Sandbox: Democratic Elixir
“All right, relax, Eric. This’ll only hurt for just a few seconds here.” Doctor Sam told me in a motherly manner.
This was my doctor appointment from four years ago.
“Take a deep breath in now, Eric.”
“There we go. All done.” He assured clapping his hands together, wiping them clean of whatever he sees on them. “Now, you’re going to feel good as new, don’t you worry. Your shoulder is already feeling better I’m sure, right?”
“Eh, not really.” I immediately replied.
“Well, like I said -- give it some time and before you know it this’ll all be behind us. Well, in more ways than one,” He said jokingly as he slapped me on the back. Thanks doc.
My doctor has expressed his concern over the health of my body and everyone else’s for numerous years now. I’m sure you’ve already been given the speech at some point:
“Exercising is important. It enables us to be free, you know? See, it gives us the opportunity to throw our weight around and see how well shaped we can get. Listen you gotta stay in shape. Everyone does. This is important and heavy stuff. In order for it to not be so, you know, overbearing you need to pull your weight around here.”
It’s 2016, I’m exercising and still experiencing the same problems. I’m getting older and things are getting worse. Rapidly. My back hurts and now the aches went to my shoulders. With all this responsible pain being carried on them, my knees are now shaking. But apparently, this has been the plan all along:
“You see, if we can divert and root some of the pain from you back into your shoulders, then we’re just spreading the problem evenly. It takes all that tender weight off just one sole region. Sounds like a good idea, right?”
Yeah Doc, you’re a real genius; modern medicine’s best.
Today I’ll be heading back into his office again for another check-up. I know, I swore last time would be it. But for some reason, I keep going back to him. It seems that alternative methods of medicine are still frowned upon. Not to mention, every time I tell one of my friends about picking a different poison, I get the same old speech from them:
“Now -- wait just a minney here! Wha’d’ya mean with all this? Don’t’cha get it? It’s the kinda folk like ya that fuck everythang up. Leeching off us embodied people. Stay informed, Eric. Yer idea’s a crock-a-shit. Don’t ya listen to yer doctor? I says you gotta take the tin hat off already and do what he tells ya.” (Disclaimer - not all my friends talk like this)
Whatever. Foil hats can be fashionable -- just you wait.
I woke up this morning bright and early and I ran to his office. Wanted to be a “do right” and get an exercise session in before and, more so, to beat the early rush. He’s a genius; schedule everyone on the same fucking day. That’ll go well. I mean, it’s on our time, right? We’re the ones aching, not him. Right.
I get there and am greeted with the traditional open arms rigmarole. I can hear the quiet taps of chatter from everyone around me bouncing off walls, waiting for their turn to see him. Some more excited than others, dimples sinking deep into their faces like they’re about to change the course of their future.
I said to the ol’ Henry with round glasses in front of me. He gave me a blank stare, fruffled his peppered moustache and put together a puzzled look. But I know he knows what I’m referring to.
I waltzed up to the front desk to make my presence known. The old desk clerk asks for the usual credentials: proof of ID, insurance, address, baby pictures, receipts from gas stations, coins your grandpa gave you when you were five-years-old, whatever else you can dump out of your wallet. After doing so, they give you a number and tell you to get back in the marching line and wait for my score.
I turn around and realize my run here was useless. I follow the neverending ancestral flow to what seems like Florida, where I’m the last person awaiting the same fate. I guess this is what it feels like to be the smallest fish on the food chain. Everyone is quietly whispering to themselves and parading in one after another to whatever harmonic tune the drum major has clamouring this time.
After a crash of popped joints, demoralizing screams and agonizing groans (all from myself), I’m here and my number is next to be called.
“722. Is number 722 here to see Doctor Sam Democracy?!” A man with a clipboard yells out. He has his glasses low on his face with his funnel nose high in the air, scouring the room for bouey 722 off the bow.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I responded bouncing up and down in the sea of people, “And the name's Eric.” He gives me a peculiar look, his glasses still pointed at the papers in his hands below and his eyes burn into mine. I can see his suntanned wrinkles spelling out ‘I don’t give a shit’ across his forehead in neon lights.
