My End in Sight?

For Reedsy Competition Number 336

Write a story entirely in dialogue (e.g., an argument or a conversation that spirals out of control).

My End in Sight?

GB is visiting his local doctor (Doc.).

Doc: Listen, this may come as a surprise to you but there are signs that you require a colonoscopy. It’s just to be on the safe side.

GB: God, I wish I hadn’t mentioned my haemorrhoids to you.

Doc: Well, you did and I have to take action. At least you don’t have any bleeding, abdominal cramps, irritable bowel syndrome or rectal secretions. Or do you? You’re not holding back on me, are you? Many men do, considering it more manly to deal with ailments themselves privately, and I don’t mean private health cover.

GB: Well, now that you’ve mentioned them, you have pretty well guaranteed I’ll have loads of them soon, given my hypochondriacal susceptibilities.

Doc: We use the term “medical anxiety” now, not the old long word.

GB: Well, live and learn. I like hypochondria, the word I mean.

Doc: It’s probably easier to say medical anxiety.

GB: Yeh right, two words and seven syllables instead of one and five. And I still prefer the feeling of the word hypochondria. From Greek, of course. Something to do with under the breastbone, where the seat of melancholy was located in the old days. Not sure how it came to mean believing you’re sick when you’re not.

Doc: That’s why we use medical anxiety now, no questions about word origins and all that.

GB: OK, back to my rear! I understand full well that you have to leap into action because of the Hippocratic Oath and all that, got to cover all bases and yourself. I hope it’ll be a tube as opposed to a digit.

Doc: Yes, except that the former goes on and on rather than just briefly in.

GB: Yes, but I’ve noticed some longer docs’ digits linger a bit. Actually I’ve got quite used to it, almost enjoyable, apart from the embarrassment involved. You know that a doctor once said to me through the curtains as I prepared for his digit, that women have to go through much worse. I asked if that was supposed to help me. To his credit he laughed, then later held it in for a bit longer than I felt was necessary.

Doc: Well, fingers can feel the texture and size of your prostate. A colonoscopy is different, looking at the lining of your colon, searching for abnormalities, such as ulcers, polyps, tumours, inflammation and bleeding.

GB: What would cause such awful things?

Doc: Well, we prefer to talk of risk factors rather than causes – family history would have to be a big one. Also getting older, one’s diet and lack of exercise. Then there’s bad luck, a virus wreaking havoc.

GB: OK, I know my family history is clean. Looking back it’s all mostly heart trouble. You said diet – I’ve been a vegetarian for over 35 years, so that must help.

Doc: Yes, it probably does, less stress in digestion and less nasty stuff in the colon. It’s also the benefits of more fibre and green goodies. And you’ve probably limited processed food. Further, since you’re interested in being healthy, probably not much alcohol.

GB: Well, I wouldn’t describe it quite like that, a good few glasses of wine a day.

Doc: Well, how many is a few?

GB: Quite a few, joie de vivre and all that. I really enjoy a glass or three with food.

Doc: So do I, nothing wrong with that if you eat well and enjoy life. Now back to looking into your bum with the colonoscopy I’m recommending. I’ve made a booking for you at the hospital for Friday. Here’s a script, take it with you and ask for the gastro-enterologist. They’ll do it quickly.

GB: Thanks doc, I’m on my way.

•••••••••••

At the hospital.

Doctor: Next please!

GB: Hello! I’m here for a routine screening of my colon, as advised by my GP.

Dr: Very good! Nurse, get him ready, please.

(A few minutes later, wearing a light dressing gown, GB is prostrate on an operating table.)

GB: I didn’t expect a woman doctor.

Dr: I’m a gastro-enterologist and you have the delightful distinction of being my 250th patient for screening.

GB: Why delightful?

Dr: Well, it’s a fair number but I doubt if you care.

GB: Great! The more the better. I’d be worried if you told me I was your first.

Dr: Funny I can’t recall my first. Maybe so nervous I’ve wiped it … the memory I mean. It’s more to do with the number of successful ones.

GB: Successful? That’s ambiguous. Is that found something or not?

Dr: No, it’s without harming the patient. It’s easy to perforate the bowel lining with the scope.

GB: Gawd! How many perforations have you had.

Dr: Only one, I’m pleased to say.

GB: Well, so long as he didn’t die! How long will this investigation take?

Dr: Twelve minutes thereabouts.

GB: Twelve minutes talking to you!

Dr: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch.

GB: Twelve minutes … for a good view!

Dr: Oh, yes, it all gets recorded on computer for checking again later if needs be.

GB: Gawd! My internals on a screen and you looking at them again, never mind once. Can’t you do it first time, no need for action replay?

