The Doctor
I had once heard of a doctor who performed miracles. He was a fascination to the media, and the people at large. The rumor was, he charged very little for his services, but he was an impeccable physician. This doctor was somewhat of a mystery to the rest of the medical community. They could never locate him in order to check his credentials or understand his methods, because he was always traveling to cure patients of fatal diseases. Always just out of reach, he would cure a woman's cancer or even, some said, genetic disorders.
A piece of conjecture that got passed around made was that he was from another world, and so he had knowledge of things we hadn't yet invented. Others said he was some kind of prophet, since he healed and wandered. But he never gave a sermon, and he never ascended into space. At least, I'd say with a bit of humor, he was never seen doing these things.
But there were things said of the doctor, things that were scarcely heard. I met many of his patients, but they refused to speak to anyone about their treatment, that was, until the reports of the man stopped happening. Consensus grew that there never was such a man, that he was an excuse for individuals with hypochondria, which I found unsatisfactory, given the evidence.
But that period, perhaps in tandem with the skeptical nature of the public, withered the secrecy among the contacts. So, I phoned and emailed the group of people who had claimed treatment, and kept the accounts that had details which were in alignment with the others. Some of the patients were obviously impostors, who were wasting my time and money with talk of a purely regurgitated religious nature. Others, however, bore uncanny details of which I could not overlook.
The descriptions which were not frauds had the following in common: they depicted the man as invariably "strange," but also with a red face, never giving any other details than that about the face. It was as if it never occurred to them. Did they mean he was wearing a mask? Or did he have a strange discoloration? Birthmark? Regardless of the gender of the patient, or even their grotesque medical conditions, the doctor would vigorously lay hands on his subjects. One account described his touch as "wet sandpaper fingers, like a cat's tongue" and another implied the touch of silk. Did he wear gloves? The vagueness of the descriptions, while they were congruent, had an awful vagueness that continued to leave me uneasy.
The accounts also seem to show that the doctor had some sort of sexual fetish for his work, and he apparently slept with the entirety of those men and women he treated. Perhaps this was why there was so little monetary compensation. Still, the accounts never mentioned being asked or coaxed for intercourse. It leaves me furthermore confused, imagining this caricature that perhaps a child would form with crayons and hands of varied textures.
There was also a bit of a mistake on a few of these accounts that would depict the two hands of the physician doing one action while at the same time doing another. It must have been a coincidence, but the frequency of it was so common that I decided to note it.
The actions of the doctor, after his lust was satiated, were always meticulously geared towards the cure. I had been waiting to know his methods, but all I received was more mystery. The patients would cover their eyes, as he instructed, and then hidden by that blackness, he would aloud exclaim what he was doing in phrases like, "I'm rerouting the nerve here," or "I will clean the fracture of the bone." The descriptions seem to indicate a pain-killer that he used, but no anesthesia. This is of course because of the conscious descriptions of the patients feeling the hands of the doctor "moving under my skin," as they often phrased it, which is rather crude for people educated enough to write such letters. They did not use such unsatisfactory language in regards to other things I asked them to talk about, so it was not a matter of low intelligence. So, I was obviously perturbed at the mention of "movement like a flip-page animation" and "cracks in the air" accompanying this self-employed healer.
When the doctor would finish his work, whatever that was, he would abruptly lean close to them, his hot breath of a strong odor passing through their fingers, and they would fall asleep out of a kind of universal exhaustion that followed up with a dream of vast space, where they did not seem to possess any organs at all, like an out-of-body experience. There had always been rumors of an effect like this in reaction to certain drugs, but never before had I come across accounts of such static imaginings of nausea.
When they each awoke, the patients were checked out by professional doctors who found that tumors were missing, kidneys were well, and basically that they had recovered successfully, which was quite a jarring thing for doctors who had no clue how they could be so healthy. They were scanned by X-Ray and studied, but no indication of the healing element was found.
However, that is by no means why the patients that are alive today are bitter in regards to the doctor. While their cures had been found, their symptoms would often recur on some nights, and they became prone to night terrors. Some lost all sexual drive, their last encounter being with this elusive figure, or became addicts, to be blunt with their behavior. A number attempted to kill themselves, but circumstances prevented them from succeeding in such ways that they felt they were intentionally being stopped, and gave up. Sometimes the individuals would even regret being cured, if that is logical to say.
I had one account, translated from braille, that was sent to me in the mail by the brother of a patient of the practice, that seems to indicate regret:
I lost most of my face due to a fungal growth, and the doctor laid hands on me. I still feel the pain of the thing, growing in me as I write this out. Not just on my face...It feels like my entire body is like that, infected. I feel as if I've lost something important. My sleep isn't safe from the fungus. It grows even in my slumber, in the creases of my brain. My waking life is haunted by being blind and unable to speak. My wife loved me for who I was, as I was never an attractive man, and even she has left me. I lack not only her lips, but the lips that touched hers, and that is the worst feeling in the world.
The Doctor had insisted that we keep quiet, but I don't care. If he were a man, he would understand why we must speak. He cared about us, about me, didn't he? I never felt a touch like that, even from a woman. I want to die peacefully, without a lot of trouble.
I tried to contact him after that, but he seemed to have stopped checking his email. That was the last response I ever received from the patients, but sometimes, when I check for their names, I find one in the obituaries or in headlines.
Discord
Light Style