“Hmm, yes. Okay, 722 -- right this way. I have much important business to attend to here.”
He scoops me up and spills me into a little room and shuts the cloth door behind me with a whiskful, sadistic, tug. I could hear the door slam had there been one. So much for laughter being the best medicine.
I turn back around and see the doctor is standing in the far right corner. He has a table in front of him with some utensils and is puffing on a cigarette. To my left, a bed to which he tells me to grab a seat on.
“Have a seat, Eric. Get as comfortable as possible,”
“I hope you didn’t have to wait long, did you?” he remarks while flicking flakes of ash from his white cancerous stick into a glass petri dish. I can see the grey smog from its lit end dance to the ceiling, blanketing the ceiling with a cozy haze.
He breaks the awkward humming coming from the lights above and says:
“So, Eric,” clearing his throat. “So what will it be this time? What’s hurting you now? Arms? Shoulders? Back?”
“Seriously? Everywhere hurts,” I answer in a straightforward tone that I knew would vaccinate any small talk out of the equation, “But the knees down below are feeling the brunt of it.”
“Oh,” he replied with his eyebrows creeping to his forehead. “Well, that would be a problem. Yes, indeed.” I could hear his cigarette screaming for dear life as he smeared it into the tray.
“Yeah -- you know,” I told him because he actually should know what I’m about to say, “First the pain started in my back, so we used my shoulders to carry the load.”
“Yes, right. I do recall doing this.” He replied trying to gain my likes with a wisdom like tone, pretending he actually remembers and gives a shit “That seemed to help, yes?”
“No, and it didn’t work. I’m still having my back pains. The weight is still there.” I shrug my shoulders while wincing my face to express how much his procedures suck. “And now my shoulders are feeling pain as well.”
“Hmm, well yes, I can see how that would be a problem for you.” He says while putting on his doctor’s hat. You know the kind, it looks like sweatband stretched over his hairless dome with a big, obnoxious pizza cutter in front so you can stare at your own eccentric faces while he uses your body as a playground.
“I was under the impression the shoulders wouldn’t have any pain,” I explain while he slithers over. I can hear his heels scraping the grimy floor while he walks over. “So now, my back and shoulders hurt. But that’s just the top.”
“Oh, the top you say?” He questions while inserting the stethoscope into his ears. I can see his smoky fingers grabbing the knob, twiddling his thumb around the sensor part to warm it up.
“The top. Just the top.” I responded. “Because of all this pain and weight I am expected to carry around, my knees are lite--”
“Cough!” He interrupted putting his deathly, pointy fingers on my aching back. I could feel his tainted curved nails scrape against my spinal hunches as he pins the cold stethoscope against me.
“Ahem --” I continued, “my knees are literally buckling beneath me. It’s as if the whole foundation of what I stand on his falling apart with every step I take. It’s becoming harder and harder to walk forward and progress anywhere.”
“Sounds inevitable.” Doctor Sam replies, scratching his five o’clock stubble. He slinks over in front of me now taking knee reflexes. “I can see, my percussion isn’t getting much of a reaction out of you anymore.” He begins to hit my left knee harder and harder.
“You know that kind of hurts, right?” I said with a hint of annoyance.
“Well, at least you still have the feeling there. But this won’t do. Your knees aren’t responding very well.” He said moving hastily to his table in the right corner.
He got to his table, immediately lit another cigarette and softly placed it in the tray. It was burning and he wasn’t puffing. He was onto something, flailing around like a madman so quick, sending the smoke a foxtrot across the room.
I hesitated. “Well, what’s your idea?” I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to ask this or not. After all, every other idea he’s had so far hasn’t worked. It’s only made matters worse.
“Just came to me,” He said, scrolling his eyes frantically over some blank sheets of paper. “I know you’re looking for alternative methods, right?” He now gave me a look. A look that could excite, yet make your hair strands stand straight up.
