flash friday for the hell of it, 2-21, Kafkaesque transformation and the caveat - There is no killing time without injuring eternity -HDT in Flash Friday

“They say we leave this world the same way we come into it; Naked and alone.”

“Really? I’m pretty sure my mom was there when I came into it, unless you’re a pro-lifer then, at bare minimum, my mom and Dad were both there.”

“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

“That’s the Nile, unless you’re making a dialectic joke, then it’s still the Nile and you’re not funny.”

“All criticism is a form of self-criticism.”

“Yeah, I really suck and apparently speak in hackneyed clichés and/or platitudes.”

“Sticks and stones …”

“Please, Christ almighty, stop. All right, I get it, cancer, naked, alone, denial, self-criticism. Doc, do I have less than a year to live? Cause this conversation feels like it’s taken up most of it.”

The nurse who’d been leaning against the wall like a stoner backstage at a Justin Beiber concert kicked forward.

“He doesn’t really have people skills. What’re gonna do? You graduate med school they don’t check for Asperger’s. You don’t have that kind of cancer …”

“Malignant? I didn’t graduate med school but I have a goodwill table, the OED keeps my Wheaties from sliding to the floor.”

“Yeah? I use a bowl. Under B you’ll find biopsy, should be somewhere after balls and benign. We’d need to take one to use a fancy word like malignant. A biopsy that is”

The doctor was shuffling his feet and tapping his fingers on the HIPA tablet he’d been white knuckling.

“You can go,” the nurse told him.

He nodded his head at me without making eye contact; I called out at his back “There are none so blind as those who cannot see!”

The nurse smiled. “The bump might be cancer, hell you might have a week to live. Doc Wesley, the dermatologist (she pronounced every syllable) was trying to tell you the skin around it is necrotic,” she paused, I think hoping to see some physical reaction of it sinking in and remorse or embarrassment, “and he’ll have … in the OED they call it debridement.”

She leaned back against the wall, folded her arms and stared at me. I stared back. Our eyes watered, it was a draw.

“So, I know what Doctor Wesley’s problem is …”

“Oh. He really has Asperger’s?”

“Yeah. He’s a hoot at the office Christmas party.”

“Sorry?”

“But what exactly is your problem?”

“Um, I need debridement?”

“All the defensive shit.”

“You want an honest answer?”

“No lie to me.”

“I fucking hate hospitals. I mean I really fucking hate hospitals. In theory you could be a fine human being, Doc W could be a fucking social butterfly, I already hated you because I’m in a fucking hospital and y’all do hospital shit and I really fucking hate it. You know how you feel about the dentist? Well, me too, and doctors and hospitals.”

“I don’t hate all dentists,” she said carefully, “Just the ones who want to look in my mouth.”

I snorted and, because this is a flash for flash Friday I probably went through a Kafkaesque transformation.

Already left prompts with real flashes. I'm sure this took less than twenty minutes. This flash is almost zen, I mean as in emptying the mind of everything. I wrote it on an empty mind, shame it wasn't an empty keyboard too.

Oh, I gave my daughter my laptop. Why? Because

1) I love her

2) She's going to Portland for a job interview.

3) Her laptop is broke down

4) I fucking hate, Hate, HATE windows motherfucking 8.