desert, quasi-desperation

Karakum desert, Turkmenistan, circa when the Soviet had no great hold.  A Lada Zhiguli rests with some contempt along what anyone could pass as the shoulder of the road. The hood is up, the driver and two passengers are pittering around in various degrees of nonbelief.

DRIVER: As God is my witness, I had this engine checked just weeks ago—I swear!

VIP: You swear too much to meaningfully swear to God. I don’t care what ‘weeks ago’ might do for you, but weeks from now, your driving days are done.

DRIVER: Please, Madame, just give this a bit of patience, as I know you’re on that side of progress here.

VIP: What is that supposed to mean? There are no ‘sides’ in our Watan—the Turkmen stand as one!

DRIVER: Of course, no doubt. And we will get to Ashgabat in time for—

VIP (leaning into him): —Do you really know for what? Do you know what you are driving for, and I don’t just mean ‘for whom’?

DRIVER (lifting greasy hands):  I do, I… really don’t know why you’d…

DOCTOR: I don’t know the ins and outs of automobiles, but I do know a thing or two about how valved and value systems work. I think your efforts are unwieldy, on first look.

DRIVER: Unwieldy? Have you ever driven one of these?

DOCTOR: It’s not for me to drive. I’ve always trusted those who have to turn their trust on me someday.

VIP: Cut the crap—the day is going to fade and you two won’t be paid unless this mess is fixed, one way or—

DRIVER: I’ve got it! Doctor, please undo your belt.

DOCTOR: Excuse me? I don’t—

DRIVER: —Mine is just too thick, and Madame’s, well, is not an option here—

VIP (akimbo): You’re calling me unfit?

DRIVER: I’m simply saying: I need the doctor’s belt.

DOCTOR: Well, I’ve… never—

VIP: Give him what he needs. That’s in your Hippocratic Oath, let alone what had been Soviet…

DOCTOR: Um, I gather that you might mean—

DRIVER: The alternator’s out. Been slipping since we left  and now needs something imaginative to deal with it.

VIP: To deal with it?

DRIVER: To keep the engine charged.

DOCTOR: You mean the battery? We can flag down any truck to jumper-cable us…

DRIVER: I mean the engine. The distributor cap. The way the pistons get their spark—you said, dear doctor, you understood the way that valve and value systems work, so—

DOCTOR: I am s’posed to give my trousers belt to you?

VIP: To us, it seems—we’re all dependent on your belt.

DRIVER (looking in, then shrugging out): I could give you the replacement belt, as it might befit your waist—

DOCTOR (aggressively unloosening): This will be enough! I don’t need another belt.

DRIVER (accepting, as it comes): Thanks, good doctor. I may have to monkey with the buckle, if you don’t mind.

VIP: Of course, he doesn’t mind. I’m feeling rather flushed in this heat, by the way.

DOCTOR: Then get inside, Madame—we have a jug of water, and—

VIP: I won’t be interred inside a Zhiguli.

DOCTOR (guiding her into the back seat, and closing the door): Of course you won’t—we wouldn’t…

DRIVER: Let’s not get our hopes too worked up—

DOCTOR: What is that supposed to mean?

DRIVER (grunting with the ad hoc fit): I… mean… we are all… supposed to… deal with what our circumstances dealt us.

DOCTOR: Meaning? That sounds like Orwell’s doublespeak.

DRIVER: Orwell? You assume I’d know that—

DOCTOR: More than I’d assume. You are here to make a moment happen; I am here to stave off fear. The belt you’ve put into the engine—

DRIVER (pointing): —just the alternator, sir—

DOCTOR (nodding, with irritation): —onto the alternator, then, only one piece to a million jigsaws not yet cut, if you fathom that analogy…

DRIVER: I happen to have graduated, MGU, in systems management—

VIP (from the unrolled window): Hey, I get that you men have it all in hand, but in the name of all things Turkmen, get the damn thing going!

DRIVER (popping out from beneath the hood): Of course, Madame, of course—

DOCTOR (foreheading into the smoking engine): Do you know, really what you’re doing here?

