Shroud

Don’t forget to have her check you for… says Odin’s wife.

Yeah, yeah, says Odin, who is going to the dermatologist.

Odin is used to waiting a long time at doctors, so he is a little surprised by the speed at which things transpire this time.

Do you have time to check me for… he asks the doctor after spending less than a single article in an obsolete magazine in the waiting room.

Sure, she says. He gets undressed and she looks him over. A mirror takes him by surprise and he resolves to work out more and eat less.

Nothing he had worried about was anything to worry about, she says, But this here, now. It should go immediately. You want an appointment or shall we do it now?

Um, says Odin. Now, I guess.

Let me show it to you, enlarged on the monitor.

Odin looks at it, feeling like a character in an H.P. Lovecraft story gazing upon an Old One nestled down amidst belly hairs enlarged to two-by-fours.

Yeah, let’s do it now, he says, with increased vigor.

Back onto the table, shave, shot, cookie-cutter, stitch, stitch, bandaid and he’s standing up again looking at the hygienic paper cover the doctor had unrolled over the table before plopping him down. It looks like the Shroud of Turin, a little crumpled, with a sweat stain the size and shape of a medium-to-large man and, down by the feet, a bunch of black fuzz.

Apparently Odin’s socks today are lintier than average.

Or: the Effects of Fear-Induced Perspiration on Lint Adhesion, thinks Odin.

I always thought it was just a mole, thinks Odin. But it was something else. Something… eldritch and ancient.

In this fashion, Odin will go about cheering himself up.

The doctor gives him an an appointment to have the stitches out on April first. Upon hearing the date, tasteless prank after prank begin scrolling through Odin’s brain.

Nothing he could ever really do, but still. He is thankful for the distraction, it keeps him from thinking about the linty, sweaty paper, and about the tiny, ancient thing.

 

 

Earthling gridlock pyramid blossom hypersymbol eyeball eyeball snip

Interim report from

Planetary federation humanoid observation team Gridlock 0-1

On subject: Earthling gridlock pyramid blossom hypersymbol eyeball eyeball snip

Urgency: low

Justification for expending further resources on continued observation: lacking

Situation: Subject is eliminating sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol, tobacco and processed treats from his diet, but keeps forgetting. Had two beers (Stari Brno) with daughters last night. Shared sandwich (white bread) with birds this afternoon (does seem to have achieved success with tobacco, however) following an inspection by dermatologist who was interested not in  his skin but in his subjective evaluation of the success of a skin medication she had subscribed (subject’s evaluation: ‘about 50 or 60 percent’) and in any side-effects such as headaches, depression or suicidal ideation, and whether any of these had been present prior to taking the medication and whether he was under treatment or care for the latter to which he said, no, he wasn’t.

Earthling gridlock pyramid blossom hypersymbol eyeball eyeball snip, during the inspection, ideated a conversation between himself and the skin specialist in which he tried to express the ongoing competition between depression and melancholy for his mind, and how rosacea had tipped the scales to depression, thanks to his intense humanoid vanity, for which reason he had looked up the skin specialist to see if any treatment was available, which it was, ironically with above-mentioned side-effects, together with an entire booklet of other side-effects.

Six of one half dozen of the other, in other words. But subject only ideated this conversation, being unable to actually hold such a discussion in the agitated, anxious state this particular doctor somehow engenders in him.

Subject then returned to his place of employment, ideating a discussion with a clone of himself over whether it was better to concentrate on being a person, or on a man, woman, or whatever else anchors one’s self-image – athlete, worker, clown, whatever. Discussion was inconclusive,  although subject expressed a preference for personhood.

Subject briefly detected PF Observation team camouflaged as parasitic mistletoe in a large elm tree, necessitating deletion of 30 seconds of memory, which caused mild temporal disorientation (‘a sensation of timelessness,’ as subject expressed it in another ideation) but no serious lasting damage.

 

Dazed and confused

That’s my Led Zeppelin song, I took a test. I only took the test because I was hoping for “Immigrant Song”.

Word to the wise? If you’re at all absent-minded, don’t read articles about warning signs of dementia if you’re also prone to hypochondria.

Have a nice week.

P.S. what happened to doctors who like you would go to and ask what you had and they would tell you and give you a prescription that would cure whatever you had and you were done? Because I  have been to three specialists for something dermatological, one of them three times because she is the nicest. The nice one has given me three diagnoses: A, B and Not Sure. The other two gave me one diagnosis each, different from the first one. One of the other two gave me a diagnosis within 30 seconds of entering his examination room, a prescription for something that did not work, and the business card of someone else he does business with. The nice one, to whom I recently returned, gave me a new prescription to go with the “not sure” diagnosis that I discovered upon reading the warning information lists among its side effects causing my original diagnosis in a small number of cases.

This is getting a little too circular for comfort.