A Doctor’s Light, a Lover’s Warmth
The light shone painfully on his iris, making his head throb and ache.
“Say ‘aaah.’” The kind doctor asked him one more time,
and one more time he sheepishly replied:
“Aaah.”
The old man took some notes on the small pad before
walking to a corner on the back of his office. The patient followed him tensely
with his gaze. “Come on now.” The man called and he followed, his head
persistently hurting at every step.
To just walk was somewhat challenging, his sense of
balance hanging by a thread. The pieces of his brain, mushy and jelly, acted
like they would ooze from his ears and nostrils, splashing on the ground as he
tried to keep his feet gripped and his legs firm.
In the back corner of the bright office sat a large,
tall box, impeccably white and rectangular in shape, with enough volume inside
to fit about three decently-sized adults, though it was short enough that none
would be able to stand in it upright. “A moment, please.” The doctor told him,
and the patient kept staring at the box as the man walked over to a control
panel beside it.
Its uniformity and cleanliness were mesmerizing. He
had always liked smoothness. Clean features, straight lines, plain surfaces,
shiny glasses, glossy textures, and pure, unblemished colors like a perfect
white or a soul-stealing noir. The tender features of that mechanism
were such as to naturally entice his senses. It provoked in him a reaction
almost as immediate and violent as… she did. Though much more neutral, perhaps,
and less animalistic.
“What is this?” He felt compelled to ask.
“Oh? This?” The doctor’s face beamed with an I’m-so-glad-you-asked
grin. “Gefördiß, ja? This machine will make a complete
multidimensional scanning of your body, from bones to muscles, down to the
ligaments.” He looked over to the patient, curious to see his reaction, and
appeared disappointed as he was met with only a cold, blank stare. “Anyway. Used
to be a different machine. Many different ones, as a matter of fact. One for
each procedure, and each as massive as the room we’re standing on. We needed to
wait for days for the results. You’d have to… ”
He was cut short as the door of the apparatus was slid
open for the patient, so smooth it barely made a sound.
“You can step inside, now.” The doctor gestured
towards it, his tone descending a couple of octaves, as soft as a fly’s
fluttering wings. “Mind the head, though.”
“Oh, sure.”
The boy peeked inside, ever so suspicious, and had
fuzzy feelings in his crotch as he beheld its interior. “It’s so… white.”
“A piece of work, don’t you think?” The tone of the
doctor, though proud, was enmeshed with a very distinct, salient hurt, almost a
fatherly kind of disappointment. “It’s a, uh, Toryo device.” He waved to the
patient. “You can step in now. No need to walk on light feet. This thing is
quite resilient despite her looks.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Medical equipment this side of the hemisphere is so
fickle, I know. Many moving parts. Not to be trifled with or handled with heavy
fists. This one you’re stepping into, though…” Again, his tone was peculiar,
almost one of begrudging respect. “Exceptional engineering, unbelievable
precision. I’d say it’s almost miraculous how well it works and how much—pardon
my german—shit it can take.” He knocked on the box a couple of times,
yet hardly a sound came inside. “Feels like she was built on another planet, by
a species much more intelligent than ours.”
“Huh.” Slowly venturing inside, the boy saw a
cylindrical monolith protruding from the floor at the very center, with barely
enough surface area to accommodate a person’s buttocks. “So, I…”
“Yes, you sit in the middle. The lights will go off,
and I want you to look up at one single beam that will be blinking above this
entrance, okay, near the ceiling. Understood? It will shine exactly ahead of
you, a little above your eyesight. So…” The doctor operated the machine through
the panel. “You told me you have no problems with tight, closed spaces,
claustrophobia, nothing of the sort, correct?”
“Hmm.” He could feel his heart picking up pace, uneasy
and unsure, and almost falling from the ribcage into his stomach. “Yeah. No,
uh… no problem.” He nodded, looking quite silly. “I’m cool.”
The doctor took a pause as he pressed buttons, ticked
switches, and pulled levers on that panel. “Once the procedure starts—and don’t
worry, I will let you know when it starts—it will get very dark inside. So, I
need to be sure: can you confirm to me again that you do not have
claustrophobia or any closely-related fears, do you? Nyctophobia, melanophobia,
any of them?”
“Um?”
“Fear of the dark? Closed spaces? Got any?”
“Well, uh…”
The darkness of his bedroom. The shadow by the door. Then,
right next to his bed. “Well, I…” He cleared his throat. “I get uncomfortable,
sure, but, uh… I can take it.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded again, shaking like a tall leaf in the wind.
“Uh-uh.”
“We can take the usual procedures if you’re not
a hundred percent sure. And by that I mean the old equipment, the traditional
examinations, many days of waiting, many other appointments to be made.”
“Oh.”
“I feel like you’re unsure. Go ahead and ask me
anything.”
“Would you, uh, recommend these traditional, uh, exam,
uh, examinations?”
“I would not.”
“Oh.”
“As I just told you, these might be days, many days of
examinations, and you’ll have to come back here every time and spend hours on
every process, and then we will both have to wait weeks, possibly months until
the results are out, technical and logistical complications all considered, you
see.”
“Oh.”
“And I wouldn’t say these examinations are much less…
well, ‘intimidating’. It’s really just a matter of you being very afraid of the
dark. Pathologically so.”
“Oh, I guess… I guess I’m not.”
“So are you okay with this test we’re about to
perform?”
The boy cast his gaze through the tight opening of the
box. “Will I have to do this many, uh, many more times?”
“Just once.”
“Oh. Okay, then.”
“More than okay, it is excellent. In this day
and age, a machine like this is…” The doctor sighed and exhaled longly. “A
miracle, a miracle. Everything a professional could ask for.”
“Will I, uh… will it take a lot of time, though? For
this examination, I mean?”
“Not at all. Perhaps, umm, five minutes, I would say.
Now, sit tight, in the middle, and please look at the lights ahead of you once
they start blinking. You do not need to sit perfectly still, but you will want
to stay put and move as little as possible throughout the duration of the scan.
