24.6.2009

The New Doctor

 

         The New Doctor   

 

      -Hospital-Medicare, good morning. How can I assist you? 

      For a while there is total silence. Because of his impediment; a very drawling voice his choice of words is very limited and spoken in a very slow manner. 

      -Hospital-Medicare. How might I assist you?

 
http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/s-dream.mp3

 
      Suddenly he comes around, empties his mouth of saliva and starts his speech. 

       -Yes -good -morning-I-have -to -see-a-doctorrr.... 

       -I´ll contact you with the Counter...gersovel (just a minute).  On the double another lovely feminine voice visits his left ear. 

       -Counter. 

       -I-have-to-get-an-appointment-with-Thorhildiiii....Can´t-I-see-her-to-day? 

       -´fraid not, she´s fully booked this week. 

       -Damned, he thinks in his disappointment, but at the same time some kind of a skid-talk floats from his speech organ into the phone:

 

      -Ihavetoseeadoctortoday!!!!  This sentence reaches the lady´s ears in such a critical state, that any stranger couldn´t have understood what the customer was trying to say, but fortunately the Counter-Girl was quite acquainted with the bloke and recognised his voice just like half of the villagers, and that his impediment became worse whenever he was provoked in such a way that his speech became a lot more puzzling, but knew that she would have to take a lucky guess on what he was saying: 

       -You can see Dr. Jon Jonsson at eleven fifteen. 

      -He is new..., (a little puzzled) 

 

      -Yes, he came to this practise a few weeks ago. He´s actually an old local, and has been practising abroad, but now he´s returned to his hometown. Identity-number? 

      -17-06-55-21-09. 

      -Well, you and the doctor are of the same age,... she says just as she picks the numbers on the computer´s keyboard. The customer´s name and address come up on the screen...Loki Fafnisson... you and my daughter Oddny used to be in the same class back in elementary school, I recall. You oughta remember him, Loki. 

      -No-sorry-but-I-do-not-remember-him..... he informs the friendly Counter-woman, whom he recognises after numerous telephone calls and having met her a number of times. Describe-him -a -little -thus -giving -me -a-hi-nt. 

 

       -Yes, well, Jon has dark long hair reaching his shoulders, he´s enormously candid looking, has a small beautifully shaped nose prominent chin-bones,green eyes, lips that seem made for kissing, just as Mick Jagger´s, you know and his height´s approximately the same as yours...what is it 170-80? 

       -174, he replies a bit absent-minded, (just so the maiden will get it right, not that it really matters) while he tries to place this description on someone already kept in his mind, but dissappointingly informs her...I-just-do-not-remember-hiiiim. 

      -And he´s slender with a neat behind, she continues with a dreamy voice. 

      -That- does-not-help-but-I-will-take-hiiiim ...Is-it-11-15nnn...? His curiosity has been roused. Which of his former school-mates became doctors? He doesn´t remember any, but he had himself planned on being one,he recalls, but it wasn´t to be, sorry to say.  

 

      Just about when eleven minutes have passed of the twelfth hour our hero finds a parking space for his VW Vento by the Managata (moonstreet), a small street which is shaped like half a moon infront of the house where the town´s library used to be for years, but from there you can reach The Hospital-Medicare in two and a half minutes walking briskly.

 

      He steps out of the car, locks the doors with one turn of the key, strides over the line that´s surrounding the playground of the town´s elders, where they play mini-golf on the close-cut lawn, which the caretaker Holmgeir Gudmundsson has made a fiest for the eyes to look at with his marvellous caretaking.

 

      Our hero takes a quick look over the playground toward the building where he´s heading, concluding it to be quite an easy travel and a short distance, in his mind he threads the way past the loud and merry elders each bending over their club and ball. In golf just as in any other game the practisers tend to use a lot of names for various phenomenons non-practisers don´t understand, e.g. the ball´s-heading; it slices when it goes to the right, but hooks when it goes to the other side. You might use the same type of language when some spastical people are the issue, just as our hero, Loki, because despite of his optimistic intentions the disabled man was able to slice his heading so radically that the short trip would surely have been a disaster, if the patient elders hadn´t taken all his scuffles and pushing with sheer eveness of mind and temper and assisted him in correcting the course, thus enabling him to cross the lawn, over the string on the other side and straight over The Skolavegur (schoolstreet) towards the big building.

