Tasya
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The waiting game, and the absence of autonomy, was cut short as the doctor walked in with a clipboard in hand.
The doctor’s fingers were flipping through the clipboard’s sheets with such speed and precision that made Hugh think that his doctor must have been a high-ranking bureaucrat in another life. Hugh was also surprised at how many sheets there were, for he hadn’t been to the doctor in quite some time. How could the doctor have so much medical information on him without Hugh ever coming for regular visits?
“Good day Mr. Mechta. My name is Doctor Carni.” The doctor said, still dexterously flipping through the sheets on the clipboard.
Hugh watched as the sheets swished on the clipboard and a sudden realization dawned on Hugh – he was finally going to talk to someone about his hallucinations. Adrenaline filled him and he felt an inner giddiness at the prospect of revealing his inner most self and receiving feedback from a medical professional.
Hugh was ready to speak.
“Good day to you too doctor,” Hugh said and stood up from his trapeze artist’s chair. “I want to talk to you today about my unusual condition —"
“One moment Mr. Mechta.” The doctor cut through Hugh’s words like a newly sharpened knife through paper. “I see here that you haven’t been in for a medical examination in,” Dr. Carne flipped through the pages on his clipboard once again, sheets of paper moving like they lived in fear of the doctor’s fingertips, “quite some time. We need to take your biometrics.” Dr. Carni flashed a teethy smile that could be taken as either reassuring or condescending. “Height, weight, blood pressure.”
“Is all that really necessary?” Hugh asked, confused by the doctors demands. He had been expecting to discuss his inner self, not fret over his external self. “Aren’t height measurements only for children who are physically developing?”
“All of this is standard practice, Mr. Mechta,” the doctor replied. “You haven’t been here for a while and we merely want to document your biometrics, for when you return. Pertaining to your height, we want to make sure that your tiny frame isn’t shrinking.”
Hugh was a bit taken aback by the word 'tiny.' He was not tall, but he always imagined himself as fitting in the medium category on the height spectrum. He wasn’t sure if the doctor used that particular word in order to be derogatory or if he made the wrong word choice by accident.
The doctor led Hugh to a scale in the corner of the room. It was like the scales that the doctors had used when he had been a child. There was a tiny pedestal to stand on and a metal bar with a sliding apparatus that could be adjusted to determine someone’s weight. There was also a measuring stick that could be extended vertically and placed atop the patient’s head to get a height measurement.
Hugh felt uncomfortable reliving his childhood experiences at the doctors, but he followed the orders of Dr. Carni’s beckoning hand to proceed. Hugh stepped on the scale and the metal bar sharply tipped downwards with a loud crash of metal on metal. Dr. Carni ignored weighing Hugh for now and his hand darted right for the measuring sticking. He extended it above Hugh and rested it on his head.
“One hundred sixty-five centimeters,” Dr. Carni remarked and started to scribble in the file. Hugh peeked from the corner of his eye and the doctor’s pen appeared to move in a manner more appropriate for drawing shapes than writing numbers. “Not bad, but I don’t think that you will ever play professional basketball. It must be a bit frustrating trying to grab food from the top shelf in the grocery shop, yeah?”
“Pardon me, Doctor,” Hugh said, perplexed by Dr. Carni’s remarks, “but how are my chances of playing professional basketball and the height of shelves in shops medically relevant?”
“They are not relevant in the slightest,” the doctor said with an expression showing nothing other than pure professionalism, “I’m just speaking out loud. Please, don’t mind me. Let’s now check your weight.”
The doctor’s hand darted again, but this time to the mechanisms that measure weight. Hugh was surprised by the speed of the doctor’s hands, guessing that he may play some sport that required lightning quick reflexes.
Hugh averted his eyes from the numbers on the scale, having had never been fond of knowing his own weight. Looking up at a calendar that depicted a sunrise shining over a botanical garden, Hugh could hear the clinks, clunks and scrapes of metal on metal as Dr. Carni worked with precision to get the weight down to the exact gram.
The sounds of metallic mechanisms moving against one another brought back emotions from Hugh’s childhood. He had been terrified of doctors reading aloud his weight because Hugh had been a very overweight child. The numbers that the doctors would utter pained him just as much as the children at school teasing him, calling him names, and even throwing batteries at him due to his robust size. As the numbers on the scale grew, Hugh had felt that the probability of abuse from classmates would increase, and as the numbers decreased the likelier it was they would ignore him. Every time he had stepped on the scale was like being at a fortune teller forecasting future events.
Even though Hugh had trimmed down in his adulthood, he still harbored unease towards scales and their numeric representation of his body weight.
The sounds of metal against metal disappeared and was replaced with the sound of pen against paper. Once more Hugh stole a glance at the clipboard and Dr. Carni’s pen strokes looked too long and oblong for writing numbers and letters. Hugh couldn’t help but imagine that the doctor was drawing a doodle of Hugh standing on the scale.
“Well, Mr. Mechta, this is quite disappointing…” Dr. Carni said and made a series clicking sounds with his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I must say that you could stand to lose a bit of weight.”
“Pardon me?” Hugh responded curtly, shocked by Dr. Carni’s words.
“Well, Mr. Mectha, you are in adequate shape, nothing to worry that much about. I’m just saying that you could maybe hit the gym more often. You know, to burn off some of that extra fat.”
Dr. Carni’s usage of 'nothing to worry about,' 'I’m just saying,’ ‘you know,’ and even the adjective ‘adequate’ perturbed Hugh. He felt that the doctor was attacking him with a dagger and using these phrases to cloak his sadistic verbal thrusts.