Do you understand me correctly? Alright? Excellent. I’ll be here with you all
the time, do not worry. If you’re okay with it, we can even talk during the
process, if that helps calm you down.”
“Oh… okay.”
“Are you comfortable?” The doctor again asked. Through
the screen on his panel, he could see the patient trying to sit on the
cylindrical pillar, yet struggling to find a nice position in such a tiny,
oddly-shaped seat.
“Umm, not really.”
“I agree, this seat’s not great, but it is
functional. In theory, we can have patients as heavy as seventy fäerings in
there, though people half as large find it very difficult to sit on. Well…” He
pressed a sequence of buttons on the panel. “Good thing that’s not your case.”
“Umm.”
“It’s been forever since I saw a fat… uh, an
overweight individual around here. Guess it’s one of the good things that came
out of… all this tragedy. Ain’t it?”
“Hmm. Yeah, I guess.”
The doctor waited a spareful seconds longer until the
patient seemed well-adjusted on the tiny metal seat. “Give me a green when
you’re ready.”
“Umm… okay.” He nodded, rather sad and pitiful. “We
can… uh… start. We can start now, uh… doctor.”
“Alright. You see the opening in front of you? The
door you just walked through?”
“Hm.” He nodded.
“The hatch will close shortly. It’s not going to make
a sound and it’s going to shut only very slowly, so nothing to startle you.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“Should we begin, then?”
“Yes. We, uh, we should. Begin, I mean.”
“Excellent. On my count, the hatch will shut. Are you
ready?”
“Am I… I mean, I am, I am.”
“Fine. On my count: three. Two. One.”
From inside the machine, without a sound any louder
than a slow, soothing hiss, the door slid shut in front of the patient, and all
lights slowly faded until there was nothing but perfect darkness within.
“Aaand shut.”
“Doctor?”
“I’m still here. How are you doing?” His voice came
very clearly inside the box, distorted only by a slight robotic intonation. “I
can see everything from here. And read everything as well: your vitals, your
heartbeat, your body heat, your pressure… all the data, and so much more.” He
chuckled. “You are doing… quite well, I see. All signals good. Tell me, how do
you feel?”
He shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”
“Fine, you guess.” Buttons were pressed, levers
pulled, and throats cleared before the doctor asked him one final time: “Can we
begin? It will be five minutes, maybe a little longer, and I’ll want you to
remain as still as you can throughout the procedure, okay?”
“Okay. Uh, yes, we can, uh, we can begin.”
“Excellent, my lad.” Buttons, levers… start. “Please,
look at the light.”
A green, sharp dot beamed ahead and above the
patient’s face, over the shut-off hatch, and he stared at it, trying his best
to not move an inch.
The light was strong and unnatural, quite like the
shine of a laser pen, but looking at it caused the eye no strain. In fact, it
was the opposite: like an injection without a needle, his eyes slowly became
numb to all stimuli and sensations, and the coarse, hoarse beating, the heavy
weight he felt he’d been carrying on his head all this time, it all suddenly
went away, and he had nothing but feathers in his brain.
“Alright, we begin in three, two…”
The machine hummed. Nothing else seemed to be
happening. Just a quiet, soothing purr, and a very tender vibration under his
butt. Though the strange situation caused his heart to pace a little, the voice
of the doctor, a rough and husky one, very fitting for a corpulent man in his
midlife, quickly soothed him back.
“Come again, my lad: how long have you been feeling
these pains?”
The patient’s face turned darker. “One week.” His
memory traveled back to forbidden harbors…
“A week, eh? Hmm.” The doctor checked on his screen
between long, lazy pauses. “Now, if you will, sit upright for me, please.
Little straighter now, if you may. Yes, yes, like this, but… come on, now, just
a little straighter. Straight posture, please. You have any problem with your
back? Any pains on your spine, perhaps?”
“Hmm…” If anything, he reasoned, his problem might have
been not having a spine at all. “No, no. No problem. Not that I know
of.”
“Then you can sit straighter than this.”
He could hear the impatience growing in the doctor’s
voice, and struggled against the fickle bones that kept his sad sack of meat
upright. Being sat like that, so straight, with his head carried up high and
shoulders wide, it was all quite unusual to him. It made him feel vulnerable
and under threat.
Naked. Like a chick far from the mother’s wings.
“You do have a bad hunchback, you know. Quite
noticeable for a lad your age.”
He grumbled. “I know.”
“I’m going to give you some brochures on this. Little
manuals, easy read, so you don’t keep slacking on your spine like this. You
really wouldn’t want to go to a doctor, you know, getting to a point you would need
to seek medical help for this, and most definitely not at your age, not so
young. You will end up in their offices sooner or later, oh, much sooner than
later if you keep treating your back this badly.” He sighed. “Straight posture,
young man, please!”
“Oh. Sorry.” He straightened it up once more, as best
as he could.
“Now, stay still. Like this. Just keep it like this
for… a little… while… longer.”
The machine hummed and rumbled, and the boy stood
still and straight. It was fascinating to know that, for every hum, following
every thud and every vibration, his body was being invaded, his skin and
muscles undressed by countless rays of very complex nature, some even deadly at
higher concentrations.
Despite this, he felt nothing. It was quite the unique
sensation, being inside that machine, unraveled fiber by fiber by its
mechanical gaze, the most vulnerable he would ever be, yet feeling just as
protected, just as coddled as when he was in the arms of…
«Umm. Feels nice.» He wondered. «I’ve been feeling
much nicer as of late, if not for these… argh!» He touched his forehead,
feeling the pieces of his skull barely hanging together. «These pains.»
“Are you alright?”
The boy tried nodding, but the pain… oh! It felt like
having boulders on his forehead, hooked to his skull by long and heavy chains.
“Yes, yes. It’s just…” He tapped on it with a finger. “The head.”
“Hang on just a little longer. We’ll get to the bottom
of this, I promise.”
The tight seal of the box. The perfect darkness
inside. The quick, subtle pulses of the tiny dot above. Or perhaps the doctor’s
voice, his calm and soothing ramblings, and his tone of genuine care for his
patient, his sincere attention to his ills and woes… all of it made him feel at
peace with himself and the universe, sleeping cozily on the clouds.