 

      When he came to the entrance of The Medicare he took a quick look at his golden Calinda wrist-watch, which his wife and sons had presented him on his fortieth birthday, and sees that still there´s a minute until his appointment.

 

       He sees no reason to remove his clean shoes, despite their high age, takes a look around  the crowded waiting-room, where the silent people are sitting, each busy reading their magazine, takes a seat himself and tries to find something enter-taining to read in the pile on the table. Before his quest takes an end he hears his name called with a civilised voice, which he´s quite certain of having heard sometime in his distant past, lifts his eyes, just as everbody else in the waiting-room. 

 

       In the wide doorway in the middle of the corridor, where the doctors have their residence he´s standing splendid and elegant looking in his snow-white rope just as someone from another dimension, the new doctor and sex-bomb Jon Jonsson.

       Loki Fafnisson stands up with some difficulty, limps towards a man, whom he is certain of having seen before, but can´t in anyway locate in his memory-bank, at the same time as the doctor stands tall with an outstretched hand and a face shining of happiness, just as he´s about to reclaim a dear friend. Loki who is silent and hesitating shakes with his left hand the right hand of the doctor who greets him with some kind words while he takes the patient into his bosom, which startles the disabled one. 

 

      -Don´t you remember me, Loki dear; Jon Jonsson, your dear old friend and neighbour in our street Haholt (highhill), the doctor says with his manly and trustworthy voice which probably melts the patients´ hearts easily. Come into my room and tell me everything about yourself, Jón concludes at present and together they walk the corridor; two men of the same height, both darkhaired; one with shortcut, but the other long hair that billows down to the shoulders of the white rope which reaches down to the knees of the violet trousers and he has on black and white Adidas sportshoes and white socks. The other one is quite peasant-looking on the other hand using one employer´s description after one of Loki´s numerous jobinterviews, eventhough he himself believed, that he was very well dressed, considering his low income. A clean white, wornout blouse, a clean blue-checkered wornout shirt, clean black khaki-trousers, clean white sportsocks that can be bought ten at a time lowprice in Hagkaup and his shoes were old black ones from his father-in-law who was amased seeing his son-in-law´s footwear in one of his visits. The shoes were the only thing not bought on-sale. 

 

      When they´ve reached the whitepainted doctor´s room which had prior to Dr.Jonsson´s been used by Dr. Arnbjorn Olafsson who became a pensioneer after a longlasting lucky career, they sit down at the beige desk; the doc in a black-leathered chair on wheels, but the patient on an worn-out green-checkered kitchen-chair.

 

      For a while they just examine each other (with their eyes) and realise how much they have in common appearance-wise;they both are quite good looking: a humble forehead, strong dark eyebrows, the chin neatly narrow, so as are the cheeks, narrow necks and broadshoulders, making them more handsome than other men and they were astonishingly sweetlooking, both had broad breasts and both were slenderwaisted. The doctor was thin from the waist down, but the patient was not. At first sight one might presume that they were twins, thus making it difficult to conceive how destiny had treated them differently. One had become a wealthy fortunate single doctor, but the other was a spastical unemployed disabled person who had a synthetic arm and leg, and to make his life even more difficult his face and body, go on in spastical convulsions in such a way that he can´t hold still for a second. He and his family have had very little money for almost all their twenty year marriage, because his only income is from the social security system a little bit each month. His wife with her remarkable energy and endurance has made all the difference in keeping them from going on total wellfare. Love is a funny bitch, for in spite of all difficulty she hasn´t turned her back on her old puppy love, since their schoolyears at Laugarvatn two decades ago, despite the fact of having had to work her heart out earning money for their living.   

 

      -Strip your clothes off, dear friend. Let´s look at your mutilation.  The cripple does what the doc tells him with some difficulty until he´s standing strutting on his knickers with his disagreeable pink synthetics from his right elbow and left knee. 

