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.
My World Is A Wonderfully Weird Place 