Chapter 9: Mango Dissection and Brain Waves with trishalavardhan

The Doctor Is Sick

"Good Evening."

"Good Evening, Doctor. We are ready, whenever you are." The Nurse gently brushes the back of her hand across the instruments as if playing wind chimes.  "We have everything, as per your request, although we did in run into one minor setback concerning instrument number Five. For that, we have adjusted and made the appropriate substitute." She hold up a small suction cup revealing it's transparency under the light of the lamp. 

"That'll have do; I suppose." The Nurse places instrument One in the Doctor's hand.

"She's awake but heavily sedated, so I'll be talking to her as we go through the procedure. So she knows we're still here with her."

"Keep an eye on the EKG monitor to see the brain activity of her responses, so we know she is with us."  The Doctor begins making the first incision down and through the blue line drawn onto the fleshy canvas of his patient.

 Question 1 : Who is your favorite ? 

author- musician- director/actor- artist-person of historic significance-

1) Favorite author- Wow, this is a tough question, I don't think I'd ever be able to pick a single one, so I'll talk about a couple of them, I guess. I've always had a special attachment to the authors I'd read while growing up (though I'm still in my teens!)-- I remember reading about the adventures of a redheaded little spitfire by the name of Anne Of Green Gables struggling to find her voice amidst her own unsurety and insecurity and finding my own reflection in the pages-- so I'd have to say Lucy Maude Montgomery is definitely one of the authors I dearly love. Her characters, while old-fashioned have a way of resonating with you, so I'm very fond of her works.

 I've always been a lover of classics, and none more so than of A Tale Of Two Cities and Great Expectations--- whether it's the tale of a dissipated Sydney Carton's only redemption proving to be his love for Lucie Manette, or how a very different type of love for the enigmatic Estella consumes Pip, both these stories have been truly beautiful pieces of work. Charles Dickens' books have a wealth of life and love enclosed within its pages, and there are some lines that have stayed with me throughout the years after I read them- "You have been the very last dream of my soul, "You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire," "Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you."
I also dearly love Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald.

Amongst modern writers, Cassandra Clare is undoubtedly my favorite--- her characters are larger than life, half- angels, warlocks and demons, and yet you can connect and identify with them perfectly because they are rendered so beautifully imperfect, so vulnerably human and flawed, that its impossible not to love them. They're bruised and battered and a little weak, but they try anyway. As she says: "Heroes aren't always the ones who win. They're the ones who lose sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes."

ii) Favorite Musicians- It occurs to me that I'm a little old-fashioned, so this answer shouldn't surprise you, my favorite musicians/composers would be Bach, Debussy and Chopin-- Clair de Lune and Nocturne Op. 9 are two compositions that I'm particularly fond of, I find them really soothing!
With regards to contemporary composers, I find Ludovico Einaudi's work to be particularly beautiful. :)

iii) I really have a lot of favorite actors-- Hillary Swank, James Spader, Jensen Ackles, to name just a few, but as far as impact goes I believe Meryl Streep packs a lot of it! She's played such a variety of roles with so much finesse, it's impossible not to love her.
As for directors, I love Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Tim Burton.

iv) Favorite Artist-- It's always heartening for me to see singers who market themselves solely on the basis of their voice, something that's really rare these days, and that's exactly what Adele does. She has a beautiful voice and I just love her!

v) Person Of Historic Significance- Undoubtedly Maya Angelou-- she's a magnificent woman and such a gem of a person, and I adore her poetry and her books to bits. She has so much spirit, and confidence, and beauty-- I think she's admirable.

The Doctor places the cutting tool back amongst it sharp friends, and looks to the Nurse with a nod of approval. She reaches over holding a clear breathing mask, which she appropriately holds over the Doctors mouth and nose, as if right on cue. He inhales a mysterious odorless gas.

"Next tool please," his voice a little more languid and at ease. The instrument is placed into his cutting hand like a painters brush.

He cuts the next line. 

"Suction please, Nurse." She places instrument Five over the separated skin, attempting to draw away blood; with very little success.

"We need the device I asked for," his voice now tense and muffled through the fabric covering his mouth.

"But Doctor, this is the one and only thing available to us," holding the useless device.

"Give it back," he grabs the instrument angrily, "You fools couldn't lance a freckle with a vibrating scalpel. All the skill has gone out of surgery. All the know how and make do."

He rushes to the sink in the corner of the room, talking out loud to the patient. The Nurse watches the monitor for activity of a response.

 Question 2 :   What is your favorite word?   