DRIVER: Are you asking me in earnest? Have I not been driving the likes-of-you for decades now on end?

DOCTOR: I’m not looking for historical purview. I question only what is here and now. The engine’s dead. The madame waits. My belt is in your hands. You said you’d deal with it, and now you’ve got to deal…

VIP (from within): I think you’re talking more than making work! Stop the claptrap and make this bucket o’ bolts drive!

DRIVER (softly): I think she’s not inaccurate, Doctor.

DOCTOR: You think! You’re the driver—

DRIVER (softly, still): Physician, heal thyself.

The DOCTOR steps away, seething and beside himself. He hesitates once and twice before slamming the Lada’s hood upon the DRIVER, within the alligator’s jaws. The VIP jumps out from the back seat and clutches her ears before charging to the DOCTOR and clutching his.

VIP: Do you realize what you’ve just done? You knucklehead! Now we’re stranded here for—

DOCTOR (grabbing at his trousers, falling down): —Your Honor, I only meant to spur him on—knock some sense into him! He’s using my belt, for goodness’ sake! I mean, for Turkmens’ sake…

VIP (viewing him head to toe): You don’t know apples from Adam, do you, Doctor?

DOCTOR: I beg your pardon?

VIP: Get into the back seat, will you?

DOCTOR: Um, you mean… to…

VIP (lighting a cigarette, flicking fingers for DOCTOR to comply): I don’t mean to, I just have to.

DOCTOR (from within): Have to? Have to… what?

The VIP gently raises the hood of the Zhiguli and pulls the dipstick. She inhales to glow her cigarette and adroitly places it into DRIVER’s mouth. Explosion as she walks away.

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)

no, not now

There was no uptick in the questioner:

When did you come of age?

When? not why? or where, or how, with whom?

No apparent interest in italics.

Just when.

I get off track, you know. These things kinda…

Silence settles in one cavity, then the other.

Take your time.

When. Well, the standard answer would be…

Now the silence puts its elbows on its knees.

            Just yours.

Mine. As if I owned my self-actualization. Ha!

Bless the beauty of a tumbleweed:

Don’t you?

Own, like anything? All atoms are conserved—

Not untrue, if also not the point this afternoon.

That’s true.

And so, nothing is of mine to say it’s mine. Kapish?

Miles to go, and promises to keep.

Go on.

Don’t want to, really. One might say I blew that wad.

Nod no understanding:

What wad?

My self. Actualized. Owned. Atomic.

Eliot pinned it with that scuttling crab.

Blow on.

Here. There. Everywhere. Was that song John’s or Paul’s?

Note the need to grab at straws,

Paul’s.

The walrus, y’think? Pretty damn sure?

Back to the question, agenda or no:

When did you come of age?

No time like the present: I think it was now.

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)

 

 

Clinic Skeleton

DOC: How’re we doing today?

PAT: We, like you and me?

DOC: I’m fine, thanks; just a way of—

PAT: We’re fine, Doc, you and me.

DOC: That’s good. It’s important to be, well,

PAT: So I’m well, you’re saying, tests and all. That’s really great, because—

DOC: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

PAT: What’s that s’posed to mean?

DOC: You know that expression, ‘forest for the trees’?

PAT: No, not really.

DOC: Well, a doctor’s job—and yours, too, when it comes down to it, is—

PAT: I’m a welder, by the way. Union certified.

DOC: Hmm. Join things by melting, yes?

PAT: By ‘smelting’, we like to say. Steel and copper alloys for your ‘things’.

DOC: So, to change my analogy, you can appreciate, then, the ‘bridge for the rivets’.

PAT: I’m kinda more under kitchen sinks, if you know what I mean.

DOC: A plumber, then?

PAT: A welder.

DOC: Yes, well, you know how things work. The body is quite intricate, tubes and valves and—

PAT: Are you comparing me to a kitchen sink?

DOC: You brought that up, actually. But with a little imagination, why not?

PAT: Fair enough. I’m that, then.

DOC: Are you interested in the details?

PAT: Of?

DOC: Of your condition.

PAT: Depending what it is.

DOC: Listen, Pat, this isn’t going to be easy.

