A Visit to the Doctors

            I hate white. It’s such a lifeless color. It’s drab, it’s blank, it’s as if you stripped the metaphorical whore of the color wheel down to its birthday suit and forced it onto a wall, or a desk, or a paper. It’s boring, plain, and has no real practical use aside from filling space, and I hate the hell out of it.

            Sadly, my surroundings right now are nothing but white, and so I’m sitting here, loathing every second of my wait. I rest my head in my right hand and glare at the room around me. The walls are an eggshell color, which is almost worse than a pure white. It looks sickly and weak, and the ghost of a chuckle escapes my lips as I note the irony of that thought. The wooden cabinets are painted white too, though a brighter color than the walls around them. They contrast just enough to get on my nerves and my eyes flinch in disgust at them. The tools around the room are white, of course. Every tool handle in a hospital has to be white; those are the rules. Even the goddamn bed was pale leather with white paper covering it. I’d honestly never seen anything like it, all the beds at the other hospitals I’ve been to were some shade of blue or grey but no, this one had to be fucking white. The only chromatic solace I had was the red bin pinned to the far wall with the international symbol for biohazards taped onto it. In white, of course.

            Angie calls those things “sharps containers” and says that they’re usually full of needles and contaminated gloves and whatnot. A thought briefly crosses my mind, and I wonder for an instant what it would feel like to shove my hand into it, thrashing about a little. Would I even feel the needles entering my skin, or would I be unaware of what I was doing until I pull my hand out? My left hand twitches, as if it wants to jump into the red oasis in this sea of blandness, but as soon as the thought arrives, it flees into the abyss where all bad ideas go, and I am left alone once more with my only companion, the seething, omnipresent hatred boiling within me. A groan turns into a slight growl as I pan my head around the room once more, sick to death of my surroundings already.

            I sit on the bed, the fingers on my left hand slowly trying to dig into the flimsy paper covering, and the fingers on my right hand pressing divets into my cheek. I suppose it hurts a little bit, but I honestly can’t give half a shit right now. Tired of being angry at the walls, I flick my eyes downwards, and start to get angry at my wardrobe. My job doesn’t go very well with a clean-cut monkey suit, but at the same time I can’t really go about in a dirty t-shirt and jeans anymore like I used to back in college. Instead, I picked out a shitty button-down burgundy-red shirt and a pair of nice-ish jeans this morning to wear to my appointment. That’s the thought that crosses my mind, anyway. In reality, Angie picked out my shirt and I just threw on some not-too-old pair of pants. If I were honest with myself, I didn’t really give a shit about this appointment, and I guess I still don’t, but Angie wants me to get better, so I figured I should at least try, or at least give these people the same chance I gave every other quack this side of the state.

            I’d be a lot happier about this if the doctors weren’t total scumbags, like every other shrink I’ve met in the past. I’ve seen them all: pretentious douchebags who think medication is the new savior of the damned, new-age hippies who believe in homeopathy and happiness, and middle-of-the-road jackasses who’d rather take your money than treat you. These guys, in particular, give me the creeps, though. There are two of them, for a start, which is strange in and of itself, since there’s usually only one doctor to bother with at any given time. They claim the younger, taller one is in training, and if that weren’t enough to worry me, nothing would be. But it seems God hates me, as the older one has the look of a crazed shrink about him, too. Just thinking about him makes me shiver ever so slightly, and I suddenly stop wanting them to come back from whatever corner they ran off to.

            As if fate itself is listening to my thoughts, the door to the outside opens and the two monkeys walk in, spitting on my wishes. They’re both pale white, with jet-black hair and alabaster doctors’ coats covering their clothing, buttoned all the way to their neck. It’s there the similarities end, though. The young one has to be at least six foot one, and skinny as a beanpole. The coat makes him look billowy, like some poor scarecrow set out to watch the field. He’s got the face of a scarecrow, too: deep-set, dark eyes, sunken cheeks, and a nearly omnipresent scowl that almost seems to be done on purpose, as if the world is just one big disappointment to him. The older one’s got a more agreeable face: neutral, with the barest hint of wrinkles around his cheeks and forehead. His eyes are a piercing green, and he looks like he could see right through to the core of your soul, and his thick glasses only made his eyes even more pronounced. Thankfully he stands a full five feet even, and no matter how grim and scrunched up his face gets, it can’t make his stature any less amusing.