“Now, now, we’ll be taking some pictures of your
muscles, lad, and your vascular system too. You’ll see some blinking lights
everywhere, all around you. It’s very quick and they’re not too strong, but
they can be, uh, disconcerting to some. How do you feel? Do you feel fine?” The
patient nodded. “Excellent. When the lights begin to flicker, please tell me if
you feel anything different.”
“Do I need to look at them?”
“Come again?”
“The lights?”
“Oh, no. Just keep your eyes ahead, your posture
straight, and wait until this next step is over. All you need to do is…
nothing. Don’t move, don’t… nothing. Leave all the rest to me. Understood?”
“I… yes. Understand. Uh, unders-, uh, understood.”
“Öberstående.
Now, ready for my signal. The lights will begin to shine in three… two…”
He mumbled something to himself, barely audible even
to his own ears, and then, as the doctor’s count came to a close, a sort of
yellow, blueish flash inundated the cubicle, illuminating it whole, only to
then quickly fade.
“How did this one feel?”
He muttered, his words feeling heavy, like waddling
through very thick mud. “Feels okay. Kind of pleasant.”
“Yes. Some patients say it’s quite the nice
sensation.” The flashes, they returned, and their flickers, now more plentiful,
lasted longer each time. “Some report feeling sleepy. Others, just relaxed.
Elated. I myself don’t like it too much. More of a free-ranging ox, I am.”
“Um?”
“Claustrophobic, I meant to say. Sort of. I dislike
tight spaces like this one.”
“Oh.”
He made little sense of the doctor’s words, but that
was okay. The experiences that enveloped him, his mind, his body, they… oh…
Every time the lights flickered, there was an ever
louder clap, like… *tlac! Tlac!* A mechanical spring trap catching a
little animal. *Trap! Tlac! Tlap!* Every time it snapped, he imagined
himself on a sunny beach. *Tlac!* There were beautiful women around him.
The sun was high, the sky was clear, the ocean was calm, its riptides forming
tiny canyons on the shore, like rivers of sand. *Tlac!*
Life was good in his dreams. *Tlac!* Too bad
the dreams…
“Now, we’re not done yet, young man, not yet. Please,
one more go-around.”
There was the mechanical rumbling of that machine, now
devoid of blinking lights or snapping sounds. Too bad. As his body was invaded
by the rays, he tried spying on the darkness, seeing as much of it as he could
without turning his neck.
Weird shapes. Wild geometry all around him: greenish,
blueish hues blinking, following his gaze wherever he turned it to. “I still
see the funny shapes in the dark.”
“Funny shapes, you say?”
“They’re much more… uh, they’re stronger now.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Like those… weird… you know, those weird little
thingies you see in the corners of the eyes, you know, but much bigger, and
much more… aggressive.”
“Huh. Can you tell me what you mean by ‘aggressive?’”
“They’re like, uh…” Darn it! After so many
years living in the ice, his vocabulary still failed him when he needed it
most. “You know… big smudges… with very bright colors. Mostly green and blue.”
“Huh-uh, huh-uh.” The doctor pressed some more
buttons. “Still. Please, keep still. There’s yet one more round to go.” The
machine kept rumbling. “What kind of accident, again, did you say you had, my
lad?” One more time the doctor asked him, and one more time he lied to him:
“Fell. I fell. Tripped over. Wet floor. I was…
cleaning the house, you see.” He pointed to his right eye, which he did feel
much heavier than the left one, like a marble inside his socket. “Hit the
temple on a chair.”
“Hitting a temple is serious business, youn’lad. What
were you thinking? Waiting, what, one week? One week to come here? You are
lucky. If you had suffered anything bad up there, you wouldn’t’ve had a
week to spare. You wouldn’t’ve had a day at all.”
He gulped. “Is it this bad?”
“On your temple? Near your sphenoid, your temporal?”
He shook his head, not a trace of lightness in his demeanor. “No. I will never
call it ‘bad,’ for it would be understating it. Understating it grossly!”
His gaze was heavy on the patient, who sat like a child in the box. “It’s deadly,
lad. You didn’t hit it too hard, or you hit it closer to your zygomatic bone
(the bone, you see, right under your eyes) than to the lower temporalis. A
strong blow there, my man, on the temporal, and that’s a nasty hemorrhage for
you. Had two patients die like this. Both old. Both slipping in the shower.”
Again, a heavy, iron look. “Not a young man’s way to die. Not at all. Unless
you fight for a living, which, well…” He looked at him closely. “I guess isn’t
your case.” He pushed one final button and the machine stood silent, the white
lights shining blindingly inside it. “You can come out now.”
His head was dizzy when he got up. He firmed one foot
on the cold, metal ground and tried to balance himself, his brain swinging from
one side to the other in his skull, heavy as the cargo of a ship swaying on
very uneasy waters.
He closed his eyes, blinked hard and fast, and looked
briefly back to his seat. «Looks like a dick.» He smiled. “If the head was just
a bit narrower…”
The doctor grumbled. “Say something?”
“Oh. Dizzy. Head… feels dizzy.”
“Yes, yes. Have not a worry. And not a hurry. Take
your time. Let your blood flow, settle back on your hips. Sitting still for so
long on such an uncomfortable stool, of course it feels very…”
He closed his eyes and heard the doctor’s words
dissolving past his eardrums, barely licking his skull. They felt pleasant. The
message itself mattered little. All he cared about was the tone, the attention,
and he savored it dearly, like a subsaharan kid who’d got their first taste of
ice cream. «I wish… I only wish…» Again, the pain. The thuds, the bumps, the
uncomfortable, yet no longer unbearable pulsations right behind and under his
eyeballs. «Pain.» He touched his face, hiding it in his hands. «I wish I’d
heard this voice, a voice like this… more often.»
Step after step, he left the tiny white box, right
foot first, left foot second, and breathed in the pleasant, chill air of the
doctor’s air-conditioned space, stepping in there like the very first time.
“You feeling swell?”