“If it’s new and it works -- I’m all ears, doc.” Trying to be supportive, but maintaining a highly unlikely tone.
“I’m trying to grab it down from above right now,” he said still rifling through his blank papers. “It’s coming to me, yes.”
“W--- Wait, wait a minute,” I remarked with every ounce of uncertainty oozing from each letter. “What do you mean it’s coming to you?”
“Ah, yes. That’ll do! That’ll be what we do.” He took his two fingers and tapped them to a repetitive beat against the papers. A true viola moment seen played out in real time. His cigarette continued to burn like incense without him taking a puff, filling the room with a venomous perfume.
“Eric, I’ll cut your knee pain in half. I promise. How does that sound to you?”
“What’s the catch?” I replied recalling previous operations.
“No catch this time. All you have to do is pick a knee, that’s it. Right or left. Certainly not the middle, yes?” He said with a chuckle, swirling his two fingers in a circular gesture at my genitals. He’s now clutching his cigarette between them happily taking victorious puffs of the nearly wasted cig.
“Well,” I said looking down at my knees. “I tend to naturally lean to the right. I mean, I always have as it is my dominant hand and foot.”
A large exhale rattles through his lungs into the small room,
“Certainly understandable.”
“But lately, it’s been hurting more than helping I think. I’m having a harder time driving that knee forward. It tends to lag behind and slows me down halting any progress.”
“Yes, yes understandable.” He says going below his small table. I can’t see him on the other side, but hear the sounds of metal clutter clamoring together.
“Right,” I paused. “But the left one -- I’m not sure about either. There are days where it wants to work and days it doesn’t.” I now begin to move the left knee back and forth. “It keeps me going forward most of the time, carrying the momentum better than my right knee does. It did a better job holding up all the pain that’s been put on my back and shoulders.”
“So,” he says with a passionate snarl “You’re thinking the right one then, yes? I can definitely take the edge off. Trust me.”
I look down at my right knee. “Yeah -- I mean…” Pausing again, thinking about the other procedures preluding to where I am right now, “Anything to help it. It needs all the help it can get. It has more wear and tear, more age and will probably crumble before the left does.”
“Well,” Doctor Sam says pulling out a long piece of metal “Looks like we have a winner then don’t we?”
I saw Doctor Sam’s head peek from underneath finally, like a gopher from it’s hole. He was licking his top and bottom lips in unison with pure excitement, lathering them with a layer of irresistible saliva.
He slams an old Winchester Model 21 shotgun from underneath and loads it quickly. He snaps the neck of the gun back, making a loud deafening crack.
“Wait what?” My eyes are now the size of silver dollars.
“Oh don’t worry,” He says with a growl, barrel pointed at the right knee, “This will just take a second and you’ll be feeling half the pain you do now.”
I instantly remembered why I hate modern medicine. Nothing ever gets fixed. Only temporarily, quick fix it issues are applied.
“No I don’t and never. Now, hold still dammit. We have to do this right.”
He places the mouth of the gun right against my knee, and before I have any time to prepare myself, it goes off. The gun blasts like a Roman candle, projecting a fireworks’ array of red tissue, white bone fragments and splatters all over the blue wall next to me.
“There we go!” He says with his white teeth showing. “Now you only have half the pain to carry because half of the support is gone. Crisis averted!”
I look over the my right and see gravity pulling everything down from the wall. The scraps of bone and blood are in a heated race on who can become the fastest to the floor. I realized this is what I have to look forward to: constantly going down from more and more pressure and weight. My future is being pulled down by gravity and everything else in my orbit.
Doctor Sam took out his pack and light another new white stick. He takes a deep puff and exhales. “Eric, now be sure to bandage that right on up. We wouldn’t want you to get infected badly. Then --” He laughs, “You’ll be seeing me again even sooner.”
“Sure.” I tell him in a melancholic tone.
“Oh! One more thing!” He says with delight, “Coffee and cookies are to your right when you exit. Thanks again, Eric. Next!”
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