He sat in the office, not on the plush orange chair by the desk but on a smaller, plastic one, wedged inhospitably between the door and an uncharitable-looking pile of invoices.
'I'm going to give you the jab,' said the doctor.
J tensed.
'There,' said the doctor.
The patient left. J glanced at the clock.
'Would you like blackcurrant lozenges or the orangey kind?' the doctor asked, to which the assorted responses never varied from 'blackcurrant'.
By the end of the internship J wanted to shout, 'TAKE THE ORANGE, YOU MORON', just for variety. But he didn't, so nobody ever did. J for his own part had had unfortunate, traumatic incidents with ribena at an early age, so it was doubtful that he would ever enjoy wine or blackcurrant lozenges. Which was fortunate, really, because he never had a sore throat.
'Shame about the wine, though,' his dad said, when J shared this thought with him. 'I mean, nobody ever got high off lozenges.'
'Well, actually, there was this one guy-'
'Really?' Arawn said, thoughtful. 'What's the name of this doctor again?'
J glanced at his watch. It was getting late. He needed to be up early the next day to prepare himself for yet another day of faceless patients passing through the room. The most time-consuming part of his preparations involved perfecting the smiled he plastered onto his face which would hopefully last him through the whole day.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, J reflected upon lying down on his bed, he might need just a few more minutes in front of the mirror in the morning. Early next morning, before the first patient entered the door, he planned to introduce himself properly to the rather attractive pharmacist.