He heard the man’s voice and nodded with eyes still
mostly shut. “Ja. Feels… a little good, actually. Like, uh…”
“Like you’re groggy?” The doctor chuckled, doing
something on his desk. “Like you churned maybe one bot’o’whisk too many?”
He blinked and blinked. “Umm, yeah. Feels like that.”
“So you drink?”
No, he really didn’t. “No. I really don’t.” He shook
his head, and heard the doctor’s pondering nods and whistles:
“The ruskie disease sure is a problem for many men
your age. Not here, in this country, where there are no young men left, and I
guess also not from, uh, your country, your land, but it is endemic in the
continent, in the east. Poor chaps. Drank all their glories away, those sorry folks.”
The doctor pressed buttons and shuffled papers while the patient still
struggled with his sight and balance, one drunken step after the other in the
mercilessly white, ruthlessly bright, cold office. “Such strong, sturdy people.
Huge bodies, excellent constitution, superb sets of teeth, and not-too-unwitty
a mind.” He made a dismissive, almost contemptuous gesture. “All washed away by
vas and vodka. And the bombs. I am not saying that…” The doctor gave his
musings a pause. “You sure you are feeling okay, lad?”
The young man supported himself on a wall, tapping it
with his palms. “Uh-huh. Just a little…” He kept blinking fast and hard. “It
was… too long in the dark. I have some sensitivity, you know.” He pointed
around his forehead. “In the eyes.”
“Mm.” The doctor stood up. “Is this sensitivity
something common, or did you just get it recently, with the accident?”
“Both, I guess.” He contemplated his own words. “I,
uh, always sensitive. Hmm.” Blink,
blink, stare. Ouch! Light, pain, shut, blink, blink. “Always been… quite
sensible. My eyesight. But, umm… yes. It got worse, uh, recently. With this,
uh… this accident.”
“Here.”
“Oh?”
He heard the doctor walking closer and handing him a
set of dark glasses. “I cannot control the brightness in my room, but I can
help you ease it with these.”
With many thank-yous, he took the glasses and put them
on. «Weird.» He thought. «Now, for some reason, I feel much safer. More
private. Like my eyes…» He blinked slow and heavy. «My eyes are safe now.» With
confident steps, he calmly sat by the doctor’s desk, trying his best to make as
little sound as possible. «Is my eyesight really this sensible?» Then, the
contemplation: «I never quite left my room. All the rooms I’ve been in… I… I
haven’t been to places. I haven’t been to countries or cities. I’ve been to rooms.
Rooms in Bovari, rooms in Cali, rooms in Theclan.
Rooms from as
far back as his country’s dirtiest, all the way up to his igloo in the artics. «Rooms,
all rooms, tiny and cramped, and none well-illuminated, none like this office.»
He looked up, sideways, everywhere. «Even my place here is dark. Curtain’s
often shut. Skies often cloudy.» Even the sun was deader there. An overall
glaze of grays and clouds, like concrete seen through a thin sheet of cotton,
or an uneven white wall looked at through dusty glass. «Are my eyes really this
bad?» He touched them, feeling them throb. «Or I am just too much of a hermit?»
“You work with… machines, is that right? Computers,
I’ve heard?”
The kind voice of the deep man rescued him from his
thoughts.
“Oh, huh?” He half-mumbled. “Umm, yes. I guess.”
“What sort of work would you say you do, exactly? Is
it some type of, uh, computer talk? What you do for a living, I mean?”
“Computer talk?”
“Yes. I don’t know the correct term exactly. No longer
a young man, you see, and never had much of a mind for these modernities. What
I mean is… well, how do you say… uh, do you talk to computers? Do you…
interface with them? Write a bunch of commands on the screen for them to
follow?”
“Oh. You mean a programmer?”
“Yes, this.” The doctor quickly nodded, almost
snapping his fingers. “Precisely. A computer… programmer, this is it. So, you
deal with, uh, lots of computer commands, computer… uh, codes?”
He really didn’t feel like lying. Not for lack of
want, but just because he was really, really bad at it. “Design. I…” Deep breaths. Lying without
lying. Lying by telling the truth. “I make drawings. Illustrations. Covers,
posters, flyers. This kind of stuff.”
“Oh. You people can do this on a machine?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“But, well, you’re a whole team, I suppose. A whole
company, or…?”
“No. It’s just… uh, just me.”
“Just you?”
“Yes.”
“And people can do this alone in a single device?”
He nodded again, and started to have questions about
those questions he was being asked. “Don’t you work with computers,
doctor?” He pointed over his shoulder, back to the magical rectangle he’d just
crawled out of. “Isn’t that one?”
“Well, technically speaking, yes. They are all machina,
are they not? But if you mean ‘computer’ like those boxes with key things that
we type texts on them… no. I can’t say I deal with them, nor that I have dealt
with them any recently, or that I know anyone else who has, for that matter.”
“Oh.”
“Quite the rarity, these mechanisms are.”
“Well, uh, I guess… I guess they are.”
“And expensive, aren’t they?”
He didn’t answer at first. Then… “Hmm.” A simple nod.
He felt suddenly threatened, as if his callous talk
had revealed to that man a social condition much above what would have been
expected out of a man, a boy like him. Anything could happen if you were
rich, or worse yet, if you were perceived as rich without actually being so. Anything
bad could happen in the hands of parasitical people—who, to his eyes, were all
people
“So… you’re an artist, eh?”
He snapped from the dark and back again into the
light. “Uh-huh.” He did his best attempt at a smile. “Yeah. You can, uh… you
can call it like that.”
Despite all… he liked that man.
“You deal with a lot of d-” *Ruuum!* As the doctor
was talking, he was cut by a sudden thud stemming from somewhere behind the
patient, soon reverbing all throughout the room, as if they both stood in the
belly of some mythical beast of legendary proportions. *Ruum! Ruum!
Rrrr-rrrum!!* The sounds grew soft, but all-encompassing, and the boy felt
himself inside that little dark cubicle again.