Dr: Well, it’s useful if we need to check some abnormality. I mean have a second look to ensure we haven’t missed anything.

GB: I’m glad you reworded there, doc. Wouldn’t want me ill before you’ve even started to slip the tube in.

Doc: All right, turn over on your left side please, legs up under you, make your arms comfortable. You’ll be like this for over 10 minutes, and we’ll just prepare you for the insertion.

GB: Anything interesting to talk about during this indignity?

Doc: You used to be a teacher, is that right?

GB: Yes, 34 years at the chalk face. Well, latterly not much chalk, so I should say the felt pen face, much cleaner and easier. At times I missed the sound of the chalk though.

Doc: What kind of school was it?

GB: Oh, I started teaching at a high school, a new school only a few years old. It was great, a young progressive principal with advanced ideas and non-streamed classes, so the teaching was quite demanding trying to ensure that all the levels of students understood everything.

Doc: Well, I don’t really believe in that. I’m a public school, private school fan,

a system that served me very well I must say, turned out loads of successful types like me, easy as. Quality intake of students, of course.

GB: Yes, the last time I looked at education the state system manages to do similar, turning out doctors and other professionals.

Doc: All right, I’m about to insert and slip in the tube now.

GB: Please show me the tube. I need to see what’s going inside me.

(Doc shows him the tube.) Good lord! It must be more than a metre long. Do you stick all of it in?

Doc: Yes, it goes in and around all over the place.

GB: So you could say rather a lengthy procedure?

Doc: Very good! Now you’ll feel just a little sensation, please try not to emit fletus.

GB: Excuse me!

Doc: Don’t let out any air.

GB: Is that why you’re wearing a mask?

Doc: Could be … a dual function.

GB: Japanese people wear masks when they have colds or flu. I think it’s to indicate that they’ve got something and don’t want to pass it on. Such polite and considerate people, the Japanese. I suppose the same could be said of you, too.

Doc: Mainly it’s a professional requirement. I would remind you, please no airy expulsions or emitting of smelly air.

GB: Yes, I understood the first time, no letting flee with a fart. I was questioning your saying that, why on earth would I break wind? Does the tube trigger it or something?

Doc: No, it’s just something we say … small talk under the circumstances.

GB: So you could have said something else?

Doc: Yes, I could have said, “Please don’t twitch your sphinkter.”

GB: But that’s almost an unconscious act, especially if a tube gets inserted.

Doc: Can we move on now? Music please, nurse.

(Out of the corner of his eye, GB could see her select a CD with the hand-written title “Hits of the Sixties”.)

You were saying you’re a fan of the state education system.

GB: Yes, it’s the natural way, the way to ensure that everyone gets a good education as well as being socialised all together. Many of the private schools are single sex, totally unnatural.

(Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” started playing.)

GB smiled inwardly at the irony. Could have been worse, he thought, like “My Way” or “I Want to Hold your Hand”.)

Doc: Well, I went to a girls’ school; it was great because we had a boys’ school nearby and we’d join up for all kinds of things like school plays, concerts and other events.

GB: I can’t imagine anything worse than a class of only girls. Well, I can, it would be a class full of boys. Terrible!

Doc: I enjoyed my school and classes of all girls. I think we got a better education and better teachers because of it.

GB: Excuse me, doctor, are you trying to get up my nose on purpose?

Doc: No, not your nose!

GB: Touché! Is your contrariness part of the procedure? Are you really saying that private schools have better teachers, give a fuller education?

Doc: Yes, mostly female, very dedicated, I enjoyed their teaching.

GB: Well, they probably went to private schools and returned to teach there. Doesn’t mean that private schools have better teachers, not by a long chalk … so to speak.

Doc: But they must be better – the pay, the system, the students are all better.

(By chance the Kinks had started with: “You Really Got Me.”

GB: I hope the lines in that song don’t refer to you, Doc.

Doc: Nurse selected all the songs carefully herself. I think they have a certain je ne sais quoi.

GB: Yes, indeed. You’ll be saying next that state schools are rough, they just get the dregs of society, they don’t do any good. I think it’s almost criminal that a school system can cream off their best and stream them all together. Did you know that some of those private schools, especially the integrated religious schools, charge boarding fees to all their students even though they’re living at home?

Doc: So they get more money. Little wonder they can do a better job of educating if they get more money.

GB: But why on earth should they get more money? Why do they exist in the first place? … Ouch!

Doc: Sorry about that, I got a fright.

GB: Why do they exist? They should be banned.

Doc: Well, one good reason is people who really care about their children’s education want the very best that money can buy.

