After making her Symposium debut as part of out latest shared project on Buses,
now makes her full STSC ‘stack debut with a short story that is unbelievably her first. I have found over the months and years that there are so many talented writers around who sometimes just need a venue or that final little push to get them over the finish line. That is a major part of why the STSC is here, to get people to actually put things out into the world.So with that being said, and without further ado, onto today’s story.
Enjoy.
TJB.
Detail from the painting The Tsarevnya Sophia Alekseyevna, Tretyakov Gallery (Ilya Yefimovich Repin, 1879). Source.1
This story is dedicated toClancy Steadwell, who writes short fictional stories that I find truly moving. I met him buyingkhakis, stayed for thesleepless nights, and the trips down memory lane. Go check his work out. Also, to my sister, she knows why.
I find Fiction can heal, so much more than self-help books.
Dr Getwell was kind, too kind, in fact. She worked as an internal medicine specialist in a nearby hospital but had chosen wisely not to work at the hospital that served her community. “Oh!”- people remarked. “If you worked here, you could be my doctor!” She smiled and avoided answering. What she smiled about was not the generosity of this observation that could imply trust and admiration. She smiled because working at the nearby hospital was what she wanted to avoid at all costs. She knew her community’s doctor was precisely the last thing she wanted to be. Be it because of her nature or the Hippocratic oath she had taken a few years back, she could not help but be helpful, and people knew this about her.
It was driving her nuts.
The butcher, afflicted by high blood pressure and now taking four medications, kept hammering her every time she decided she wanted tenderloin for Sunday’s lunch, remarking how his doctor was an idiot and asking if she would be kind enough to take a peek at his medicines. Dr Getwell did take a peek and saw no real problem there, except for the fact that the butcher smoked and seemed to have absolutely no intention of doing anything about it. When she kindly suggested that quitting smoking could help control the issue, he was so offended he served her the cut with the most nerves.
Of course, talking blood pressure with her was out of the question for the butcher from now on, but it didn’t stop him from consulting her about anything else.
The thing about Dr. Getwell was that she was mainly in charge of autoimmune diseases, which made her know general medicine pretty well, too. She could diagnose most rashes and the possible approaches to them. She could differentiate types of thoracic pressure ranging from anxiety to angina, and she could tell when that red eye needed antibiotics and when not. But she was prudent enough only to pronounce herself on the menial stuff and advise a “check-up by your doctor, just in case” when things looked a bit more complex.
Her honed medical skills came with a price. She could not receive people’s gratitude without getting an equivalent dose of disdain. Like the time when Mrs Chestnut insisted she was having a heart attack, clutching her right breast with one hand and grabbing Dr Getwell by the arm with the other. She demanded immediate CPR in the middle of the main square on a random Saturday. “I think you are a bit nervous. Let’s sit by the fountain; someone will get you a glass of water.” The onlookers knew when help was needed, and three volunteers rushed to the nearby cafeteria to fetch water. Dr Getwell wished she had mentioned a small paper bag. She sat next to the patient, patting her back and encouraging her to breathe slowly and deeply while discreetly feeling her pulse. The water came, the panic attack averted, and when Mrs Chestnut felt better, she looked at Dr Getwell, both relieved and annoyed. That her heart attack had been demoted to “nerves” was, well, insulting.
There was one person in her village whom she had been able to avoid thus far for consultation. Mrs Aida Elm, a maternal second cousin twice removed, was a renowned busybody who walked around with her Shih Tzu “Puchi” and her silent shadow of a husband. She loved to talk about her, her dog and her husband's many ailments. Some people said Mr Elm was a third of the man he once was, while the most biting tongues joked he had that air of tuna jerky because chronic exposure to his wife had dried his soul. Mrs. Aida Elm also frowned upon girls who decided to go to university and hated the ones who worked for a living. She felt her life choices questioned by them, and, in reality, it was their independence that she found intolerable. Plus, she was sure that women made poor engineers, bad teachers and worse doctors.
Yes, that Dr Getwell had avoided her thus far was no miracle, but she was grateful regardless of the reasons. Dr Getwell knew from her colleagues that Mrs Aida Elm was a notorious hospital wanderer shopping for new diagnoses to add to her ever-growing list of conditions. Some went as far as hypothesising she had some sort of medical encyclopedia at home since the minute she walked into a doctor’s surgery, she already had her own diagnosis, and her answers to the pertinent questions fitted a little too well. Her favourite type of doctors were men in their 60s, with grey hair and an assertive demeanour, who had no problems prescribing drugs she didn’t need for the afflictions she didn’t have. However, she didn’t mind the younger ones occasionally, especially if they were handsome and met her with a smile, even if they prescribed nothing at all. The touch of their stethoscope on her bare chest gave her sweaty palms and increased her heart rate. She was glad that her “heart condition” always showed up when she needed it most, at the doctor’s office.
