The Doctor Is Out…

by Fielding Goodfellow

I am at that age when shit happens. Not just to me, but to people I have involved in my life. It was sad to learn that the doctor was sick. He was by his own admission, really sick. He had been diagnosed with cancer some time ago and despite beating it back with his love of life and the usual regimen of assorted treatments, it had returned with a vengeance. And anger. It seemed so very angry this time. And while he continued to fight back, he recently discovered that the battle was lost. He began preparing for the end by doing his best to enjoy whatever time he had left. He was like that though. He had survived a stint in the army, a truck load of ex wives, and years of relentless hallucinogen use with a laugh and a story to tell. He said he was okay with it now, and I was certain he was, but it was hard for me to get my head around the fact that the doctor of debauchery and depravity was on his way out.

I called him my friend, but we were really kindred spirits, enjoying life in the theater of the absurd, and travelling across time and space to worlds that existed only in our own minds. We met somewhere on the Oregon trail, balls deep in female loggers, peyote buttons, and a polka music playing drummer who joined us on our journey of paradoxical pandemonium, all in an attempt to rewrite history as we imagined it. We shared our own life stories, our love of science fiction, books, beaver hunting, and music. We traded barbs and snappy retorts, wrapped in sarcasm and irony, and laughed until we forgot what the hell we were laughing about.

I had planned on visiting the good doctor, several times, but it seems I left it too late. Its a shame really, I mean I would have liked to have smuggled the Italian French-Canadian hybrid into Comerica Park and stuffed him full of hot dogs and beer as we watched the Tigers blow a two run lead in the top of the ninth to the Jays. But shit happens. At least we were able to boldly go where no man has gone before. For that I am eternally grateful, but man I hate having to look for a new doctor.

Blue Fish, Red Fish, One Fish, Dead Fish…

Things just keep getting stranger and stranger. My wife bought my daughter a pet Beta fish, as my daughter had been asking for a hedgehog. 1 week into pet ownership, and my daughter found the responsibility too daunting, so she handed the fish bowl back to my wife, with the encouraging words “here, you take care of it”. My wife took to Beta rearing like a fish out of water (hahaha). She named the fish Billy. She spoke to it every day, and would regale us with tales of how excited Billy got whenever she peered into his bowl. She told us, about how his little fins would move back and forth so quickly, when he saw her face. She fed the little guy, and cleaned his bowl religiously.

One day, she noticed that Billy seemed sick. He wasn’t swimming around so much. He seemed lethargic, and wasn’t eating. A call to the pet store resulted in little information, except confirmation that Billy was indeed, not well. My wife took on the challenge of saving Billy. She cleaned his tank, changed his water, and put special drops in the bowl to keep it bacteria free. she wrapped a towel around the base of the bowl, so the water wouldn’t get too cold. Over the next few weeks, Billy seemed to have days of appearing better, but then, as fate would have it, he relapsed, again and again. “I think he’s dying”, she said.  Indeed, it seemed that way.

“I don’t want him to suffer”, as tears welled up in her eyes. But he was suffering. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. So we waited through more water changing, more bowl cleaning, and more anti bacterial drops. One day, she found Billy on his side. Not moving. “I think he’s dead.”, she said. But when she gently tapped the side of the bowl, Billy moved his fins. The following morning, it was a Sunday, my beautiful, kind hearted wife peered into the bowl, and sighed. She took the bowl and left the room. I followed her into the bathroom, and saw this gentle woman, bludgeon the fish into obliteration with her bare hands. She looked at me. She cried. I hugged her. She flushed the corpse, or rather the remaining pieces. “What do you want for dinner?”, she asked, and walked out of the room. We never spoke of the murder. Not once. I am not sure how to even begin the conversation, but every night she asks me why I am just laying in bed with my eyes open.