            The two enter the room, shutting the door behind them. The tall one, Doctor Troy, stands in the corner, leaning against the counter, staring off into some point in space above my head. The older one, Doctor Engels, takes a stool and hops up onto it, putting him at about eye level.

            “So uh… Mr. Blake,” he begins to speak. “We’ve talked to a few of our colleagues and consulted some texts, and we think we have an idea that may work, although it will involve some tedious paperwork.”

            My face doesn’t move an inch as I stare directly into the sharp emerald eyes of the doctor in front of me. I guess he is looking for some statement of hope or joy, but I know disappointment will come in the end, and so my face remains unmoved.

            Doctor Engels clears his throat and hands over a stapled set of papers as thick as my finger, “These are release forms, waivers, and the like. What we want to do is peculiar, to say the least.”

            My mind recalls similar statements, most of which were said by new-age nutjobs before they handed me some stupid herb or something.

            “In the interest of all of our valuable time, I’m going to summarize this undertaking in a few sentences: We here at the hospital have been working on an experimental treatment for extreme personality disorders, not unlike yours. We don’t quite know what exactly the drug does yet, with regards to side effects or the like, and testing has not yet started, but we feel that your… unique case requires something above and beyond what we are normally able to provide. Sign these papers, and in a week we can hand you a trial dosage of this treatment, which should, in theory, lessen the psychological burden on you and your significant other.”

            The doctor leans back slightly and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Once you sign those, our meeting here will be finished.”

            I blink, and glance down at the papers in my hand. They’re full of legal nonsense, and I already can only barely suppress the urge to leave them on the bed and simply walk out of the room, so I silently say Angie’s name in my head, like a mantra, and get to work. The signing takes almost ten minutes, and when I hand the papers back, Dr. Engels looks them over quickly before sniffing in approval.

            “Alright, since that seems to be taken care of, you’re free to go. I hope you remember the way out? It’s just down the hallway and to your left.”

            I nod and hop off of the bed. Wasting no time, I walk down the sterile hallway, my steps almost echoing off the bare walls pressing around me. As I enter the lobby, the scenery changes somewhat, as color is restored to the world around me. Sunlight beats down through windows covering the huge dome that encompasses the lobby. Nodding towards the bored-looking receptionist, I move towards the door leading out and almost feel relief as the sounds of my own movement are finally dampened by the carpet that marks the waiting area. I pass a lone family with a quiet, downcast child, and try my best not to make eye contact with them, as I know their own eyes watch me leave the building.

            Outside, the day is clear as a summer dream, and some might even call it beautiful. The sun shines brightly in the sky, unobstructed save for the scant shade offered by the patchwork of leaves hanging off the only tree in the area, some kind of great, ancient broadleaf that’s probably seen its fair share of buildings entering and leaving its area just as this one building has seen people enter and leave its domain. The thought brings with it a soothing sense of endlessness, but as though God himself knew I was beginning to feel upbeat, a chill wind brushes up against me, and I shiver as I walk towards the car, and towards my home.

            The ride home is long and boring, a full half-hour of nothing but the highway and the endless presence of others on the road. The ride gives me time to think about everything, and time is something I figure I’d rather not have. Angie wanted this, I think to myself, as I struggle to justify this trip in my mind. I’ve tried many, many kinds of doctors before, and none of them have been able to help, but for some reason Angie puts a lot of faith in these two bozos, and so I have to trust her, and at least try this.

            These are the thoughts that accompany my ride back home, and even as I step out of the car, and send an empty wave to my neighbor, working on the fence in his backyard as if he’s got half a chance in hell at making the wreck presentable, I can’t help but doubt that this new chance will work. I leave my neighbor to his labor, and walk up to the house I shared with Angie, a perfectly suburban affair ripped straight out of the fifties. Pale yellow walls catch the sunlight perfectly some times of the day and make the color bearable in a way, but Angie insists in having jade green shutters on all the windows, which ensures that the effect never truly lasts as long as it should. The door is painted a dark navy, supposedly to contrast with the outside walls, but every time I look at the ensemble I feel that a great mistake was made somewhere along the way, and that none of it really looks as good as we think it does. I grasp the doorknob and wonder to myself if Angie ever thinks the same thing. Perhaps I should talk to her about it, when I get the chance, or perhaps she hasn’t spoken up because she truly likes the colors. I open the door, and those passing thoughts are driven out by the sight of my girlfriend, Angie Clark, smiling up at me. I can’t help but smile back as she rushes over, throws a hug over me, and asks how the appointment went.

            “It went well, I think,” I reply.