The Doctar and The Other: Part 1
One man wipes his brow with a piece of cloth. His face is red and wet. Streams of sweat run down his face. Droplets hang at the tip of his nose. His eyes swiftly move, trying to catch every moment before him. His eyelids squeeze the focus of his view. He closes them completely. He shakes his head. He forces the bridge of his palms into his eye sockets. His lungs inhale one long breath. The heated air escapes from his mouth.
“My God, I can’t believe you and this heat,” he says to the man before him.
“Feels like a sauna.”
The man before him does not answer. He is a doctor. He is concentrated on the task before him. A man lies naked in slumber. Needles protrude from his body. Wires hang from the darkened ceiling, attached to his pinched skin. Every inch of him, virgin and pure. No hair, not on one square inch. Red blood vessels show like a chain of railroad tracks.
“Eureka,” the doctor exudes.
“We did it. We finally did it.”
The doctor turns to the man, his wide mouth revealing a smile. The man slowly stands. His features are emotionless. His head lowers. His shoulders drop. Both men stand still in their respective stances. Sparks from the ceiling fly about. The man begins to weep. The doctor slowly walks toward him. He puts his arms around the man. The man places his head on the doctor’s shoulders. The doctor pats him on the back.
“There, there, now,” the doctor says.
“It is finally done.”
The man slowly raises his head. His eyes meet with those of the doctor. The man wipes the tears from his eyes, feeling the indistinguishable wetness that had built between his fingers. His cracked eyes widen. A grin grows across his lips. The men embrace. The laughter begins. The echo creates the voice of a nation.
“Now I can finally die in peace,” the man says, releasing the madness inside of him.
In the garden sat the Doctar. He had resigned himself at being the Doctar when the Other took his first breath. He was at peace with himself. Today was to be the day of his heart beat, and the compression and expansion of his lungs. His eyes would reveal to him sight. His fingers would release the sensation of the world around. Every sense, every experience, the way the trees sounded, the smell of earth, the taste of the first wake of morning, would be his first. And his last.
At 11:50, some ten minutes before midnight, his plans were to say a prayer to his God, drink a toast to his dead father, say goodnight to his mother, and say good-bye to the world. His last act would be to hold the newly cleaned and shined rifle his father gave him when he was fifteen, and blow his head off. Knowing that this would be how this day would end gave him his only sense of closure. He could now focus on what really mattered.
A melody plays in his head. He does not know where it is from. He mumbles it. His feet tap against the ground. His fingers play against his legs. He thinks on it again. He whistles the tune. The melody does not play aloud like it played in his head. He configures and reconfigures the melody, first in his mind, and then aloud. It still does not play perfectly. He laughs to himself.
“Hello, Jason,” a woman says to the One.
“How might the love of my life be doing this morning?”
The Doctar stares at her. He reaches out his hand. She grasps it and sits next to him. He puts his arms around her and pulls her closer to him. She giggles. He begins to whistle again.
“What is that from?” he asks her.
He begins to whistle. She focuses on his lips blowing the melody between them. She turns away and stares into space. Her eyes barely squint. She slowly turns back to him. He looks ahead. Her eyes focus on a portion of his profile.
“I swear it sounds like…,” she says to him.
She plays the melody over in her head, humming it aloud, correcting any misquote.
“I keep singing ‘Hey, Jude,’ but that’s not the song,” she says, repeating the melody aloud.
She stops, pushing the matter away with her hands.
He continues whistling. His arm pulls her even closer to him. She kisses his cheek and buries her face in the side of his. She whispers to him that she loves him. He whistles, his eyes turning slightly toward her.
“I know you’re going to get better soon,” she says.
“I know it, too,” he replies to her.
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