As for Puchi’s health, Mrs Aida Elm was over the moon when she found a vet who prescribed medication for her dog. “He just isn’t the same as he was!” she claimed when asked what was the matter with it. “He huffs and puffs whenever I walk faster, and he pants out of breath to go up the stairs.” Mrs Aida Elm was really concerned. Now, the vet knew Puchi’s problem was one of overweight. Lap dogs were usually overfed and underexercised. He also knew the likes of Mrs Aida Elm, so he prescribed furosemide in the hopes that there was a cardiac insufficiency component to the dog’s predicament. When Mrs Aida Elm filled out the prescription, she wrote over the “once daily” vet’s instructions in big black letters TO LIFT THE SPIRITS.
Mrs Aida Elm started the dog on the medication right away. Two days in, she was giving it three tablets per day, with the occasional extra just in case. By day four, Puchi’s condition had worsened. The pooch was lethargic. She walked hurriedly across the park with the beast in her arms, tears streaming down her face. The vet was nowhere to be found. She stopped to gasp for air. It just so happened that Dr Getwell was taking her daily walk and passed by. Seeing the woman in distress, Dr Getwell asked, “What’s the matter, Aida?” Mrs Aida Elm, with bated breath, began to tell her story.
“Could I see the pills?” In other circumstances, Mrs Aida Elm would have, of course, declined; but she was desperate. Dr Getwell took a look at the prescription and murmured, “I see”. She instructed Mrs Aida Elm to wait by the bench with her dog and walked to the nearby pharmacy and then to the cafeteria. She came out with a pack of potassium chloride and a water bottle. She dissolved some pills and took the dog from Mrs Aida Elm’s arms. Mrs Aida Elm offered no resistance; her mascara was smudged, and snot ran down her nose. Her dishevelled state attracted passers-by. They watched Dr Getwell provide the fluid ever so slowly to the dog. Half an hour passed, and all that could be heard was Dr Getwell’s gentle “atta boy” and Mrs Aida Elm’s intermittent sobs. There was suddenly a moaning sound, which gradually became more audible. Half an hour later, Puchi, under the incredulous gaze of his mother, had risen from the dead. And so started Dr Getwell's ordeal.
Dr Getwell could not have predicted that saving Puchi would change Mrs Aida Elm’s opinion of her medical skills. Had she known this would happen, she would have dug the dog’s grave herself. Mrs Aida Elm was spellbound by Dr Getwell’s knowledge. Whilst other doctors gave pills, Dr Getwell could resurrect patients. Thus, she started to consult Dr Getwell for everything. Dr Getwell knew better than to get involved in the woman’s demands, and at the beginning, she would shrug her shoulders and recommend she go to her usual doctor. Mrs Aida Elm was having none of this and doubled down on her persecution for answers.
At the supermarket, she cornered her. At the cinema on Sundays, she wiggled herself next to Dr Getwell’s seat to ask questions throughout the film. She took up jogging to run after the doctor in her morning jog on Fridays and Wednesdays, and she ruthlessly tackled her in her weekly visit to the library. Six months in, Dr Getwell was feeling unwell, and everyone noticed she was acquiring a paleness that resembled that of Mr Elm’s. People began to talk. What they did not quite grasp was the magnitude of the absurdity of the situation. No one would have believed it even if Dr Getwell had told, which she didn’t.
As messages poured in, Dr Getwell’s patience started to drain out. If she chose to ignore them, Mrs Aida Elm would resort to calling directly. After all, she was family, and the family gets preferential treatment, right?
“Hello, Prudence; something is wrong with your phone; my messages don’t get through. But now that I have you on the line, I might ask you to look at your email because I sent you a picture of my ingrown toenail. It looks infected. Can you come by and take a closer look? You don’t need to come by now. I think I can wait, although I am rather in a lot of pain, you know, but I never complain; I have, as you know, a really high pain threshold. I can have Mr Elm come by and get a prescription for antibiotics, and also, if you have a surgeon friend who can come by since one can always call in favours for family, I am sure other people owe you favours. And I might mention that Puchi hangs out with this nasty neighbour's dog who is in heat, and I think he might have caught something from that promiscuous animal. I wish people would castrate their bitches. You know I can’t neuter Puchi since everyone wants him for breeding. He is competition material; that’s what everyone says, you know? But he wants to wait, of course, until he is ready and we find the right gal for him. And do have that SMS problem looked into? I absolutely hate to bother you like this in the middle of the day; I know girls like you are busy, busy, busy”.
