BITE Chapter 8
A trip to the doctor's
September 24, 2021
I found the medical facilities no problem. That’s one thing about this place I should mention. I’ve never struggled to get wherever I wanna go. This place is fucking massive, and there are no signs or directory or anything to help you orient yourself. Somehow, though, I always get where I’m trying to go pretty fast. I guess it’s just intuitive.
I feel like I could spend my whole life exploring this place without seeing it all. I feel like I could spend my whole life here in general, and sometimes it feels like I already have. It’s hard to explain the feeling, but I guess I just really needed a break from everything. Once I’m back on my feet, though, I’m outta here. It’s been nice not having to worry about food, a bed, clothes, showers, and all that, but I can’t stay. I’m not really one of them.
Anyways, the doctor’s office. I expected something like a school nurse’s office or maybe some holistic, natural crap like magic crystals and essential oils, but they have an actual doctor’s office here. There was a small waiting room with about twenty chairs, with maybe ten of them filled with people waiting to be seen. I checked in with a nice lady up front and was given a hefty stack of paperwork to fill out. Most of it was the usual shit: any allergies, any prior medical conditions, are you depressed, all that. I felt my heart drop when I got to the question asking if I was pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant. You’d think enough time has passed for me to accept what I cannot change, but I still haven’t gotten over it. My marriage never got over it either, in the end.
What’s strange is the last paper I had to fill out. It was just like the one that asks about drugs and alcohol and how often you use them, but this one was about sin. I wasn’t too shocked at first that a religious place like this would ask about it, but it goes deeper than that. The questions were short and simple, and there weren’t even that many, but what they asked unnerved me.
When was the last time you denied the splendor of The King’s miracles?
When was the last time you drank to purge memories of your wicked heart?
When was the last time you were unfaithful in your marriage?
I left them blank, hoping they were optional, and turned my paperwork back in. They said the doctor wasn’t too busy, so I shouldn’t expect to wait more than a few minutes. I wondered why I would get seen so fast since there were all the other people there before me, but I know better than to ask a question like that. The sooner I got seen, the sooner I could leave this place and go back to my life of freedom.
Soon enough, I was called back to wait for a Dr. Hernandez to come see me. While they got the room ready, a nurse took my weight and blood pressure. You know, she didn’t actually tell me my weight. She just made a face after balancing the scales. I’m not sure if she was confused or just didn’t like what she saw. She asked how much I had been eating. I told her that food’s been hard to come by for the past few years, and she just raised her eyebrows and shook her head.
The room she stuck me in was pretty standard for a doctor’s office. Everything was that bright white that’s supposed to look clean and sterile, but really just makes me think of the light you’re not supposed to go toward when you’re dying. They had one of those chairs that leans way back like you’d usually see at a dentist. The posters, though, must have been custom-made. They had that corporate, inoffensive art style you’d expect, but they were all religious. There was one advertisement for Botox treatments to make you “fit for the presence of The King”. I especially remember one that showed cartoonish versions of Pieman and a child. The child was expelling black smoke from his mouth with words like sin, evil, rot, and other shit in the smoke cloud. Pieman was smiling back at the child. The title on top of the poster read “Have You Confessed Your Sins Today?”
Before I could really get a good look at all of the posters, Dr. Hernandez barged in without knocking. He looked like he was maybe in his mid-thirties. He had a short salt and pepper beard and dark tan skin. Dr. Hernandez, like basically everyone here, was dressed in white capris and a silk white shirt, but at least he had on a lab coat. Above his name on the coat was this strange symbol. It was full of loops and squiggles.My best guess is it’s the logo for the Church of Our King in Heaven. Strange that I haven’t seen it before. Maybe it’s new or something. Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention. Fuck if I know.
“All right, miss, what was your name?” he asked. He waved me off before I could answer. “It doesn’t matter. What brings you in today?” He motioned for me to sit.
The second my butt touched the chair, he yanked it back and reclined it all the way. My blouse flew up, and I had to quickly shove it back down.
“Woah there,” the doctor laughed. “I’m flattered, but let’s keep our clothes on.”
I laughed the way you do when you feel like you’re expected to.
“So,” he said, his face buried in his clipboard, “When was your last period?”
I was confused. “Oh, sorry,” I stuttered. “I’m here because of vivid nightmares and possibly some broken bones. I was attacked recently.”
Without looking up from his clipboard, Dr. Hernandez said, “I’ll just put down ‘unknown’.”
“How is this related to my symptoms?” I asked.
He barely looked up, just quick enough to glare at me before looking back at his clipboard.
“Ma’am, I’m the doctor, not you.” He shook his head and let out a deep sigh. “Anyways, how many sexual partners have you had in the last week?”
I nearly jumped out of my chair. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
He paced around the room and scribbled some notes. “Please, let’s try not to be so emotional. I’ll just put ‘unknown’ again.” Quietly, but loud enough that I think he wanted me to hear, he said, “The patient appears to be menstruating currently.”
I swear to God, I almost punched this man. I got up and was ready to start swinging, but he closed the gap between us so fast. He shoved me back down with one hand like I weighed nothing. The part that scared me the most, though, was that he never looked up from his notes the whole time.
“I do apologize,” he said, “But please remain seated.” He walked over to a row of glass jars and pulled out a tongue depressor. He pointed it at me like a pistol. “Let’s try something you’re more used to. Open wide.” He laughed before I could say or do anything. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I guess I need to work on my bedside manner. But really, open your mouth, please.”
He pushed my tongue down and looked around my throat with one of those flashlight/magnifying glass combo tools the doctors all use. I don’t know if it was the spot he was pushing, how hard he pushed, or just my nerves, but the whole thing made my stomach churn. The longer he looked, the worse it got. At one point, I could swear he whispered something, but a wave of nausea hit me at the same time, so I couldn’t focus. It felt like something inside my gut was trying to crawl back up my esophagus. Just before I lost it, he pulled out the tongue depressor, and all the nausea went away.
He tilted his head back and forth a few times before announcing, “I believe you have an acute case of hyporegivoluntatis.”
Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either. I had him write it down for me so I could look it up in my own time.
“I saw your weight looked a little low,” he continued. “Have you been eating enough? Our cafeteria is open all hours.”
“I, uh, I wasn’t able to eat much food before I came here.” I had total whiplash. Based on how much of an ass he was, the fact that he wasn’t saying I eat too much took me by surprise. “I do visit the cafeteria here three times a day, but I’ll be leaving soon.”
“No!” he shouted. My saying I’d leave upset him enough to make him actually look at me. “You need to keep eating healthy food on a consistent basis to cure this, plus I’ll need to follow up with you in one month to track your progress.”
“A month? I can’t stay that long.”
The doctor gave me a harsh, stern look. “Look, ma’am,” he said. “Do you want more nightmares? Do you want the ones you have to get even worse?”
I swear the air froze in my lungs. I can’t keep having these nightmares. That’s not a fucking option. I don’t even wanna think about what the nightmares getting worse even means. I don’t know if I could survive that.
He must have been able to see how affected I was. “That’s what I thought, ma’am,” he said.
He scribbled some final notes down and handed me a prescription for some medication. His handwriting was too rough for me to read what it was. I was to take it twice a day: once in the morning and once before bed. He wrote down the name of my disease and told me they had books on it in their on-site library. I thought this would be it, but there was one more thing he said when I left.
“Have you confessed your sins to Pieman?” he asked just before the door closed behind me.
“I, uh,” I stuttered. “I haven’t, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“It’ll do your soul some good,” he said. He waved me off, so I left. Again, like before at the outreach center, I think I heard something else. Just before the door closed behind me, I could swear he said, “Fucking slut.”