Favorite Words-- There are certain things and feelings that occasionally English cannot put into words nor properly express, and as a speaker of more than a few languages, I understand this sentiment rather well. 

So my favorite word is Japanese, pronounced "mono no aware" (aah-waah-re). Literally, it means the bittersweetness of fading beauty-- the recognition that even as you enjoy a moment, it will never last-- the gentle melancholic acceptance of the inevitable transience of life.

Much of my life has been a very bitter struggle, fighting to hold on to things and people that eventually slipped out of my fingers, regardless of whether I wanted them to or no. I have now come to a stage where I can appreciate the beauty of relationships and moments in life precisely because I know they will not last forever, so this word has and always will hold a special place in my heart.

 I also adore the French phrase 'tu me manques' -- it literally translates to "you are missing from me", and I just love the wording of that so much because it manages to convey so much-- it gives you the sense that the person you miss was a vital part of you, and there's an empty hollow in the space they used to occupy-- a hollow space, and that is the exact feeling you have when you miss someone or something you dearly loved. Just think of that as you say it: 'you are missing from me.' Makes 'I miss you' sound a little insignificant, right?  

 The Doctor swirls the suction cup around in the dirty sink, and upon noticing a smear of collagen on the plastic, pulls down his mask to spit on the spot, rubbing the device between his two finger to remove the smudge. The water tap drips away one drop at time, like the second hand of a clock.

The Nurses make a ghastly face; gasping with disdain and disgust. He returns back to the operating table, the patients vitals still active.

Pushing the cup onto the incision, pressing down then up, repeating like a plunger, he releases the abscess. Finally, the septic ooze of the infection is drawn out.

"See how it's done?" He tosses the cup over his shoulder, flopping it onto the dusty, dirty floor. "Leave it there, I might need it again."

He starts grabbing the instruments himself,  the Nurse and her orderlies now become innocent bystanders to his deranged procedures.

One Nurse steps in by speaking up and asks, to the patient,

Question 3 : When you did you learn so many languages ? and, do you think of the ways your words might translate into other languages when you write ?

  On The Intricacies Of Language-- How I learnt so many languages? A lot of free time and curiosity, mostly, haha. When I was in high school, I took up basic French. My school also offers an exchange program in which students go and live in a foreign school for about 3-5 months, so I got sent to Germany for the same where I picked up a fair bit of German. (side note- the school looks like Hogwarts, is a renovated castle, and I dearly, dearly love it.)

In college currently I am taking a course in advanced French. I'm also a huge huge anime nerd, which is where I first discovered my love for the Japanese language. I initially taught myself from watching subbed videos and linking translations to words, then later on online courses, and a lot of self-help books. To conclude, I can speak Japanese well enough, read a bit of it, but cannot write since their script is right to left, instead of the English left to right, and it is a bit confusing. XD
Currently I'm trying my hand at learning Korean, the language fascinates me! 

To answer the second part of your question, I can really give no other response than to say my brain is chaotic, funny as that sounds. Most of the time, I think in English, when I'm particularly enraged I tend to curse in Japanese (they really have some amazing swears). Honestly it is the times when I am trying to convey a certain raw, emotive, very visceral sort of message with my writing that I start thinking of words from and in other languages-- as I stated before, there are certain feelings and words that English sometimes fails to express. For example. "komorebi" is Japanese for 'sunlight filtering through the trees, the dance between the light and the leaves of the tree as the sunshine passes through'. Or even "kintsugi/kintsukoroi"-- 'it's a Japanese practice of inlaying the shattered and broken parts of pottery with gold and silver, in homage and recognition of the fact that something is made all the more beautiful for having been broken.' Boggles the brain, doesn't it? 

The monitor reveals her thoughtful silence.

"Mustn't we take better care of this patient, Doctor?" 

"I ask the questions around here." The doctor pushes the gas mask over his now exposed face; concern for germs clearing nonexistent. Inhaling, he holds his breath for brief moment, then exhaling, he lets out a yawn of relief, as if waking from a fresh slumber.

"And, if you must know, this patient is not so ordinary; she has been accused of," his voice fades off as he thinks to himself, 'accused of the crimes I have commited'. Now fading back, "My job here, is to learn more. But, because we don't have the damn right instruments around here I must improvise." His aggrevation turns back to calm.

"Isn't that right my precious?" the Doctor strokes back the hair from her face, as if trying to convince her.

He makes another incision on the top her scalp, exposing cranial bone. Immediately, he grabs the table saw and cuts through the top layer of skull, the smell of burnt calcium wafting up; revealing the thin membrane that now seperated air and brains. He pulls away it with by pinching with both hands and rips it open. He refrains from using his teeth.

