Hypocritical Doctor
“Dr.Vargas, am I going to see my sister again?” a small weakened voice asks. Bending down to the child’s level, I lend a tired smile and say “I sure hope so.”
Arrogance is trotting down the hospital hallways. She has healthy dark hair with beautiful features hidden by a superior position of authority. She walks past her coworkers without a greeting. She walks in and out of surgical rooms checking off the lists of people, like healing is some sort of chore. She is above her emotions. She is above love.
Flashback to her first day at Harvard and she is in a room full of ladder climbers. The words of her Biology professor from sophomore year chime in and ring with the words “there are some things in life that are simply hoops you need to jump through”. It has been three years, and in the midst of all the AP classes, volunteer hours, and family problems, she forgot about her youthful reply to him. “Sometimes the hoops you jump, can be danced or flown through while writing books and learning new things”. She approaches a ladder climber and thoughtfully inquires about its dreams with and underlying intrigue into his mind. Looking into its eyes she see his pupils dart all around the room looking for the next best thing. She can’t help but see that he and the rest are flowerless people. Cold and with roots as thin as a shallow, murky pool.
Flash back to the book The Little Prince being read in french class:
Antoine Van Leiser rings the wise words of his fox “They have not be tamed”. The french word apprivoiser is ringing and the song flows into an echo reminding her of The Little Prince upon the mountains. He is alone and everything he says is repeated. “Hello” he says, and the mountains reply “hellooooooo, hellooooo, heloooooo” vacant of anything new.” She politely dismisses herself and allows the shallow man to pursue great “applauses”.
Back in the hospital:
“There must be something else you can do” squeaked the three year old boy who had grey eyes and pale hair that used to matched his twin brothers. The difference I noticed between them was that the sick one’s eyes were emptier. His hair was gone too, for his cancer was the culprit of his lost faith. I looked at the young, healthy boy and told him “No, there isn’t anything else”. I left the room.
White coats topped with intelligent caps rushed through the hospital walls. Her face and eyes were washed out and she wondered if the white coats could tell or feel the energy of her fallen empire.
Porcelain toilet beneath her and within the cold walls of the hospital bathroom she writes:
Wonder something new my friends. Leave behind whatever is binding you to the earth. Spring into each and every day with the dew of hope, and fall asleep dreaming of the beautiful stars you will greet throughout the moonlit night. I am thirty-three, and I spent thirty-three years carrying starry dreams that terrified me. They weighed me down with their glorious light and essence. Mornings were times where I did not want to wake up because the weight of my dreams exhausted me, and left me terrified. Dreams should scare you, but in a way that is terrifyingly beautiful, daunting while making you dance with joy because you believe that they are possible. When I stopped believing that they were possible I went to sleep with nightmares. All I ever wanted in my life was to heal people. In my nightmares I became a heartless hypocrite who helped people as a chore. That was what I was afraid of. I became my fear. Do what you love and do it fearless, that is all my friends.
Signed,
Dr. Vargas
Letter from the author:
I hope you all enjoyed the story. Sometimes when I close my eyes of listen closely, I hear the chiming future and it is in the form of another story. I work today to bind all my stories closely within the walls of one book, but for now enjoy my published journal with detailed insight into the person I carry.
Best,
Sara Vargas