“Ah. Not to worry.” Said the man. “That’s the… oh, how
would you call it? Computer? Yes, I suppose that’s the groß machina in
the back, digesting the inputs.” He pointed to the white cubicle, then to an
electronic device, a little black, shiny rectangle he had on his desk. “The
images are being generated as we speak. The readings I took from you just now,
I mean.” He showed the patient the little device, where he saw only very
unintuitive, complicated commands and symbols on the screen. “We can see the
pictures here in an instant. See that large machine over there?” He pointed to
the patient’s right, where another white apparatus, as big as a freezer, lay
silent and still, apparently idle against a wall. “That’s the press. A printing
device. In a couple of minutes, it will start working. As you can see it
yourself, there’s no shortage un deine machina in my
workplace. I don’t understand them. Not any more than the common man would,
that is, and than what’s strictly necessary for me to perform my medicine. But
I am grateful for them. All these analyses, these exams and consultations, you
see, they used to take weeks… oh.”
This time, the doctor interrupted himself. “Anyway,
don’t mind me. It’s all very convenient, that’s all I’m saying, even if I am
not particularly fond of all this… modernistic aparashtik.” Still, his
face again beamed with harmless curiosity. “Would you say you work with lots
of, uh, details on the screen of your device?”
The question caught him off-guard. “Details?”
Boobs. Breasts. Titties…
“Yes. Well, I mean… do you work with lots of text,
lots of very small symbols, tiny letters on the screen?”
“Oh.” Deep in his brain, there was a very long… *phew!*
“Oh, you mean…?”
“Very small fonts on your device. The type that, umm,
forces you to move very close to the screen.” The doctor hunched over. “Like
this?”
He was rather surprised by the accuracy of the man’s
pose. “Oh, yes. Umm, yes. Kind of.”
“Aha!” The doctor boomed and the patient winced. “I
knew it! Oh, you youngsters! This explains your bad posture.”
The boy touched one arm and nodded pitifully, avoiding
that man’s mighty gaze. “Yeah. Kind of, I think.”
“Kind of, eh? You think, eh? More like definitely.”
The good man looked down, back at his small, handheld device, tapping his
fingers on the desk while waiting. “I’m not surprised you’re doing so bad on
your eyes. Even before this accident, you were probably doing damage to your
sight without realizing it.”
“I know. I know.”
“You know, eh?” He frowned. “Can you see straight?” He
tapped on the bridge of his nose. “Glasses? Ever used any?”
“Umm, well…” The humming and shaking in the office got
stronger and louder. “No. Not really. Never.”
“You’ve got to be extra careful with how you’re
working, my lad. Even if you manage to keep y’erself alive with this lifestyle,
doing this too much can seriously damage your sight by as early as your
fifties.” He leaned forward, giving the patient a slightly reprehensive look.
“Can’t go hurting your breadwinner, right?”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Ain’t much of a living if you can’t make a living,
correct?”
He bobbed his head heavily. “Correct.”
The humming and trembling in the room stopped. “Where
are they? Hmm.” The doctor tapped on the black screen of his little device.
“People only usually pay attention to athletes and sportsfolks when it comes
to, uh, their bodies, their physical health. Whenever some accident happens or
some of them (most of them, actually) die from something as quaint as a stroke
at the tender age of, say, fifty, forty, sometimes even younger… oh.” He shook
his head. “Too often people seem to be concerned with these special cases, and
only with these cases. These very extreme laborers, those who push their bodies
to the limits. For everyone else, everybody thinks they’re invincible, or
perhaps that they are beyond the possibility of damage, especially young blokes
like you. Oh, you people!” He threw his hands in the air. “You are just the
worst.”
“Ex- uh, excuse me?”
“You youth. Young blokes like you. Such lots of
energy, such little brains. So much pain that you careless lads can avoid in
your golden years by just having a bit of diligence. You know, not much, just…”
He sighed. “The basics.”
For every sentence, the boy could only sheepishly
mutter: “Yeah. Uh… uh-huh.”
“You younglings are… ah!” There was a flash on his
device. “Finally. There we have ‘em!” He turned its screen to the youth. “Do
you see it, lad? Quite a thing, isn’t it?”
He leaned over the desk to watch it closely. “Umm…
yeah.” He wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to be looking at: the shape
of his skull, the overall outline of his head, all in blues, with stronger,
shinier lines sprawling like webs from his sockets, his nose, his muscles all
over the transparent, X-ray kind of picture. “What, uh… what should I be
concerned with here?” He shrugged. “If anything?”
“Not much, judging by these.” The doctor dragged his
fingers on the screen, changing the image. Now it showed the patient’s skull
from the right, and then from the back as he swiped the screen with his finger
again. “Looking at these readings, you probably did some damage to the right
optical nerve. That’s the big one here, you see.” One swipe later and the
picture showed the patient’s skull from its right side. Then, the doctor’s
finger landed on one of two large, thick blue lines that flowed out the eyeballs.
“This one, connecting your eyes to the brain. You’ve probably seen it in flickers,
if you are into that sort of thing. The bloody ones, scary ones, when the
character loses an eye to a monster or something silly like that. I’m
generalizing, of course. You understand me, young man? Are you following?”
“Um, yes, doctor, yes.” A timid shrug. “Kind of.”
“Look at this.” For a second, the old man could hardly
contain his excitement. “Look. At. This!” He pressed one icon near the
bottom right of the screen, and the whole tablet blacked out briefly before
showing again an image of the boy’s skull, now seen from the front. Unlike the
previous pictures, though, that one had a different depth to it. As the doctor
touched the screen and moved his finger on it, the image was rotated, like a
tridimensional object trapped inside that tiny device, revealing a complete
scan of the patient’s body, with nervous connections and all.
“Oh!” He was indeed amazed. It was the aesthetics,
however, not the readings or the data per se that appealed to him.
“That’s, uh, quite something.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Quite briefly, the man frowned.
“Seems like everything that’s worth a damn is eastbound now. Not from here, not
east of the continent, I mean, but far, far east.” With a couple more pinches
and swipes, he made that model of his skull bigger, and much more detailed. “So,
it looks like your right C-nerve… you know, this large one under your eyeball…
it seems this little guy is a bit inflamed.” He rotated the picture slightly.