      -And you don´t like the state you´re in, dear friend, Dr. Jon asks.  Loki who has made the best of what he´s got and learned to live with it, especially since he got new improved hoses from the synthetic factory Ossur, is just about to affirm in a sarcastic way, that one can come used to anything, when the doctor with closed eyes has already left his chair and put his healing hands on the client´s head. The patient is startled, for he´s not used to this kind of behaviour by his usual doc, Mrs. Thorhildur and makes a sound that describes both his astonishment and anger, which I as the lord of the story am able to understand, but don´t think relevant for the development of the story.  -So, so, easy does it, Loki dear. The doctor´s calming voice hits him just as it were a box in the ear, successively quitting his angry sound-making. You must calm down and do not be afraid ´cause I´m just looking inside your head for the reason of speeding up my diagnosis of what really bothers you, and at the same time that I´m looking at what´s happened to you since we parted two decades ago, thus saving us a lot of time, because of your speech-impediment. 

      -Wha.. Loki begins... 

      -No, I´m not any magician, my friend, Dr. Jon answers before Loki´s question enables to disturb the room´s atmosphere, but I´ve matured this special talent which anybody could do if they´d put their heart into it and had enough patients for the training and using the majority of one´s brain-cells which are normally not in any use.  The doctor moves his long and delicate fingers (his guest has short and thick ones) about the patient´s small and pretty head. Here and there they stop, while the fingertips distinguish a little bit stronger currents. I as the story´s Lord and Loki find the doctor´s gesticulation mighty strange to say the least, especially his special, stinging and puzzling mumble, as it booms with gradually growing force on our external acoustic canals, until the tip of his left hand´s little finger touches the most sensitive spot, where the spinal cord joins the brain. 

 

      -A...ha...just as I expected, Dr. Jonson announces with his nice sounding and trustworthy voice. Dr. Jon points the fingertips of both his hands on the spot before mentioned, with his eyes closed and the face up towards the heavenly creatures. Just here I can feel a slight swelling on the brain, by a little bit more thermal conductivity, which shows me that there are some cranial wounds and contusion, am I right or am I right my old friend, he says in his continuing monology. He doesn´t wait for any answer before he keeps on his monologue.

      - And that corresponds with your memories that I was able to read behind your right temple in the beginning of my journey through your bank of experience; the memories that are kept in your brain, (On this moment I, the author and Loki are both sitting with open mouths, once again astonished; he under his doctor´s hands, but I the story´s Lord over the keyboard of my Tulip-computer) there we find the reason for your spastical movements dear friend; impediment in speech, worse sight and what ever else that has been bothering you since autumn of 1975.  I´m able to cure the head-injury; clear the contusion away and its consequences, but it will take me some time ´cause of the long period since the accident and that bad tissues have spread through-out the brain and body.

 

      Thus said he quickly grabs the patient´s swollen left thigh, at the same time as he moves the tip of his right hand´s forefinger a little bit back on the right ventricle of the brain, approximately eight years and nine months, and makes a heavy sigh: Like this terrible memory that still dwells here in a corner of your brain.  Here I can see where you´re lying flat face-down on a wet cemented floor subsequent to a big blow on your rear, but you´re too dazed and confuced in your hilarious fright to conceive what kind of a monster´s just hit you.

 

      When Dr. Jonsson´s moved his over-sensitive fingertip he carries on with suspense in his voice, as if he were reading a suspensive novel... and here the monster has reached all the way up to your left ass-cheek and by then you´ve obviously submitted to your own destiny, because the panic´s left you and you´ve calmed down, but all of a sudden this devilish weight is gone...yes, now I´m able to see what hit you...I see a red fork-lift which must´ve been the offender, the doctor carries on his description, but his bewitched patient blicks his eyes continuously in a silent consent.  Suddenly the doctor makes a grasp at Loki´s rosy cheeks looking straight into his eyes. From the doctor´s sorry eyes the patient is able to read a plea of an appology and starts moving his head up and down not really knowing the reason for the doctor´s unusual request. 

