DOCTOR: Unfortunately the
prognosis is extremely grave. The cancer is simply far too advanced. I’m afraid
there is nothing modern medicine can do for you. I would only give you months.
You’ve not much time on this planet. I’m sorry.
PATIENT: What! I can’t believe it.
DOCTOR: Oh yes. You’re a goner. You’re
for the chop. You are ascending the 13 steps to the scaffold. You’ve had it. Your
wick is simply at its end. It’s see you latter alligator.
PATIENT: But I’m only 44.
DOCTOR: Yes but you’ve had it…mate.
You’ll be meeting your doom very soon. That’s it. Pretty soon the grim reaper
will come knocking. His shadow is hanging over you as we speak. You won’t
celebrate your 45th birthday.
The patient restlessly removes himself from the chair only to find he
needs to sit down again.
PATIENT: (Sobbing). This really has to be the worst day of my life.
DOCTOR: Yes but each day will get
worse than the day before until one day soon the very worse of all will happen.
You will not get any letup and each day only brings you closer to the last day.
PATIENT: (wiping his eyes). I’m stunned like a mallet.
DOCTOR: You’ll be whacked and
pelted, rolled like flour and squeezed flat by the evil fates. You’ll be flung
like a cat against the wall at the end of a tether. You are the walking dead.
You’ll feel like crows are pecking your eyes and then going for your stomach
alive just like Prometheus.
This will only get worse.
PATIENT: Well what would you
advise?
DOCTOR: My advice would be to soak
yourself in high dosages of morphine. I’ll prescribe enough to knock you
senseless and incoherent. You don’t want
to be able to make sense of your environment mate because your environment will
be a living hell.
PATIENT: My wife…
DOCTOR: …will soon be a widow. Better
start planning your funeral now. Think about how you want to be buried or
cremated, pine or cedar box and all that sort of thing.
PATIENT: I need some time to allow
this to all soak in.
DOCTOR: You haven’t got time mate.
You don’t think that Father Time is going to wait while you get used to your
appointment with the Grim Reaper. The
great forces of the universe aren’t going to wait for a reluctant deathé to
feel comfortable. No sir wee. You’ll just be swept away to your own destiny whether
you’re ready or not. So don’t you ‘I need time’ me mate. You’re a goner. You
have a death sentence. You’re waiting for your number to be called. You’re in
the last reception area. The check out desk. Your final stepping off point. You’re
at the end of the line. Last stop. You’ve run out of road mate. Mate, you’re on
the plank with a sword pointing into your back behind and the infinite abyss in
front. You’re looking down a very deep
well that will be your flight path in the near future. So don’t tell me you
want more time mate for the news to soak in. You aint got it. What are you gona
do when you feel adjusted? Just curl up and die! That’s what! So why do you need
to feel comfortable when the destination is the same? You think passengers
aboard a plunging jet gain one extra second life from getting use to the idea?
The doctor is by now getting quiet excited by his own rant.
PATIENT: (Loudly) Hey what about a bit of sympathy? Where’s your compassion?
Don’t just stand there ranting and raving to the dying guy “To get used to it”.
DOCTOR: So now you want me to be
your social worker holding your hand while you have cry. Well let me tell you
it’s not gona get you any extra time. You think I’m gona give you a pass just
because the sick budgie is going to fall off his perch? If that’s your game
then you can run to one of those dodgy afterlife insurance salesmen in clerical
clothe or buy into some other fairy tale fantasy or go to one of those new agey
charlatans with their channelling and reincarnations. Or maybe a clairvoyant can
pull some sort of bullshit out of thin air. . Whatever! Just don’t go flooding
my surgery with your silly tears. I see a procession of death row inmates like
you every day. You’re nothing special PRINCESS.
PATIENT: What?
DOCTOR: Oh yes you find yourself
alive and think you have some special entitlement not available to the rest of
creation. Like a spoilt brat who can’t have his lolly and eat it too. An entitlement narcissist.
PATIENT: All right! All right! I don’t
want to ask for a miracle but what’s going to happen to me?
DOCTOR: After a very exhausting
and tiring treatment and palliative care everything you cared about, everything
your strove for, everything you achieved would all have been for nothing. In
the end it was all pointless and you, a flash in the pan of geological time
that you are, will be extinguished along with all your hopes and desires. But
hey you came from nothing and you’re going back to nothing. So to quote Monty Python
what have you lost? Nothing! So the good news is that you will come out even from
the whole deal. The great debt collector will have settled your account.
PATIENT: (Exhibiting nervous body language) I am devastated. This has been a
real downer..
DOCTOR: On that point depression
is often a problem for the terminally ill. But never mind. Just think how
insignificant your life was and what an unbelievably short geological speck of
time it occupied. After all every flower soon loses its petals and your flower
is now wilting. If you want counselling I can organise it but the counsellors
often complain that this patient or that patient didn’t make the appointment or
that group sessions are short through non attendance because one member had the
temerity to die the previous day. You’re wasting your time mate if you ask me.
What’s the point of getting use to the bailiffs of the King Death? They’re not
going to change their assignment depending on what sort of therapy you’ve had.
PATIENT: I think I might need some
counselling.
DOCTOR: Well I think you’d be
wasting your time. It’s not as though it’s going to be a long term investment.
No vacancies in any of the grief counselling programs presently. Have to wait
for someone to fall off their twig. I might suggest a local laughing club. Here
is one of their pamphlets explaining origins of laughing clubs in India, the
benefits and their own program complete with contact details. Well that’s about
time for today. Fill these prescriptions and see the receptionist on the way
out. Goodbye.
PATIENT: Goodbye. (Leaves without properly closing the door)