“Can you see how much more swollen than the left one it is?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not that the other one, umm, is perfectly fine, now
that I look at it.” He moved the model into the left eye and its nerve, and
squinted at the tablet. “This fella here is a liiitle bloated too. Well,
it’s no wonder.” He threw another disappointed glance at the patient. “For
someone who brings bread home with your eyes, you haven’t been treating them
with much kindness, young lad.”
The boy could only pathetically bob his head and
mumble. “Um-huh.”
“Let me have a look at yooour… muscles… here.”
A couple of touches and pinches later, the screen had
changed again, showing a crude scan of the youth’s muscles. “Oh.”
“Yes. We have readings even of your muscles.” He moved
the model until they could see, quite clearly, the red-and-white mesh of the
patient’s facial muscles. With every touch and swipe, several colored readings
appeared, ranging from light blue to dark red, each overlayed on top of his
muscles. “It isn’t just your nerves that are inflamed.” He pointed at several
places in the picture. “Your forehead is looking pretty… well, perhaps I
wouldn’t say bad, but it isn’t looking too good either.” If his gazes could
burn, the boy would have been a charred lump of coal by then. “You said you hit
your right temple. Did you happen to hit or hurt anywhere else on your face, on
your head?”
The beatings. The headbutts. The… “No.” He said,
straight and clear. “I don’t remember… um…” He could be quite the actor when
the situation asked for it. “I really don’t remember, so I would say… no. I
didn’t hit anywhere else.”
“Umm.” The doctor kept looking at him, staring at him,
not a word to utter, not a sound at all for an uncomfortably long time before
shrugging and… “Your two frontals here.” He pointed again at the device. “They
are… not damaged, but very inflamed as well.” He hovered a finger around
the muscles on the patient’s forehead. “Can explain your headaches. You also
did a number on your corrugators and…”
“Corru- uh, corrugators?”
“Oh, yeah, these muscles here.” He showed him. “They
are these muscles above and, uh, around your nose.”
“Ah.”
“Let me take a look at… your… bones.” Intermingling
words with motions, he added a quick sequence of commands on the screen, and
the image changed yet again, this time to…
“Oh. Creepy.”
It showed him a clear scan of his skeleton. “Yes.” He
moved the image into the man’s skull, highlighting the patient’s bones with
incredible detail. “Uuum-huh. No. No
damage to the bones either. None whatsoever.” A few more buttons were pressed,
and… “There is some evidence of recent stress on them, as you can see
here.” He showed him some colored circles over specific areas of his skull.
“But that’s nothing we cannot already infer from the readings of your nerves.”
Suddenly, he pulled away. “You are probably fine, lad. That’s probably nothing
you’ve got going on in your head, young man, nothing too bad you need to worry
about. However!” His eyes, like icy spears through his heart. “You must
take it easy on your work for the next week or two. Do not strain your eyes too
much and… yes, I think avoiding very brash movements with your head in the
meantime will also help. Treat your head like it’s some precious ceramics
you’re balancing on your neck.”
*Broom! Broom!*
Both heads turned. The doctor and the patient looked
at that corner of the room where the large, white machine sat, having suddenly
begun making the most terrible noises. A flash of light came from its wide
burrow, followed by a heavier tremble that was felt even as far as the doctor’s
desk, many feet away.
“Ah, just in time.” The burly man stood up and walked
to it, opening one wide mouth when it was done and pulling from it several
heated, heavy sheets of plastic-coated paper. “Ouch! Hot.” He handled those
sheets with great care. “You’ll take these with you.”
The boy watched curiously as he placed the sheets inside
three large envelopes, each as long as a person’s forearm. “Do I…” The poor lad
gulped. “Do I have to pay for these?”
“What?” The doctor gave a long moment’s pause, waiting
for the silly question to set into the folds of his brain. “What did you…? No.
No, of course not! This is just standard procedure.”
“Ah.”
“One batch is for your nerve readings.” He laid one
folder on the desk, then the other two. “This one is for your muscles, and
this… is for your bones.” He patted the folders with his big, hairy hands. “And
we’re all set.” He smiled. “Why would you need to pay for this, my lad? Even
illegals need not pay for such procedures. It’s so basic.”
“Oh.”
The man pointed to a large, light gray panel hanging
on a wall to his right. “I can show these to you on the light wall, if you’re
curious, but it’s pretty much all that I’ve shown to you already.” He took one
picture and showed it to him. “You see? Same stuff. Your skull is fine. You’re
young, you’re healthy.” His smile grew wider, his eyes shinier. “Your body can
take a hit or two. Of course, doesn’t mean that it should be taking a
hit or two, or that you should try your luck, tempt the fates all too often,
alright?”
“Oh. Right.”
“Umm.” He glanced at his body. “How’s your diet
going?”
“My… my diet?”
“Yes. I have to ask because, for a man so young, these
pains you’ve reported…”
“Oh. I know.”
“You know, right?”
Again, pathetically, the boy could only nod and
whimper. “Is it because I’m thin?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Do I look… unhealthy?”
“Yes. Yes, you do. For your age, even your height…” The
doctor didn’t deign to verbally complete his sentence. He just tilted his head,
clicked his tongue, and made a very worried expression. “You have to put
on some weight, lad.” From the many drawers on his desk, he grabbed a small
block of notes. “Let’s see… this is only your second check-up, isn’t it? No
previous health conditions.” He adjusted the glasses on his nose. “Oh.”
“What is it?”
“We need to update this form. I don’t know how anyone
didn’t notice this before. It’s gravely irresponsible.” He affixed his gaze on
the young man. “You’ve got no previous mental health conditions, do you?”
He was taken aback, eyes as wide as if gazing straight
into the sun. “Excuse me?”
“I apologize for this.” He tapped on the notes. “But
we forgot to add the mental health forms to your questionnaire. It’s all good,
it’s okay. Not too big an issue.” After a quick glance back at the papers, he
repeated the question. “Just to be sure: you don’t have any previous mental
health conditions, do you? Any history of mental health problems…?”
