Diagnosis y21

Josephine Whittock

content warnings: medical horror, dissection, drowning, discussion of needles

       I don’t need this doctor’s appointment. It isn’t necessary. I want to go home.

       The metal table is cold beneath my thighs and back. Normally, when I visit the doctor, there’s paper on the table; that flimsy, awful-feeling barrier that tears whenever you move even an inch. But I guess this place is cheaper, or maybe more of their money goes to training students, because it’s too cold and there isn’t anything to keep it from going right through my skin. It’s the kind of thing you don’t realize you miss until it’s gone.

       I think the waiting is the worst part of a doctor’s appointment. The initial procedures themselves aren’t usually too bad, assuming you aren’t afraid of those little hammers they use to test your reflexes. But the time spent in suspense, waiting for someone to come in and tell you what’s wrong with you, or worse, that they don’t know - it makes my eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of my skull. Just waiting, and staring, and waiting. When I was smaller, I used to be afraid I would need to get a shot. That, in my mind, was the worst that could happen. Even if they only hurt a little, the fear is always more intense in your head. The preparation, the careful cleaning of the injection site and the agonizing seconds before it happens. The waiting, again. You know logically it’s for your own good, but deep down inside you? You’re so sure that it’s going to hurt, and nothing can convince you otherwise. I’m still afraid of them now, to be honest.

       I don’t think I’ll need a shot. I don’t know why I need to be here, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t to get a shot. Probably.

       I see the doctor enter from across the room. He must have been tapped for some kind of demonstration, because three younger students follow him in. It doesn’t quite remind me of ducks following their mother. More, ducks following the laboratory researcher they’ve imprinted on, because when they chipped their way out of the shell the first thing they saw was his round, bespectacled face, and they didn’t know not to trust it. All four have kind, milk-fed faces, easy smiles, clean white coats and perfect ties.

       “How are we doing today, Margie?” The doctor grins at me. My name isn’t Margie. I try to respond, but one of the students cuts me off. His face is more sour than the others, smiling tense like his strings were pulled taut.

       “Her name is Mira, Doc.”

       “Really? She looks like a Margie.” The doctor winks at me, smiles wider.

       I don’t remember this boy with the sour smile. We could have bumped into each other at school, I suppose. I didn’t really go near the medical building or use the school’s health services; the smell coming from the ground floor made me feel sick. Antiseptic agent and formaldehyde. It smells like that here, too.

       “I don’t think you’re supposed to know the, ah, patients.” One of the other boys snickers. “Should we give you two a minute alone?”

       I don’t need to protest; the sour boy does it well enough for me. He splutters and carries on while the other two break their voices laughing. I look up at the ceiling, the webs and cracks in the tile. I didn’t need to be brought in for this. I want to go home.

       My view is interrupted by the doctor stepping closer to the examination table, filling up my field of vision with polite, professional worry.

       “Quentin-” (ugh, of course it’s a Quentin) “-is right, you know. You might face trouble if someone finds out you’ve met one of our patients before. I’d offer to let you take another shift, but she might be the last opportunity you get for practicum until next semester. People aren’t coming in like they used to, I’m afraid.”

       The sour boy swallows. “No, thank you, Doctor. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

       It seems that’s the end of that discussion. I still haven’t said a word, but at this point it’s more out of reluctance to interrupt their dynamic. I’d laugh, nervous, if the worry hadn’t forced the air from my lungs, it seems.

       “How long has it been since she got here?” The doctor is standing slightly too close for my comfort. The students are starting to join him, crowding the table, two on each side. It’s unnerving.

       “A day or two at most, we think. We brought her from downstairs.”

       “Poor thing. Must have been quite a shock.” The third student clucks his tongue. Feels a bit demeaning, considering I think we’re the same age, but I’m not going to challenge him. Medical school seems like the kind of thing that would inflate your ego. The sour boy looks like he’s sweating buckets.

       “Best not to dwell on the particulars, my boys.” The doctor chuckles. “Don’t want it to affect your performance, as it were. Sorry, Margie, my dear, for all the chatter.”

       “Mira.”

       It’s the second time the boy with the sour smile has interrupted. His smile is vanished, now, replaced by a drawn pink line. I want to thank him for getting my name right, but it’s more disconcerting to me that I don’t know how he knows it. The more my tired eyes stare up at him, the closer he gets to me, the more familiar his face becomes.

       “Hmm.” The doctor brushes him off. “Can someone hand me the shears, please?”

       The floor of my stomach drops out, leaves nothing but a hollow. The scraps of childhood fear still left in me are sounding the alarm. It’s never good when they need tools to tell you what’s wrong with you. I hear the rattle of a small cart, and the condescending boy passes them over from one side of the table to another, above me.

       “Now, look here. See the slight frothy residue at the corners of her mouth and nostrils? We can presume it was some sort of drowning accident that brought her here.”

       As the doctor speaks, he brings the shears to my collar and begins to cut through my blouse. There isn’t any use crying out, twisting in his grip and protesting, like a toddler. My limbs won’t move right; I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, either way. He slits my brand-new blouse, white and sodden still in spots with water, down the center, a more precise line than I ever would have been able to achieve. Arts and crafts were never my specialty.

       “You all brought your textbooks, I presume?” The three boys nod above me, engrossed.

       “Good. Then you’ll know exactly where we’ll be beginning, yes? Hayes, here, you can make the first incision.”

       Hayes, the sour boy who I am finally starting to remember, is staring down at me, ashen-faced and clammy. Quentin hands him the scalpel from the opposite side of the table, passing it handle-to-hand. That small part of me that never learned not to fear that which helps you wants to bolt upright, to run, but my chest and lungs are all full of water, and I’ve lost my shirt. I don’t think it would be wise.

       My vision ripples and swims as he leans over me. He feels so huge from where I’ve ended up. I don’t think I was supposed to be here. I didn’t need this appointment. His fingers splay over my open chest and find my jugular notch, pressing into the small crevice against my bloated skin. The scalpel is small and smooth in his shaking hands, and I know for certain that the seconds before it slips into me will be worse than the knowledge of a cracked-open chest and splintered ribs.

       I can see a few tears beading up in Hayes’ eyes, warm and wet. They must be, I mean. I would try for a reassuring smile, the same smile a girl like me might give from the bottom of a pool, looking up at the boy holding her there. His fingerprints pool into my chest and I remember their imprints on my neck, my shoulders. A smile of letting someone down slowly, of rejection. But my lips won’t move, and he’s already lowering the scalpel anyway. It isn’t necessary. And I can’t breathe. I think I would just cough up chlorine, if I tried.

       I don’t feel the cut. I don’t think I can anymore, from where I’ve got to.

       It hurts anyway.

       I can’t convince myself that it doesn’t.

END