Prudence Getwell knew she had to put an end to this torture the night she was awakened at 3 am to hear Aida Elm in hysterics at the other end of the line because she had food poisoning and was a fountain of vomit and diarrhoea. “You have to come; I feel so bad I might die. I am definitely going to file a complaint once I figure out what it was that I ate. I only buy first-quality food, as you know, but those careless people at the supermarket must have mixed up my order. You saw me insist yesterday that they double-check what they had packed, but they dismissed me rudely.”
Still half asleep but already formulating a plan of sorts, she put on her coat over her pyjamas and made her way to the Elm household. After a knock at the door, Mr Elm opened it. “I am so sorry, Prudence. I tried to convince her to wait until tomorrow, but she dismissed my suggestion”. Prudence Getwell looked intently at the man, understanding she was here not to rescue just herself but Mr Elm, too. “Don’t worry, Lawrence, I got this,” she said, patting him on the shoulder.
She met Mrs Aida Elm in bed, moaning while cradling a plastic wash basin. “About time! I am dying! What took you so long? I did not flush the toilet so that you can take a look at the last diarrhoea I had for accuracy. Maybe you want to take a sample to test tomorrow in your hospital. Did you bring a sampling set? You did not? How are you going to reach the appropriate diagnosis? Do you think I will need antibiotics? Go to the bathroom, check, check!”
Prudence Getwell walked to the bathroom, flushed the toilet without looking inside the bowl, went directly to open the medicine cabinet above the sink, had a long, paused look at the different array of drugs available there, and closed it again. She took a long, paused look at her reflection in the mirror and smiled.
Now, even the most mediocre doctor knows that all Mrs Aida Elm needed was 24 hours of no eating and plenty of clear fluids with salt replacement to compensate for the loss of electrolytes. Dr Getwell was no mediocre physician. She was an excellent one.
“Aida, you need a solid diet with plenty of dairy products. Can you manage that? Also, for energy, you will need to take some of those pills you have in the cabinet marked TO LIFT THE SPIRITS.”
“The dog pills?” Retched Mrs Aida Elm.
“Yeah, those. They are the same as the ones we use for humans but at a much lower dose. Take four a day and save yourself a trip to the pharmacy.”
And with that, she walked out of the room, only to hear Mrs Aida Elm get out of bed and walk decidedly toward the bathroom.
Lawrence Elm met the doctor at the door. He helped her put back on her coat. “Thank you.” He said, and with those words, he squeezed her hand twice as if to press the gratitude onto her.
The whole village showed up for the funeral service. No one really liked Mrs Aida Elm, but no one wanted to miss the social event. Some needed to double-check that the old bat had indeed pegged it, others came to see if the rumours that Mr Elm was already looking more alive were true; the more inquisitive wanted to find out what it was that had killed the woman.
Dr Getwell sat on one of the pews in the back. She tuned in to the neighbours’ chit-chat.
“I heard that the ambulance was called on Sunday night. Her husband thought she was sleeping because she complained of weakness and muscle twitching. She wanted to rest, and when he came in to check on her, she was dead! Her nightgown soaked in her pee.”
“Really?! What a shock, poor man!”
“They say the doctor that was called in thinks she probably took too many of the wrong pills by mistake.”
“Uff! She must have. She was taking so many things. No wonder she had them mixed up!”
The service was short and to the point. The priest had found no one for the eulogy and saw no point in making up nice things about someone everyone knew. Dr Getwell, with the rest of the crowd, went to give her condolences to the widower. Standing in front of him, she held her hand out.
“Prudence.”
“Lawrence, I am so sorry for your loss.”
Mr Elm said nothing else, trying to contain his emotion. He just squeezed her hand twice.
I found this picture when an Italian friend sent me a meme: "Che hai? Niente. Odio su tela, 1879”, translating into “What’s up? Nothing. Hate on canvas, 1879”. It makes me laugh every time I see it. The picture is perfect. I love the details of the poor boy in the background and the hanging soldier outside the window. They beautifully reflect the aftermath of chronic exposure to a woman like Mrs Aida Elm.
Love this one.
Loved this one Ana! I could feel my irritation towards Mrs Aida Elm rise with every passing word, well done. So cool to see this jump into fiction from you, can't wait to see what you do next.