 Question 4 : Where do you go to relax and think ? 

 During the day, when I want to unwind and think clearly I like to visit this adorable library called Browser: it has books of all and any kinds, smells of coffee and freshly printed books 24/7, is delightfully silent and peaceful, and best of all has huge fluffy beanbags that I can curl into and think/read away as much as I want. 

When its nighttime and I can't run off to said library, (this is going to sound sort of weird, lol) I climb a very strong, sturdy mango tree planted in my garden, settle myself onto a suitable branch and look at the stars and think.

 "You see Nurse, this is what I call 'the one got away'. Now though, by a strange twist of fate, she has returned to me and, by doing so, I must help her to remember me not. To forget that the Killer was me and remind her of things she has not done." He give an inadmissable confession. 

The Nurse, along with all her cohorts, all seem to give the Spock eyebrow raise.

"As for all you ladies in white," he points the scalpel at them like a flashlight in the dark, "Well, I hope you brought a clean change of clothes, so I can redress you after I am done." He grins, thinking of them laid out on the operating table next, then proceeds to probe and scrape.

Their eyes motion toward the door of the operating room.

The key to the lock, hidden within the patient, had been sewn in and out of sight long before her arrival; thus the true reason she had been admitted here in the first place; the curious pain left behind by his own hand. He had been expecting her arrival ever since that first meeting;  when she had walked in, catching him in the act of performing the very same deed on an another victim; of sewing keys into people.

The Nurse stands fast, knocking over the instruments, scattering them across the floor in a sound that delights the Doctor. An orchestrated ting of sharp metallic tools dancing atop the hard linoleum.

He presses his face to the patients brain and kisses the softness.

Question 5 : Why do you write ?   Why is writing important to you ?

 Writing is a sort of catharsis for me--- a lot of my life has been spent hiding away and suppressing the emotions people perceive to be either weak or unreasonable, or too intense for comfort, and they leak through by way of my writing. I can channel all the anger, the pain, the heartbreak-- and make something worthwhile out of it, something meaningful, that may, if people find it good enough, have the ability to connect with people, to make them perhaps feel a little less isolated in their own emotions and understand that there are others facing the same issues. 

On why it's important to me, I think its always been a reaction to the events that have occurred in my life-- I have had very little control over what has happened or been done to me, the only thing that I have controlled is my reaction to these events.

I think writing is the only thing I have complete authority over, and indeed, I can breathe life into my characters or extinguish it at any point, weave whatever tale I wish, spin reality or twist it on whim.
I always believe in adding a kernel of truth to every fictitious piece of work in order for it to resonate with others, and that's what I do.
Each and every character that I create has a little piece of my personality hidden away in them somewhere-- they are always imbued with a touch of my own color, be it dark or light.
It's honestly become a game for some of my close friends to catch that tiny little spark of my essence flickering away in the hearts of the people I create.
Writing has always been, and always will be, my only solace.

The Doctor kicks over the cylinder of unknown gas, noxious fumes filling the room. The Nurses begin falling over like wilted flowers that bend unceasingly to the ground. The Doctors tolerance level so elevated, he is hardly affected; until after a time, when it is the only air he can breath in. Now surrounded by ghosts of empty white sheets strewn across the floor, he looks upon Sleeping Beauty and removes a fresh mango from his pocket. He takes a bite and rubs the glistening exposed insides of the fruit across her mouth. The EKG machine beeps loudly for the first time. He snaps back to reality for just a second. 

After sewing her up, stitching skin back to skin, bone back into it's respective puzzle piece lock, he finds the key and removes it. He leaves that small wound open, something for her to remember him by. He returns the prize onto his key collection and unlocks the door. 

Before leaving the room he blows a kiss. He watches it fly away from his hand like a moth to the light. 

The floor now bare, the white sheets float up and away, the nurses turning into puffy white clouds. The walls of the operating room fall away in peripheral.The ceiling becomes sky. The light of the lamp blazes above in the form of the Sun. The dirty floor becomes a pebble covered beach. The dripping of water now becomes the tide dancing onto and away from land. 

The patient, now sits next to him on a rocky shoreline, both staring out across a lake. 

Skipping stones that seemed to slice across the water,

they rippled and tore away the surface, exposing that which lies beneath.

We shared a piece of fruit; with our teeth and tongue, our brain and love

of words hidden within, below and above.

 Thank you letting me play Doctor. Don't forget to remember,

A mango a day, keeps the Doctor away. 

I look forward to our next visit, Trishalavardhan.