Vincent Gallo - Tasya

As Hugh approached the end of the hallway, he could hear the receptionist shouting from behind him.

“Mr. Mekta! Mr. Mekta! I told you already, please go over there! You are going the wrong way! Turn back and turn over there!” The receptionist shouted and tore a piece of a paper, which Hugh hoped wasn't his file, in two.

“Do I go over there?” Hugh called back and shifted his gaze from the reddening face of the receptionist and pointed to the rightmost corridor that he had passed.

“No, to the other one!” the reception cried and tore a small stack of papers, that had magically appeared in her hands, in half.

Hugh walked back towards the two corridors and pointed at the one on his left.

“Yes, Mr. Mekta! That is what I have been telling you this entire time! Don't keep the doctor waiting!” The receptionist threw herself down on her chair with a thumb loud enough to be heard by Hugh down the hallway.

Hugh turned ‘over there' and pondered whether the receptionist's outburst was in part to sitting on a chair crafted by the architect of discomfort.

Hugh entered room 27 and no one was there.

Hugh was both relieved and agitated. Relieved that he hadn't kept the doctor waiting. Agitated that he was forced to play the waiting game again.

Hugh sat down again, but this time straddling the edge of the chair like a trapeze artist on a tightrope. He tried to embody this performer's balance, poise, and grace as he sat along the thin line of comfort and falling off the chair. Unlike the trapeze artist, who plays the game of life and death while performing in air, Hugh continued to play the most irritating game of them all—the waiting game.

Hugh always thought of himself as a person who fell into the laid-back category. There were only a few things that he really disliked; things like pickles, store assistants who swarm you upon entering a store, ice covered sidewalks in the winter, and shoes that grip your toes too tightly. None of these things, however, compared to how much he disliked waiting.

It wasn't all forms of waiting that he disliked. He was fine with waiting for the bus, the metro, or for a barista to brew his coffee. Tension would wrap around chest whenever he had to wait without knowing when the result of his waiting would come to fruition. Hugh always assumed that this was because such situations stole away his ability to control the situation and choose how to act in a given situation. When waiting, he felt that he was being forced to choose without having any alternatives of choice.

The waiting game, and the absence of autonomy, was cut short as the doctor walked in with a clipboard in hand.

The doctor’s fingers were flipping through the clipboard’s sheets with such speed and precision that made Hugh think that his doctor must have been a high-ranking bureaucrat in another life. Hugh was also surprised at how many sheets there were, for he hadn’t been to the doctor in quite some time. How could the doctor have so much medical information on him without Hugh ever coming for regular visits?

“Good day Mr. Mechta. My name is Doctor Carni.” The doctor said, still dexterously flipping through the sheets on the clipboard.

Hugh watched as the sheets swished on the clipboard and a sudden realization dawned on Hugh – he was finally going to talk to someone about his hallucinations. Adrenaline filled him and he felt an inner giddiness at the prospect of revealing his inner most self and receiving feedback from a medical professional.

Hugh was ready to speak.

“Good day to you too doctor,” Hugh said and stood up from his trapeze artist’s chair. “I want to talk to you today about my unusual condition —"

“One moment Mr. Mechta.” The doctor cut through Hugh’s words like a newly sharpened knife through paper. “I see here that you haven’t been in for a medical examination in,” Dr. Carne flipped through the pages on his clipboard once again, sheets of paper moving like they lived in fear of the doctor’s fingertips, “quite some time. We need to take your biometrics.” Dr. Carni flashed a teethy smile that could be taken as either reassuring or condescending. “Height, weight, blood pressure.”

“Is all that really necessary?” Hugh asked, confused by the doctors demands. He had been expecting to discuss his inner self, not fret over his external self. “Aren’t height measurements only for children who are physically developing?”

“All of this is standard practice, Mr. Mechta,” the doctor replied. “You haven’t been here for a while and we merely want to document your biometrics, for when you return. Pertaining to your height, we want to make sure that your tiny frame isn’t shrinking.”

Hugh was a bit taken aback by the word 'tiny.' He was not tall, but he always imagined himself as fitting in the medium category on the height spectrum. He wasn’t sure if the doctor used that particular word in order to be derogatory or if he made the wrong word choice by accident.

The doctor led Hugh to a scale in the corner of the room. It was like the scales that the doctors had used when he had been a child. There was a tiny pedestal to stand on and a metal bar with a sliding apparatus that could be adjusted to determine someone’s weight. There was also a measuring stick that could be extended vertically and placed atop the patient’s head to get a height measurement.

Hugh felt uncomfortable reliving his childhood experiences at the doctors, but he followed the orders of Dr. Carni’s beckoning hand to proceed. Hugh stepped on the scale and the metal bar sharply tipped downwards with a loud crash of metal on metal. Dr. Carni ignored weighing Hugh for now and his hand darted right for the measuring sticking. He extended it above Hugh and rested it on his head.

