They warned me the worst part about going to the existential doctor is they make you sit in the waiting room for like ten hours. I was quite bothered by the chairs in the waiting room all facing towards the walls, but after enough time, I kind of grew to like it. Even the continuing sound of the admissions boy popping his gum went from an annoyance to a sort of meditation, like some quirky post-modern singing bowl.
Maybe eight hours in, my mind was now wandering like a cat that had spent its whole life inside and had been let out for the first time. I had the space to go wherever I wanted, and some part of me wanted nothing more than to wander right back into the safe, warm house I’d strategically always allowed my mind to stay in. The other part of me knew that house would no longer serve my mind. My thoughts were all over the map, sometimes wandering to the cold North of my father’s whiskey glass, and other times to the far east of my dreams that have yet to come to be.
I’d been trying to get in to see Doctor Yes for a good six months now, which I guess is to be expected considering he works pro-bono. I could see the ads for the Yes Clinic in my mind’s eye still – big billboards all over the city stating simply “We Want Your Time, Not Your Money – The Yes Clinic”.
I was somewhat awakened from my dreary state when I heard the door open and footsteps approach the desk.
“Name and date of birth?” I heard the distant voice of the admissions boy ask.
“Muhammed Hafez. April 15, 1315,” he replied.
“Oh, Tax Day,” said the boy, “Grab a seat, Mr. Hafez, the doctor will be with you sooner or later.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Hafez, grabbing a seat beside me, choosing a seat facing the wall with a window view. The amber sunlight pushed through the window and hit his face. Staring out at the world through the other side, I saw the man’s face light up in a joy, an ecstatic joy.
“The mountains,” he said, a silence following.
“Are you talking to me?” I asked.
“Have you seen them? These mountains are so beautiful.”
“Yes, they’re really lovely.”
“They are God, and so am I, and so are you,” he said to me, and I didn’t really know what to say after that.
I heard a door open on the far side of the clinic as a voice called out –
“Last name Marino.”
I grabbed my coat and headed back.
“Follow me, sir,” said the assistant, an elderly woman with big eyes made bigger by her large magnifying glasses.
We turned the corner of what I thought was a very small clinic and there I found us walking down a seemingly endless hallway. “Keep up,” said the assistant, walking a bit faster now. A woman passed us the other way, smiling as she walked presumably back towards the main entrance. On the walls of the hallway was a painting of a young boy smiling in a birthday hat as he ate a big bowl of soup, and then nothing again, more long hallway, no doors, no windows, no nothing – and then again – the same young boy smiling in a birthday hat eating his soup.
“How far is this office?” I asked the assistant.
“It’s just around the corner here,” she responded. The painting once again passed us on the walls, and then, the assistant stopped in her tracks.
“You know what,” she said, “I’m so sorry, we passed it.” She turned around. “It’s just right here on the left, Mr. Mariachi.”
The assistant held the door, letting me, then disappeared in an instant.
Looking around the simple room, I set my coat on the single chair, and took a seat on the examination table. Feeling a bit stiff from sitting all day, I cracked my neck, the popping echoing in the small room.
I stared at the blank wall, very sick at this point of staring at walls. The wall was seafoam green. I hadn’t eaten all day, and as I stared, I started to feel a sensation of fizzy, gentle waves climbing up the wall and retracting slowly into the ocean. I could hear their roar and then silence as they returned from where they came from. Over and again, and then over and again. A firm set of three knocks shocked me out of it, as the last wave disappeared again down the wall. The door opened.
“Mr. Martinez, I presume?” Before me stood a doctor of normal stature, a clean-cut haircut, bushy eyebrows and a well-kept but nonetheless profound mustache. He looked like a real any-man. As if he could have just wandered in from off the street, put on a lab coat and stethoscope and called himself a doctor. “I am Doctor Yes, I understand you are going through something?”
“Yes, I am –“
“Well, I guess we’re all going through something, huh? It’s not like anything in this entire, incredibly large universe ever truly sits still.”
