The Good Doctor

The summer winds buffet my face as it buffets the cocoa trees. The leaves swish left and right, giving the sense that the trees were moving, when, in fact, they were not.

I sat cross-legged, deep in thought the way a spider would when it wants to make a complicated web. I closed my eyes and yet still saw the sun through it.

Thoughts whirled like the tan desert sand with the wind in my mind. One of them stood very clear, self-centred and envious of anyone else who took its place. Even so, I tried to push it to the back so that it'll be hard for it to jostle forwards, trying to steal its place back.

The only barrier between me, the sun and its friend, the wind, were the yellow-painted bars that shone golden in the sunshine. My pale skin looked almost translucent in the light, but the doctor said that Vitamin D was healthy, and you only got that from the sun. And so here I was, getting baked like my mum’s potatoes, unwillingly sacrificing my beautiful complexion. 

The doctor, with his faked dimples and faked laughter. Oh, how I crumpled my slender fingers into fists whenever I thought of him. Then the selfish thought came back, managing to push through the throng of waiting thoughts as it stood tall above them all, a smug grin on its face that I couldn't wait to wipe off.

For a moment, the doctor proved an effective distraction from the overwhelming thought that stood oh-so-proud and oh-so-tall in the veiny membranes of my brain. Honestly, I didn't even know what a brain looked like inside. Maybe I should ask the doctor.

Fury welled in me, pumping through my veins at a rapid pace that I could only label as frustration. Nothing gets me motivated more than that. No deadline could pierce through the eternal nothingness of my procrastination. Except fury.

Thoughts of deep anger subsided into thoughts of a calmer kind. It was like the silence after a storm. It always proved wrong and came back stronger than ever.

I opened my eyes, and then became hyper-aware that my breathing was erratic, so was the beating of my heart. After taking a deep breath to steady the pressed my eyelashes and felt them tickle my under-eyes.

My growing consciousness of everything around me swiftly got loud. So loud it was almost as if I could physically hear the blood roaring and thundering in my ears. Did it want to get out?

I closed my eyes once more. It was as if I was shutting the blinds to reality, for the sun’s flashing rays were more piercing than even the stupidly strong thought in my head.

My knee bounced up and down restlessly, and my fingers lay curled in the crook of my lap. The winds had stopped and the white clouds hid the sun, the blue sky beaming benignly at what was underneath it, rows and rows of shallot farms and cow sheds. I waited for the silence.

But instead of it, I received another big wave. I shouldn’t have hoped for it. I shouldn’t have wished for something that is inevitably impossible. The consuming thought finally managed to bite at the final bit, destroying the last wall.

The dam broke and my body convulsed as sobs wrecked throughout my body. Broken pleas of forgiveness, regret and sorrow mingled with the sounds of the birds fluttering up in their nests.

I opened my eyes to see wet streaks on the thin fabric of my Lululemon leggings. I could feel the water pass through it, passing on to my skin and sending it down my legs.

“No,” I berated myself, “I can’t.”

But I could. I had the full control to do so or to do not. I guess the pain was too deep, the wound too intense for time to heal it. Supposed that it did, however, it will still take time.

Funny how time needs time.

My hyper-awareness allowed me to listen to the sounds of nature more deeply, but this time, I heard something more than just the leaves’ rustle, the birds’ creaky melodies.

The soft pads of footsteps dropped upon the harshly carved wood of my old tree house. I opened my eyes, used my sleeve to wipe away the clear drops on my pellucid skin.

I knew who it was just from the way he walked, yet something felt off, like a lie. I felt a warm arm engulf me, and I reached out like a helpless child. The feeling of another human soul just went straight to my heart, and broke it too.

His voice was gentle, filled to the brim with the patience a mother would have. His words were barely above a whisper; I can’t hear him clearly. I could feel his hands brush my back, hesitant at first, before giving me the best back rub of my life.

The moment was intimate, and though it might be beautiful with some new context, all I could focus on was the pain. It engulfed me, ate at me from the inside and made me mocked from the outside. I wish someone would know. I wish someone would understand.

The sun peeked out again, a fraction of it making my exposed shoulder light-coloured; a touch of an angel’s dainty finger. His own hand crept upwards and he held my shoulder in a vise-like grip with one hand, as if to reassure and reinforce the fact of the truth that he was here, and he was here to help me.

His perfume smells different, but maybe that was because it blended with the scent of freshly cut grass, guavas hanging loose from their trees or the pervading sense of cocoa around us. Either way, I didn’t adore it, yet I kept sobbing.

I sobbed and sobbed, my cries ceaseless as my face pressed into the place between his jaw and his collarbone, and his shirt was soon soaked. But I guess he didn’t care, because I didn’t. Nothing else mattered except the grief clawing at me and my fragile heart.

My frail self was a figure of glass, and one wrong move could break me totally. She had spread her weak wings and flown up to heaven, gone forever and only seen in memories that even now are smudged. That was a wrong move. Mother, why did you have to leave and break me so? 

I asked that question in my head, but I supposed that I had said it aloud, too, for he gave me a grim smile which I could only spot through the thick tears that clouded my vision.

“She’s safe,” he whispered softly in my ear, “She’s safe up there.”

After a moment, my vision turned intelligible, only for a while, like the calm after a storm before the second round. 

I looked up to see him with full eyes washed clear from all the tears that had fallen out. With a shock, the realisation crashed into me harder than all the hardest things in life, like time. 

“Doctor?”