No Small Wonder

“No wonder nothing works around here” I said to my colleague, who was peacefully drinking his tenth cup of tea, his legs up on the desk to the left of me. “I mean, things really are broken, why do we bother? Do we really think it’s worth spending so much of your efforts maintaining even a semblance of sanity when you know that no one is going to buy it?”

After work I stopped by at the surgery. Asked to see the doctor. I was told he wouldn’t be available for at least a week. I decided to wait, to take my chances. The receptionist was amicable and supportive. “If there’s anything I can do for you Mr. Acker just yell”. I knew she was lying, I could feel it in the back of my throat, but didn’t really think I should let her in on the joke, so I kept quiet about it. To be on the safe side.

At some point in time (I’d lost track by then) the doctor waltzed in screaming unintelligibly. The receptionist called out to me – “the doctor will see you now”. “But don’t expect him to listen”, she added hastily. I walked down the brightly lit corridor leading to the doctor’s office, lead and marble décor, remnants of a century neither of us had known.

I knocked on the door. “Enter”, he called, and enter I did. He motioned me to sit down, stood up and shook me by the hand; I got up to shake his, but he sat down immediately and beckoned me to sit down again. “What seems to be the problem?”. “Well”, I replied, “I’m not quite sure, and that’s precisely it, I’m not quite sure of anything, and nothing seems to be what it seems to be”. “Take this three times a day” he said as he shoved a crumpled piece of paper into my hands. “I take it you’re not from around here?”. I thought for a moment that this was the doctor speaking again, but it turned out to be me. “No” he replied, “I’m from just around the corner, so to speak”, but he did not elaborate.

On my way out I told the receptionist that I was not quite clear about what to do with the medication the doctor had given me. She looked down at what I was holding and said “That’s not the medication young man, you need to go and see the pharmacist down the road, he’ll redeem it for you, tell him Greta sent you”.

The pharmacists office was just ten minutes walk away as the flow cries. I got there in no time at all, which is of course an impossibility. Nevertheless, I was met at the door by his secretary, a stout young man of about five-and-sixpence. “Greta sent me”, I blurted, half expecting to be taken seriously. “One moment sir”, he motioned me toward the window and placed an indecent coffee table in my hand. “I’ll let Mr. Whatthefuck know that you’re here”. He returned an instant later. “He’ll see you right away”, he intoned under his rotten breath.

The pharmacist turned out to be a slender impish sort of man, covered in grey hair, though not a wrinkle to be seen. I showed him the crumpled piece of paper the doctor had given me not half an hour ago. “What the fuck…”, he mumbled apparently to no one in particular. “Here, take this three times an hour, once a week on Thursdays between two and four in the afternoon”, he bellowed as he passed me a nondescript bottle of difficult proportions. “Wait at least fifteen minutes before eating, and another ten before excreting”. Precise instructions to say the least. I was impressed. The man obviously knew what he was talking about, which was more than I could say for myself at this point. I thanked him and walked out just in time to catch the last donkey home.