“No.”
“… I need to be aware of?”
“No.” He shook his head, his conviction burning like
the star on a god’s heart. “No.” Even his voice came out deeper, making the
room rumble with the lie. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Okay.” He shuffled through the pages. “Come again…
this is your second check-up? Ever? No dental, no ophthal…?” His tone dropped
some serious octaves as he saw the patient nod after every question, and his
eyes sank on him as heavy as anvils. “Young lad, you have a serious problem
with your healthcare habits, do you know? How come? Have you been living here
long?”
The boy lowered his head, swaying nervously on his
seat. “Two years.”
“Two years, huh? And you… oh, well, you speak the
language nicely.” He laid the papers on the desk. “I can see that you’re legal.
You’ve got all the proper papers and such, so why the negligence?” He was met
with only silence. Not even the patient’s gaze, which throughout the session
felt so unusually comfortable meeting his eyes, graced him with their shine
after he’d asked that question. “Oh. I see.” He muttered. “Life must have been
ugly back in… well, that place you came from. Isn’t that right?”
He found it quite easy, this time, to answer. “Yes.”
“Did you have to pay for healthcare back in your
place?”
“No.”
“Oh, no?”
“No.” He shrugged. “Because there was no healthcare.”
“Oh.” He moved back. “That’s a darn shame. Well…” He
glanced at the patient. “Delicate subject?” He caught his nervous, hesitant eyes.
“Personal subject, eh? The kind you wouldn’t like talking about, I mean?”
He looked at the doctor a little longer this time. “Well…”
A hesitant shrug. “Do I have to?”
“You…” He sighed. “You do not.”
“Well, then…” Shoulders down. Eyes away. “I’d prefer
not to.”
The doctor silently nodded. “Don’t worry about cost.
You know that the state, for what it’s worth, has got you covered. It had got
us all covered, which is a great respite in such… uneasy times.”
“Um. I see.”
The doctor leaned back on his seat. A much lighter
aura now surrounded him. “Enjoying the country?”
He found it easier to share his lightness. “Yes. It
is…” A deep breath. “Paradise.”
“Oh, paradise! I don’t know a single local who would
be this generous. Myself included. I always thought paradise would be a little
warmer, at least.”
“Do I look like I have it?”
He tilted his head. “That you have what?”
“Previous… uh, previous mental health conditions? And
stuff? I mean… do I look so bad?”
The older gent inhaled deeply. “Well…” The patient
could feel his scalding breath hit his face. “Maybe. It’s always a concern when
I see someone who’s either very over or, in your case, underweight. I’d
say… yes. You don’t look so fine for a man your age.” He leaned heavily over
his desk. “See, lad… you’re no dunce. I feel like I don’t need to, or rather,
that I shouldn’t need to explain to you the basics, correct? Eating
habits, you know, they reflect a person’s mental state. Healthy people are
rarely eating too much or too little, or too irregularly.”
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
“Same logic applies to sleeping habits.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He blinked slow and heavy, wishing to talk, but
wishing to say no more than whatever would make that man think positively of
him. The doctor’s tone, much like his eyes, was knowing. It was difficult for a
professional of his caliber (and income) to not sniff out a lie from his
patients. “Look, my lad…” He spoke to him somberly. “You will be looking back
at this age quite often when you grow. When you get older.” He sighed. “Oh,
yes, you will, and I want you to be looking back with pride and fondness, not…”
Again, a sigh. “Regrets.”
He smiled timidly before lowering his head. “I see.”
That was a very kind man. A very kind man indeed. «I
like him.» He was being told by the doctor, albeit indirectly, that he wasn’t
ugly, or that at least he wasn’t beyond salvation, and he profoundly cherished
such an experience. «To get complimented. Aided. Guided in life.» He
contemplated. «Must do wonders to one’s self-esteem.» He brought his head even
lower. «I wish this happened more often to me: people talking kindly, smiling,
treating me like a human being.»
*Tap!* He was startled by
a firm tap on his nape, followed by a more vigorous, yet reassuring shake. “Posture,
young man!”
“Oh! Sorry.”
The doctor spied on the clock on the wall. “Well, I
regret to say it, lad, but… I suppose we’re done.”
“Oh?” He looked a little surprised. “That’s it? But…
what about the pain?”
“Well, as I told you, it’s nothing to worry about. It
will be gone in a week or two.” Again, a heavy, burning gaze. “Provided you
take care of yourself. You keep damaging yourself like this, though, hurting
this wonderful machine that is the human body, and I’m afraid you’ll need to
look for more specialized care next time, and for that you’ll probably need an
actual healthcare plan.” Could the gaze of a person burn? Physically burn? That
man’s did. It was a gaze so intense the patient could almost touch it. “Listen
to me, lad, and listen to me well, if you know (or want) what’s best for you:
you will not want any damage in your nerves or, worse yet, any blood flow
issues in your brain by the time you’re forty. Protect your precious machine,
my little man, your precious body.” He gave him strong pats on the shoulders.
“You will save yourself a lot of issues (and a ton of regrets) by the time you
reach your golden years.”
“Well…” He touched one shoulder and squeezed it,
pulling one arm across his chest. “I guess… that was very dumb of me.”
“Yes. Maybe. But I sense you have learned your lesson,
so…” A gentle, cooling smile. “Don’t beat yourself up for it.”
“Oh. Umm…” The smile took over his lips too. “Okay.”
“Alright. Just make sure you have a full check-up
every six months or so. And avoid working yourself too much.” The big man
stopped by the door and cast what was supposed to be a final look at the
patient. “After all… it was just an accident, right?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “Yes. Yes, yes. Just an…
accident.”
“One final word of advice, then, if I may?” He saw the
young man nod, prompting him to point a finger gently at his face. “You’ve dark
spots on your eyes. You haven’t even been sleeping well, have you?” The patient
slowly shook his head. The doctor could only sigh, roll his eyes, and scold him
yet again. “Look-a… when people ask me what’s the most important thing in life…
the most crucial factor for a long, healthy living, do you know what I always
answer? Regardless of wealth, race, and sex, or whatever background the person
might have had? The single, universal constant for a good, well-balanced life?”