“One hundred sixty-five centimeters,” Dr. Carni remarked and started to scribble in the file. Hugh peeked from the corner of his eye and the doctor’s pen appeared to move in a manner more appropriate for drawing shapes than writing numbers. “Not bad, but I don’t think that you will ever play professional basketball. It must be a bit frustrating trying to grab food from the top shelf in the grocery shop, yeah?”

“Pardon me, Doctor,” Hugh said, perplexed by Dr. Carni’s remarks, “but how are my chances of playing professional basketball and the height of shelves in shops medically relevant?”

“They are not relevant in the slightest,” the doctor said with an expression showing nothing other than pure professionalism, “I’m just speaking out loud. Please, don’t mind me. Let’s now check your weight.”

The doctor’s hand darted again, but this time to the mechanisms that measure weight. Hugh was surprised by the speed of the doctor’s hands, guessing that he may play some sport that required lightning quick reflexes.

Hugh averted his eyes from the numbers on the scale, having had never been fond of knowing his own weight. Looking up at a calendar that depicted a sunrise shining over a botanical garden, Hugh could hear the clinks, clunks and scrapes of metal on metal as Dr. Carni worked with precision to get the weight down to the exact gram.

The sounds of metallic mechanisms moving against one another brought back emotions from Hugh’s childhood. He had been terrified of doctors reading aloud his weight because Hugh had been a very overweight child. The numbers that the doctors would utter pained him just as much as the children at school teasing him, calling him names, and even throwing batteries at him due to his robust size. As the numbers on the scale grew, Hugh had felt that the probability of abuse from classmates would increase, and as the numbers decreased the likelier it was they would ignore him. Every time he had stepped on the scale was like being at a fortune teller forecasting future events.

Even though Hugh had trimmed down in his adulthood, he still harbored unease towards scales and their numeric representation of his body weight.

The sounds of metal against metal disappeared and was replaced with the sound of pen against paper. Once more Hugh stole a glance at the clipboard and Dr. Carni’s pen strokes looked too long and oblong for writing numbers and letters. Hugh couldn’t help but imagine that the doctor was drawing a doodle of Hugh standing on the scale.

“Well, Mr. Mechta, this is quite disappointing…” Dr. Carni said and made a series clicking sounds with his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I must say that you could stand to lose a bit of weight.”

“Pardon me?” Hugh responded curtly, shocked by Dr. Carni’s words.

“Well, Mr. Mectha, you are in adequate shape, nothing to worry that much about. I’m just saying that you could maybe hit the gym more often. You know, to burn off some of that extra fat.”

Dr. Carni’s usage of 'nothing to worry about,' 'I’m just saying,’ ‘you know,’ and even the adjective ‘adequate’ perturbed Hugh. He felt that the doctor was attacking him with a dagger and using these phrases to cloak his sadistic verbal thrusts.

“I really don’t like your phrasing doctor.” Hugh said and stepped off the scale. “I know that I am not a muscular movie star, but the way you are speaking is quite demeaning.”

“As I said before,” the doctor replied and waved a dismissive hand, “don’t mind me. I’m just speaking out loud.”

“But you are the doctor,” Hugh said as he tried to remain calm and move the conversation in line with logical reasoning, “You should be giving me professional consultation, not speaking your mind as if you were at a social gather —”

“Please don’t be so sensitive.” Dr. Carni said. “Let us take your blood pressure and then we can talk about why you have visited today, does that sound good?”

Hugh took a deep breath and stole a look at his watch. They have been spending too much time on these routine procedures, which Hugh was suspecting weren’t necessary.

“Let’s move on.” Hugh said, giving the doctor the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was being too sensitive to the doctor’s words.

“Wonderful!” The doctor’s intonation hit a crescendo that may not have been intended. “Come over to this chair and I’ll take your blood pressure and then we will be all done with your biometrics.”

Hugh mentally sighed at the fact of having to return to the torture chair, but he did as the doctor ordered.

“Relax and roll up your sleeve.” Dr. Carni said and took the blood pressure measuring device from an adjacent drawer. “I’m going to wrap this sphygmomanometer around your bicep… Do you know what a sphygmomanometer is, Mr. Mechta?” The doctor gave a curt giggle. “Can you even pronounce it?”

“I imagine that it is the instrument that you are holding right now and will be using to measure my blood pressure. As for your second question, no I cannot pronounce it because that word is not in my daily lexicon.”

“That’s a pity, Mr. Mechta.”

The doctor fastened the cuff around Hugh’s arm, jammed the stethoscope in place and started to squeeze the pump. Hugh felt the pressure build around his arm, limiting the circulation of blood to his fingertips.

Hugh noticed that the doctor forgot his clipboard and pen next to the scale, on the other side of the room.

“I see,” the doctor mused, “just like your weight, not that bad. A bit low. I bet you get woozy and almost faint after a hot shower. Perhaps you get lightheaded when you stand up too quickly, holding onto the armrest as the world spins around you.” The doctor laughed out loud and continued. “I admit, I made that joke with full intent. I couldn't help myself! Funny, don't you think?”