Doctor, Doctor

December 28 continued

Parquet floor and warm, earthy colours dominate. Pop Art prints look at me from every direction. They try to look friendly, like the waiting room tries to look comfortable, at which it only partly succeeds. An imposing hulk of a reception desk sits in the middle of the room, like a beast lurking on its prey. It intimidates and evokes visions of Kafka.

The lighting is common for waiting rooms. It is cold and harsh and makes sick people look even more sick. Like the lighting in supermarkets that makes fruit, meat and vegetables appear healthier- and juicier-looking than they are. In both cases I sense a huge marketing scam.

I exchange the necessary essentials with the woman behind the monstrous desk. She is genuinely relaxed, warm and friendly and single-handedly disarms the monstrosity that is her workplace.

I take a seat opposite Charles C. Ebbets' much overused "Lunchtime Atop a Skyscraper". Ignoring the pile of ancient magazines on the table, I unpack my iPad and continue reading Dan Simmons. A young bloke observes my actions and politely inquires about the device. I give him the grand tour, become his very own sales assistant. I do the perfect iPad sales pitch, and am convinced he'll be off to buy one the minute he'll be finished here.

They call my name and I freeze for a moment as it booms through the speaker system. Finally - still far too early. I part from my newly found iPad friend and enter a white room filled with electronic and medical equipment, undoubtedly straight out of Hollywood's latest Sci-Fi-nightmare.

Two friendly, middle-aged assistants lead me to a chair, where I take off my shirt. Warm smiles left and right, as they pierce my skin, put tubes in my mouth, connect me to computers and stick needles into my arm. Blood pressure. Blood samples. Lung function tests. X-rays and ultrasound scannings. Computer screens display multi-coloured graphs, printers spit out columns of numbers, and a symphony of busy beeps and bleeps fills the room. I feel like a guinea pig. A rat in a cage. Should I soon discover the secret of Nimh?

Hazy Shade of Winter

The early hours of the new day are slow. Out of a white, overcast sky, daylight settles reluctantly on snow covered rooftops. Streets are empty. Alleyways lie partly in the dark. A fresh, thin, and still undisturbed blanket of snow covers the world around me.

The air is crisp and clear and the city slumbers in its frozen sleep. The chill feels like needles on my cheeks and I am glad I brought my hat. My footsteps crunch in the soft snow. A jogger crosses my path. He pumps out tiny clouds of breath while effortlessly gliding over snow covered cobblestone. I inhale the cold morning air and it sends a sting through my nose. In the distance I can hear the unmistakeable sound of an ice scraper fighting its fight against a frozen windscreen. A council worker clears away snow and scatters road salt across the pavement. In his bright, fluorescent jacket he looks like an orange fighting an invasion of coconut flakes.

Up ahead I can already see my destination. A cube made of glass and concrete - four storeys of perfect, ugly symmetry. I arrive far too early. Inside it is warm, but empty. I remove my hat and walk up a flight of stairs, sneering at the elevator, proudly celebrating my newly found enthusiasm for relying on my legs instead of technical gadgets as a means of transportation.

A woman services the coffee dispenser. I wish her a good morning and she looks at me like I just threatened to kill her only child. Without coffee I move on. With every step my wet shoes make a squeaking noise on the linoleum floor. I walk past a number of identical doors, before I arrive at my final destination. I enter the waiting room with the usual obedience of someone wanting to be some place else. To my surprise it is almost empty. Is it too early? Isn't anybody sick anymore? Are they all already dead?

It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad!

The weeks of exposure to aggressive, ugly advertising, bearded, fat old blokes dressed in red, and sweetly sickening music come to an abrupt end, as the moment itself passes almost in an instant - much quicker than its slow, pompous build-up had promised. Blink and you miss it.

After being heralded for so long and welcomed by so many, Christmas fucks off and dies with a whimper. Stabbed in the back like a petty crook on the run, left to die in a dark side alley somewhere on the way back to everyday life. Still, while rain turns to snow and the chill makes an unwelcome return, my way home is littered with its remnants and leftovers.

Porches are crowned with arches of blinking lights. The naked skeleton of a tree is illuminated by hundreds of tiny, glowing beads, sitting where leaves would rustle in the summer wind. The shopping centre radiates in a majestic glow that blinds the eye and numbs the mind. It is a proud beacon of commercialism, a suburban siren, luring many a poor soul to financial shipwreck on the rocky coast of consumerism.

A police car stands by the kerbside. Its occupants are looking for drivers who enjoyed too much of the christmas spirit(s). A streetlight flickers and sends out one last, blue-ish spark before going dark for good. The falling snow gets more intense and starts covering streets with a thin, white layer. Winter is back. People go to sleep. Waste bins are filled with torn and crumpled wrapping paper and the bones of turkeys - all evidence has been disposed of. Christmas is over. No-one sheds a tear.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

The flame ignites, flickers brightly for a fraction of a second, and dies. The ending is not slow and painful. It is swift, but expected. Love lost before love becomes love.

All that remains are the brief moments we fell into place. The rest is smoke from a smothered candle. I open the window and the breeze clears it away. Romanticism killed by light of day and the noise of passing traffic. In a strange, yet familiar way, reality is a welcome and comforting friend. There is no anger, there is no surprise. Just a feeling of déjà vu.

Routine sneaks in and takes over. It all happens far too quickly and with every passing of the tide the waters become shallower. Some people are not made for relationships. Hopeful fools. Hopeless romantics. Yet they move on and never stop trying ... caught in an infinite loop ...

∞