He made a dramatic pause, staring at his patient until
it became clear he was not going to make a sound or answer a thing. Poor
chap. The doctor must have thought. So stressed. So roughed by past
experiences, he must have been.
With a kind smile and fatherly tone, he continued: “Sleep,
young one. It’s sleep! It’s the one thing you should never fuck with!
Get any less sleep than you should, and your day is lost! You must have
realized this yourself if you ever faced an all-nighter. An hour lost in the
morning is a day lost in the life. That-a Yiddish saying, you know, and
quite the true one. I don’t care how much you work, lad, or how much you
sincerely claim to love your job. I’ve been having a couple of, um, liberal
professionals such as yourself; you know, free-range laborers, flex-hour creators,
wildcard producers, you name it, all young, male, and stupid. All thinking they
can live forever on their own terms and treat their bodies however they want
with no consequence.” His complexion turned severe. “Don’t be like them, m’lad.
Don’t be stupid. You ain’t gonna live forever, and the fates know you ain’t
gonna be young and pretty for all eternity. That, oh… that I can tell.” He
sighed, and his air became softer, his shoulders a little lower. “Treat your
body like the delicate machine it is and you won’t have to repair it costly
later. Like, uh… unt machina. A computer.” He gestured vividly. “You can
understand this, can you not? Treat your body like you would your work device:
don’t stress it, don’t beat it, maintain it regularly, and, above all, give it
enough time to rest.” His voice deepened. “Eight hours a day, m’lad. Until your
late fifties, that’s what you ought to be resting. No more, no less. Sleep too
little, and the stress will pile up gradually, sleepless day after restless
night, until your body…” He clicked his tongue. “Goner. Serious, m’lad.
I’ve seen my fair share of nervous breakdowns on young chaps like ya who had
‘no idea’ where that breakdown came from, only for us to discover it came from
an irregular sleep pattern. The human body is merciless to those who dare
deprive it of its most treasured asset: sleep! I say this because you
people, you young ones, I beg your pardon, are really flipping stupid. All your
hustle, all your bustle, all the corner-cutting and useless posturing just to
pile up some worthless shekels you won’t be healthy enough to enjoy later on,
down the lane of the living!” He clicked his tongue again and whistled. “Six
ways to sleep less and produce more? More like Six ways to get six feet
deeper on your grave! Save on sleep, and sooner or later, be it a day, a
month, a year, a whole decade, you’ll be in the hospital wasting months of your
life (and thousands of kröne off the taxpayers’ expenses) trying to fix
an illness no man should have at any age.” He clapped his hands, stomped
his feet very vigorously. “Do! Not! Miss! On! Sleep!” He pointed at his
own eyes. “This pain you’re talking about? This tired sight you have? These
weird shapes you report seeing in the corner of your eyes? All lack of sleep,
ma lad, lack of sleep!” He set his feet straight and his posture straighter,
rising above the hills like a general on a battlefield. “Remember, my boy: dead
men need no bank accounts.”
In the end, as always… “Doctor, sir… yes. Yes, I… uh,
I got it.” He just nodded timidly and uttered sadly. “Thank you. I, uh… I will
keep this in mind.”
The doctor gave him one last pat and a kind fondle on
his shoulder. “Take care of yourself. Young age is a blessing, and one that
ends all too quickly.” As the patient was meekly excusing himself out of the
room… “Oy, my lad.”
“Umm?”
The big man pointed back at his desk. “You forgot your
results.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He grabbed the three massive envelopes
from the desk, his whole body creaking, his bones cracking as he tried to lift
them. “Than- uh… oof! T-thank you, doctor.” Trying to not lose his breath, he
slowly and awkwardly stepped out of the room.
“Just one more thing, lad.”
He looked back again. “Hmm?”
The doctor loomed large over him, questionnaire in
hand. “I think you skipped one question here.” He adjusted his glasses. “I
mean, I don’t blame you. This thing needs to be better formatted. Still,” he
squinted, “would you say you’re sexually active? Yes, no?”
He stood there, numb for a second or so. “You mean, if
I’m… having sex?”
“Well, is there any other way to be sexually active, uh?”
“Oh, um.” He shook his head nimbly and smiled
awkwardly. “I guess there ain’t.”
Did he skip that question on purpose? Or had he simply
missed it in his haste, nervousness, and timidity? «Seems like such a silly
thing to leave unanswered.»
His memories flowed back. Back to her. Back to his
fantasy that until that day remained untouched. “Yes.” His answer was firm. His
voice, uncommonly manly. “Yes, doctor, I am.”
…
…
…
“You’re… sexually active?”
“Yes.” He tilted his head. “Why?”
He and the man stared at each other for longer than
anyone would have found reasonable. “You mean…” The doctor gave him another
good, long look. “You’re having sex, right?”
“Well, uh…” He awkwardly looked away. “Is there… any
other way to be sexually active?” With a smile, he looked back up. “Eh, doc?”
The burly man simply smiled and ticked a box on the
paper. “Alright, then. That’s very fine, lad. Very, very fine! Well, in this
case, try and don’t forget to get some rest and sleep between working your gigs
and, well, working your ladies, eh?”
He chuckled. “Lady.”
“Huh?”
“There’s just one lady. Just one, doc.”
“Ooh, that’s lovely. Fiancé? Spouse?”
“Oh, I…” He touched one arm, timidly. “I’m afraid
we’re not that far yet.”
“Ah. Right. But is it something serious?” He leaned
closer, speaking with a much softer tone. “Has your restless heart found its
special nest, hm? The lovely home to settle down forever?”
“Well… um…” He lowered his head. Her image shone so
clearly in his mind. Her shine and lightness were like a healing ice on his
nerves, and the hurt and the burn all fizzled out, the ache and anguish all faded
away. «I guess…»
All the weight in his muscles had vanished, and the
patient found himself, so suddenly, free of any worry or pain.
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