“Um, yes, that’s true –“
“Maybe a better thing to say is ‘From what I understand, you are going through an important – no not important – from what I understand you are going through an arduous – oh god, how pretentious. What would you have me ask you?”
“Well, maybe I could just tell you a little bit about where I’m –“
“Yes, that’s great. Why don’t you tell me a little about where you’re at?”
“Okay, thank you. Um, well, I’ve only recently turned thirty and I’m feeling like I’m at a crossroads in my life.”
“Ah, the Sylvia Plath tree.”
“The what?”
“You know, Sylvia Plath, I don’t remember exactly what she says, but she talks about her life being like a tree, and there’s all these different branches, and the branches represent different choices she could make in life – to start a family, to be an author, etcetera. Maybe you should do some research and ask yourself what did Sylvia Plath do?”
“Didn’t she take her own life by putting her head in a gas stove?”
“Were you wanting to kill yourself in a gas stove?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Oh, then perhaps don’t seek advice from Sylvia Plath. Well, tell me this. What don’t you want to do with your life?”
“I mean, there’s a lot of things I don’t want to do.”
“Like what?”
“Um, I dunno, for example, I don’t want to be a farmer?”
“Why?”
“It just doesn’t call to me.”
“Why?”
“It just, it just looks like long hours, and a lot of manual labor, and I’m a people person, I think, so I just don’t think that’s for me.”
“It sounds like being a farmer isn’t for you.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
“So you don’t want to work hard?”
“No, I, that’s not what I’m saying, I wouldn’t mind working hard for the right thing.”
“Why are you so fixated on work?”
“I’m not!”
“Oh, so you’re a Marxist?”
“I’m not a Marxist.”
“Okay, good, so you’re not a Marxist farmer. Are you a fascist industrialist?”
“Look, I’m just bored?”
“With this session?”
“No, not with this session. I’m bored with my life. It feels so comfortable.”
“What makes you uncomfortable?”
I thought about this for a moment.
“Feeling like I’m not in control.”
“Oh yeah, that makes sense. You don’t want to be a Marxist farmer after all. Okay, let me take some vitals on you.”
The doctor took the stethoscope off of his shoulders and put it to his ears.
“If you’ll lift the back of your shirt up, I’d like to listen to your heart.”
I lifted my shirt as he asked.
“Okay, take a deep breath in… and now out… and again…”
The doctor pulled the cold end of the stethoscope away from my skin now.
“Okay, you can put your shirt down.”
“How’s my heart sound?”
“It sounds great to me, but honestly, you should take this,” he said, handing me the stethoscope, “If you’re having an existential crisis, it probably makes more sense for you to listen to your heart.”
He stared at me for a minute, now taking off his lab coat, gesturing for me to put it on.
“In fact, why don’t you let me sit there?” he said to me.
“Okay…” I said to him, putting on the lab coat and stethoscope.
“I’d like for you to be the doctor and I will be the patient.”
“This doesn’t make any sense?”
“You’re in an existential crisis and you’re going to lecture me on what makes sense? You really do have control issues.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.” I said. Standing up. The doctor sat down on the table.
“Okay, now ask me to tell you a little bit about where I’m at.”
“Okay,” I breathe in, “Doctor Yes, why don’t you tell me a little bit about where you’re at?”
“Well, I don’t really know. I don’t know if this was your experience on the way in here, but the hallway is really confusing. I believe I’m in my clinic though.”
“Yeah, and with that, what is with that painting? The boy in the birthday hat eating the soup?”
“I thought he was eating cereal?”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter.” I said.
“Ah, now you made the first mistake of an existential doctor.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You can’t give answers. You can only ask questions.”
“Aren’t you giving me answers right now?”
“I’m the patient now.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“I dunno, you’re the doctor.”
“Oh,” I said, “well, thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Mabasa. It’s been a pleasure and I wish you the best of luck.”
And then he left, and I found myself alone with my stethoscope and my doctor’s responsibilities, staring at the wall once again.
©2020 by Brice Maiurro. All Rights Reserved.