PAT: What’s that s’posed to mean?

DOC: Exactly what I said: “not going to be easy.”

PAT: You said “isn’t”.

DOC: Correct. Is not.

PAT: What isn’t?

DOC: Your life, including new limitations.

PAT: Like what?

DOC: Like giving up smoking, for one.

PAT: Booze, for two?

DOC: First things first. You have stage 3 cancer, Pat, starting in the lungs.

PAT: And?

DOC: And that’s not good. This type tends to find the lymph system soon.

PAT: And that’s when I’d have to give up booze. Down the drain, like a kitchen sink.

DOC: Is the greater reality sinking in?

PAT: Are you trying to be funny?

DOC: The opposite. I feel more concerned than you appear right now.

PAT: I feel fine, actually.

DOC: Physically? The pain kicks in at stage 4.

PAT: I rolled the better number, then.

DOC: But mentally? How are you, um,

PAT: How am I understanding things?

DOC: Yeah, how?

PAT: Like you said, the pipes need tightening. Which reminds…

DOC: Wait, what are you doing?

PAT: I don’t think you checked me enough.

DOC: But that doesn’t mean—

PAT: But this is the way it’s been done since—

DOC: Nurse, um, would you mind coming in?

PAT: Why would the nurse need to come?

DOC: Why wouldn’t, you mean.

PAT: No, that’s not what I said. Why—

NURSE: Yes?

PAT: He-l-lo!

NURSE: Huh?

DOC: Exactly. Assuming a bit much, I’d say.

NURSE: Emphasis on ‘a bit’!

PAT: What’s that s’posed to mean?

DOC: This wing is oncology; this office specializes in the respiratory system.

PAT: And lymph, right?

DOC: Awareness of—that’s always what oncologists do.

NURSE: You can get your clothes back on. Or—

PAT: Or?

NURSE: Or, Doctor, shall I bring a robe?

DOC: We’re not that far yet, only having—

PAT: We? Like all of us are stage 3?

NURSE: Is there something here I’m missing? April First, or—

PAT: There’s that ‘or’ again. You’re a mine o’ mystery!

DOC: No joking matter, Pat: you are facing a radical change these upcoming months.

PAT: Or?

DOC: Lymph, liver, brain to follow lungs.

NURSE: Stage 3’s for catching these.

PAT: That’s why you need to check me.

DOC: In due time, in due time.

NURSE: So what should I prep?

DOC: Nothing yet—got to go through the paperwork.

PAT: The paperwork! That’s what you have in your hands already.

DOC: These are your MRI results, Pat. They needed their own paperwork, remember?

PAT: Paperwork for paperwork. Thought you docs and nurses were in this for the action.

NURSE: What’s that s’posed to mean?

PAT: Hey, now you’re speakin’ my language.

DOC: Pat, let me ask you a question.

PAT: Shoot.

DOC: Do you presently have a significant other in your life?

PAT: You’ll have to ask the nurse.

NURSE: Huh?

PAT: Can’t stop the feeling, can we?

NURSE: We can’t. No, can. Won’t!

PAT: See? Got you discombobulated, baby.

DOC: I think we need to get that robe, after all.

PAT: We again—oh, goody!

DOC: It’s really about you, Pat. You need help right now.

PAT: Don’t we all!

DOC: Healing—that may begin with a little cooperation.

PAT: Ever heard that saying, ‘physician, heal thyself’?

DOC: Sure, but—

PAT: Think it works?

DOC: If I had stage 3 cancer, I’d seek out other doctors.

PAT: So it doesn’t work.

DOC: What?

PAT: Self-healing.

DOC: As I said, you’re going to have to cooperate. For now—

PAT: We’re gonna have to—

DOC: For now, take a breather. Let the system function, paperwork and all. Good?

NURSE: Robe is ready, Doctor.

DOC: Can we secure a suitable room?

NURSE: Fourth Floor, I think.

DOC: You got it. Pat, you coming? Pat? Pat?

NURSE: My God!

DOC: Fainted? or faking it?

NURSE: Maybe both.

DOC: What’s that s’posed to mean?

Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)