Misanthrope

A Story by paddy10tellys

Medical Burnout. UK NHS orientated ...

All atoms and light came to be though the ‘big bang.’ First came the light, then came the atoms. Then appeared the stars. From the stars came the elements that are we. We watch the stars, so far away, yet the stars exist within us...

Nearly fourteen billion years later here you are. You see through eyes that each contain over a hundred million photoreceptor cells. Each photoreceptor cell contains approximately one hundred trillion atoms … there are ten times more atoms in each photoreceptor cell in your eye than there are stars in the milky way galaxy!

Those original atoms are arranged, within you, to capture the energy released in the origin event. Through your lived experience the universe observes reality vicariously. In death it reclaims you. The universe is so big and spectacular, while you are so small & insignificant. How ironic that it forever exists and yet you will die and sometimes, perhaps, you long for your death? I know I do … aaarrgh, no! I don’t mean that. I don’t!

The clock on the wall is irresistible. I’m bewitched and haunted by it.

“Me Bollocks, Doc?” He looks like, ‘Bert’ from ‘Sesame Street,’ yet he’s exposing his genitals. It isn’t right.

“On Dear,” I say soothingly. GP’s, like dogs which have been mistreated, can be wary of strangers. I quickly scan the computer for any history of the bizarre, but I suspect he’s daft rather than dangerous. “Sorry. I was lost in thought. What was that again?” I’m captivated by his burlesque, trouserless, indignation. My sense of the ridiculous is stimulated, but so is my survival instinct.

He wails, “They’re on fire! You can have this crap back, I don’t want it!”

The tube of cream that he’s lobbed onto my desk, ‘Efudix,’ is a chemotherapeutic treatment normally applied to sun-damaged areas on the head - a sort of dermatological scorched earth policy designed to burn away bits of skin that might go cancerous. The area of the skin being treated becomes red, blotchy and inflamed, followed by discomfort, skin erosion and eventually, healing. It can be dramatic.

“Why did you put it on your Scrotum?” I ask incredulously, holding the tube of cream between my thumb and index finger like a dart. I stick my tongue out and aim it at the bowling-ball sized comet dangling between his thighs. I imagine the spectral extravaganza the distressed, wrinkly globe might produce if viewed through an infra-red camera. It sways a little, just above the baggy, stained underpants draped around his misshapen knees. Serpentine cords in varicose-vein blue meander over pallid, marmoreal legs. His Penis is barely visible.

“Because that stand-in quack told me it was good stuff! It worked okay on me scalp. He was hard to understand though. Foreign.”

“The Locum didn’t tell you to apply this to your scrotum,” I say, as evenly as possible. “What were you attempting to treat?”

“I dunno. You’re the Doctor.”

Scrotum or head??? No! Don’t throw it at him! Chuck it in the bin.

“Indeed,” I reply, enthralled like Galileo by the beauty of classical mechanics, revealed in the perfect parabolic arc taken by the tube of cream traversing the malodorous consulting room atmosphere. Evolutionary enhancements to the human shoulder muscles and tendons mean that elasticity is stored until needed so that I have the capacity to propel an object at speeds approaching ninety miles an hour. Chimpanzees might manage twenty miles an hour, if seriously pissed off. The mental image of the tube of cream embedded in his forehead is suddenly overwhelming …

My aim is perfect. The chrome waste paper basket clanks with the knell of hopes and dreams departed. I yawn. I sigh. I stretch like a man with chorea. “Unfortunately, it’s not so great for fungal infections of the groin …” My eyes roll upwards, flick right, flick left and then I give him my best Gallic shrug. I check his facial expression. No response whatsoever …

Silence. Incomprehension? Vacuousness? Why is he gawping at me like that? Maybe he’s gone deaf, or, had an absence attack? Is he, in fact, a Zombie? Oh my hours and days! He’s f*****g killing me!

So, I give him my considered opinion plus the usual NHS-ordained sign-posting, self-help and safety-netting advice. “Jock-itch! Scrot-rot! Like athlete’s foot. Ring worm of the groin! Crotch-rot!” I grimace. The circulation to my shins ebbs precariously as tetanic fingers dig into my thighs. Rubber-necked, eye-bulging transmogrification has me again. “You need antifungal cream. You can buy it at the Pharmacy! Look at the state of you! It looks like your ball-sack’s been napalmed! You need the fire-brigade, not me!”

Unexpectedly, inexplicably, an insanely, speeded-up version of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata #14 in C Minor, doppler-shifts through my ears. Reality twists. The visual scene flickers and jerks.

That’s weird. Why’s a TV advert tune invading my ears? Tinnitus! Tinnitus? No! It can’t be! For F**k’s sake! That’s all I need!

I freeze. Then I twitch. I slap my head. I slap my ears and wince as the self-inflicted tympanic trauma aggravates the cacaphonic insult. I bang my forehead on my desk a few times. Silence again. Welcome grave-time stillness ... I’m so relieved. I peel my face off the grainy Oak surface and groan.

The patient’s voluminous underpants have dropped and settled like storm clouds over his bunions. Suddenly, he lurches forward, pauses, totters backwards, stops and farts. He sits down awkwardly on the corner of the shabby chair and crushes his scrotum. He squawks and bounces like a man on a space-hopper. The surreal is revealed in awful comic imagery as he grabs his ankles, crosses his legs and begins rocking to and fro. The effect is striking, as if the Buddha’s been ‘kegged’ under the Bhodi tree. I shudder and cough and then the maddening sonic paroxysm kicks off again, more rudely, causing even worse consternation and panic. It hurts more than a piano landing on my head. Something strange, oozes and ripples from my subconscious and then explodes in a primitive, uninhibited, chain-reaction.

What’s this now? Uncontrollable, rhythmical, diaphragmatic contractions, heaving audibly through my thorax. Lacrimation. Facial musculature in spasm. Laughter! I’m laughing. Pissing myself manically! Why?

I watch myself, watching him, watching me, out of control but self-aware. It’s perversely enjoyable, as far as bizarre out of body experiences go, but I have to regain equilibrium.

OK, I’m being weird, but you! You annoying Muppet! Remove your preposterous scrotum from my consulting room right now before I give you some acupuncture with a nail-gun! Next time, wind someone else up. Go to A&E, or flash the practice nurse. Leave me alone!

The laughter asphyxiates laboriously. I remuster my clinical persona and authoritatively describe the management plan. “Bung this on it for a week, or so. See me again if it doesn’t get better.” I look away as I hand him the prescription. He pulls up his underpants, zips up his trousers and edges towards the door. Nothing else needs to be said. All that remains to be done is to find the air-freshener.