 

      -Well I see that you find my behavior kinda strange, old friend, but the reason is that one of the talents I have obtained by years of training and education is the ability to show or relay my patients their memories...look Loki, Dr. Jonsson says, while he touches the hollow of his neck with the tips of both hands, closes his eyes for a while, and then he turns their heads; first his own to his left side. Then once again to the patient´s astonishment when the doctor opens his eyes he sees white beams coming out of his eyes just like they were a motion picture projector. Don´t you recognise this memory he asks as he turns the patient´s head to his right?  On the white wall, but not really on it, rather like just as it were hanging in the air Loki´s memory is projected, just as if both the participants and their environment were for real; on display Loki is looking at his own kitchen, the pine-table and the bench by the pink-colored wall. On it opposite to himself his three sons are sitting and by his side his wife, Gullveig Skjaldardottir always as pretty as a picture.

 

      On the table beefy-mince and spaghetti in the largest bowl, but in two smaller ones, just beefy mince in one for the whimsical descendants, but a delicious blend of mince, mushrooms, tomatoes and various spices in the other.  That is a memory of the dinner yesterday Loki announces astonishingly.  Unbelievable! But isn´t there any sound he asks just as if a silent movie weren´t enough of a miracle.  Acting as if he hadn´t heard the patient´s reproof Dr. Jon cocks himself a little further, thus producing a single red beam which can been seen within the white ones. All of a sudden Loki´s drawling voice breaks the silence in the doctor´s room and he notices his own voice which he doesn´t like rather than most people who listen to their own recorded voice.  A hushing voice: -Graga, aetidi a eefas (translation: Stop quarreling, boys)but the boys ignore their father´s reprimand just as ever before. 

       -Do-I-real-ly-spea-k-this-way, the patient asks his doctor after having swallowed all saliva? 

       -Yes perhaps, when you´re unprepaired, dear friend, but now you´re very clear-spoken, even though you´re extremely slow. But this I´ll cure, just as any other thing that´s bothering you, Dr. Jon Jonsson says in a very trustworthy voice. 

       -Th-at-is-ni-ce-to-he-ar, but-you-will-har-dly-lenght-en-my stumps,dear-Non-ni, Loki asks astonishingly, which he shouldn´t have done, that is using a most common nickname for men named Jon! Dr. Jon on the other hand definately does mind for he becomes absolutely furious to say the least.The wonderful memoir-projecting comes to an end, when the doctor turns to his patient with eyes that burn of fury.  

       -Youknowmynameis Jon and nothing else, Loki! 

       -I-am-sor-ry Jon. This-is-just-an-old-hab-it, the disabled man tries to justify himself having become a lot more miserable in speech and appearance than before. Loki is afraid that the new vision of himself not being disabled anymore won´t come true. And just as he had feared his cold hopeless reality lies again open before his eyes, when the furious doctor informs him his decision. 

 

      -Farewell, Dr. Jon growls as he opens the door out to the short corridor that lies across the main corridor.  The disabled person gazes beggingly on the handsome face of the doctor who stands in the doorway with furious eyes. Slowly and heavily he arises and limps ahead with an outstretched hand. Before he gets a chance to utter the sentence the doctor makes an announcement: There might still be some hope for you. I´ll let you know one of these days.

    -Thank-you. I-am-in-the-tele-phone-di-rect-or-y, he mumbles as a last resort and there´s weeping in his voice, notices the nurse that exits the opposite room at the same time.  

 

      When alleged Loki has returned home and has told Gullveig all about his extraordinary visit to Dr. Jon Jonsson he picks up the phone and calls his parents, who still are living at Haholt-street. His mum comes to the phone. 

      -Mamma, do you recall a Jon Jonsson, a boy the same age as I who is supposed to have lived in our street, when I was growing up? I don´t remember him, in spite of great strain. 

      -No...oo his mum answers after quicker thinking than people that wouldn´t have had any experience in understanding her drawling son, not one of your age, but there used to be one Jon Jonsson of our generation. But they didn´t have any children as I recall. They got divorced and moved away a long time ago. 

      -Yes, I remember him too, but the reason I´m asking you this mamma is a strange encounter I had this morning with one Dr. Jon Jonsson, when I went for my annual valuation of my disablement. He´s a new doctor here in Keflavik, but greeted me as an old friend, although I don´t remember him at all. And mamma this doctor is something else, quite extraordinary, Loki kept on jabbering, and told his mother about his unbelievable experience at the doctor´s, when his mum had told him to slow down and empty his mouth of saliva, because despite of mothers´ extraordinary ability to understand their children, there certainly is a limit.