GB: But I’m not at all sure of your assumption that private schooling is the best. There is a heap of factors to take into account, such as socialisation, choice of subjects, a broader more interesting environment, a greater range of teachers and teaching, a more rounded education. Such is what a state education provides naturally.

Doc: I think the private system answers the needs of some parents as a democratic right, be it secular private or religious private. What kind of school did you go to?

GB: Oh, that’s a bit sensitive!

Doc: Sorry, my hand slipped.

(Johnny Cash was now singing “The Ring of Fire”.)

GB: No, no, not your deft dexterity with the tube, I was referring to your question.

Doc: Can’t help your past, a long time ago now. Are you implying that you went to a private institution?

GB: No, no, but I suppose it was somewhat similar without all the boarding trappings. All right, I was from a different era, a fiercely streamed time of passing exams at the age of 11 to be sent to one of three types of school: a top grammar-style school or a high school or a technical school.

Doc: So you had the benefits of almost a private kind of schooling.

GB: There you go again, a gross assumption that private is better.

Doc: Well, we tend to be true to our experience.

GB: I have a couple of good friends who went to seriously private schools, non-religious to boot, and they are now very much against that kind of system, seeing it as over-privileged and creaming off the best. State schools have the great benefit of serving a local community, often sharing their facilities with everyone around.

Doc: Private schools do a great job of providing the kind of education that many parents want.

GB: It’s serving an elite, increasing an elite, creating an unnecessary elite. We should not encourage that in New Zealand where everyone likes to feel they’re as good as everyone else, at least that’s the worthy aspiration.

Doc: Well, it’s my firm belief that we should get rid of the comprehensive system of education, everyone treated the same as if everyone was born with the same intelligence, the same upbringing, the same chances – utter nonsense! It’s against nature.

GB: Ah, so we’re to be compared to the abundance and cruelty of nature, are we? We humans who have the power of thought and the ability to help our fellow man.

Doc: Very good, thank you. I’m enjoying this.

GB: Well, I can’t say that I am.

Doc: No, no, I mean the conversation.

GB: It is surely possible for people and governments to create conditions and systems where an education is provided for everyone, an equal education, free of elitism.

Doc: Yes, but many of our professionals and powerful business leaders come from private schools. You wouldn’t want to take that away from a country, would you?

GB: They could still come from the state system, and indeed they do very successfully because they go to state schools, learning very well there. Imagine if all our children from whatever background, including all the privileged ones, went to state schools – they’d raise the quality of the school, be examples for others, generally improve everything, especially with all the extra dosh coming in!

Doc: You’ll be saying everyone should be out of uniform next, that everyone should be in mufti, wear what they like, no recognition of their school, no identification, no pride, no uniformity, no style …

GB: Are you winding me up?

Doc: No, just keeping your mind occupied while I probe. People are unequal from birth. I’m not sure that even the might of government could impose public education on everyone.

GB: It’s fine for you to say that from your superior and privileged vantage point. It suits you, doesn’t it? I would have thought you would have wanted conditions to give more people the chance of improvement. I’ll bet all the bums you see are equal!

Doc: I’ll take it you mean literal posteriors.

GB: Yes, of course.

Doc: Now I’d like you to try to look at the screen, so I can refer to stuff.

GB: No way! I’ve lived over 70 years without seeing my innards. I won’t be starting now!

Doc: OK, I’m not surprised a state school goer would be so fearful! (Her scrutiny continues a couple of minutes. She decides to get somewhat inventive.) Oh, that’s interesting!

GB: You mean I said something interesting?

Doc: No, no, I am referring to the thing on your bowel on the screen. It’s been hiding away there in a wrinkly fold. Oh, let me take a closer look!

GB: Yes, you do that. I don’t have much time for machines telling me terrible news. Better to live in ignorance.

Doc: Oh, dearie me, we’ll have to do something about that. Any idea how long you think you’ve had it?

GB: Had what, pray tell. I have a sense that you’re trying to put the wind up me with imagined afflictions because of my contrary views on education. (His voice is getting weaker.)

Doc: No, no, that would be unprofessional.

GB: Oh, would it, says you? Oh,

Doc: Yes, I’ll need a couple of minutes to examine this shadow on your colon. Actually, I can say now there’s something unusual here.

GB: What are you saying? (In a very quiet voice.)

Doc: It could well be some kind of growth at the rear end of your colon, and it’ll require further investigation, certainly a second opinion.

GB: Another gastro-enterologist ..... ? (Weak voice tailing off.)

Doc: Actually, it looks as if you’ll need an operation at the earliest opportunity. We could book you in later this week, as an urgent case.

GB: (Silence. He has passed out.) (2,890 words)