Medical Consultation (short story)

One

The hospital was packed with people, and there were long queues at various windows. Registered payment is a test of patience and will. I went to the doctor, but I didn't know which room the doctor was in, the hospital was too big, the corridor was like a maze, I already had a headache, and my head hurt even more in the face of forks in the road, turns, directions, and miserable corridors. There was a little nurse on the other side, the nurse was respectable, I greeted her and explained the clinic I was going to, she was wearing a mask, her fingers were white, she was pointing forward, and she told me to go over and turn left, turn right, turn right, go downstairs, turn left, turn left, turn left, and so, and there it is. The female nurse spoke very fast, my train of thought was a little unstable, and I could only sketch out a less complete roadmap in my head, but I thought that the problem had been basically solved, and I needed to go downstairs and ...... And then let's talk about it.

After going down the floor, there were a lot fewer people and the air was not so thin, so I took two puffs violently and greedily, whether it was a cheap advantage of the hospital, I wasn't sure yet, but what was certain was that it would cost a little more to take a deep breath in the hospital than on the street. The hospital does not charge extra for the air, it is actually packaged in the medical bill, this practice is very old, it comes from the wisdom of the ancestors.

Don't talk about this, who makes you sick, the more I think about it, the more headaches I have, I have to find the doctor sooner.

I know that doctors all wear white coats, they can wear glasses or not, and they usually have a stethoscope on their chests, and maybe after the technology advances, they don't need those rambling things. It doesn't matter, the important thing is that they have the temperament of a doctor's special profession at first glance, which is not found in any other industry.

At this time, I answered a phone call, and my wife asked me to buy groceries on the way back, and she said that a guest was coming to the house for dinner. I agreed. Ask her what she wants to eat, and she says, "You can do it." Grocery shopping is one of my daily tasks, and this job is not easy to do, because I always have to "watch and do", and I often hesitate in front of the vegetable stall, not knowing what to do.

Hanging up the phone, I saw a man, wearing a white coat, hurrying into a room. I entered the room with him, and when I got in, I realized that I was a little embarrassed, I had mistaken the toilet for a consultation room. The white coat quickly unbuckled his belt and tightened the muscles of the hips in the urinal a few times, and the muscles could be seen through the pants. Then, I heard the belt clip click a few times, and he walked out before he even had time to zip up, almost bumping into me. I said, I'm a patient. He smiled, as if he felt that the status of a patient was not worth mentioning in the hospital at all.

I followed the doctor all the way to his office, and it was a miracle that there was only a doctor in his room, not a single patient. When he saw me come in, he shook his hand, and a few drops of water were thrown at my feet. I can see that he is a cautious person, he does not use towels or paper to wipe his hands, he may think that towels are a paradise for bacteria, and only by letting his hands dry naturally in the air can he effectively reduce cross-infection. This gave me a new harvest, which is exactly what I want to learn, so I have a good impression of this doctor.

He asked me what was wrong.

I said, headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, waist pain, ring throbbing pain, sometimes anal pain. It hurts to sneeze or blink your eyes.

The doctor then asked, what is the pain?

I said that sometimes it was like hot water splashing on the skin, sometimes it was like being hit with a blunt object, and the pain was all in a line in the body, and they must have colluded to fix me.

The doctor said, don't think about it.

I said, okay. When I don't think about it, it hurts.

He felt my pulse, for a few tens of seconds, especially ritualistic, during that time, we didn't speak, the consultation room was very quiet, and I was nervous. The fear that the pain caused me, I can't describe in words, taking the pulse makes people more nervous, it's a kind of waiting, waiting for the verdict to be pronounced.

The doctor said that a headache is a headache, and it is not a disease with other pains, so it should not be confused.

I don't seem to understand, oh, it's not a concurrence, it's not a question, if it's classified, it can be classified subconsciously.

The doctor went on to say that there is a medical method for headaches. The doctor didn't finish before I interrupted me and asked if you could give me a different head.

The doctor said, no. I don't know if it's because he doesn't have the authority or if he doesn't have the technology.

I said, haven't a lot of people changed their heads?

The doctor said, you can't, you're not eligible.

I almost cried, I really couldn't stand my head, my head didn't do me any good after it came out of my mother's birth canal. My parents died before they could see me today. I can't resent them either.

On that day, the doctor kept encouraging me to live well, to try to endure the pain with my willpower, he said, the human body either hurts here, or there, people who don't have a headache, other organs may also hurt, people are the same, there is no perfection, we are a defective species, these are all problems that need to be faced.

I was planning to leave the office, but I remembered that I had a back pain, and I privately thought that the headache was caused by it. The doctor said that back pain and headache must be treated differently, and there can be no universal contact, let alone a one-size-fits-all approach.

The doctor had a cautious working attitude, he touched my lumbar spine, his hand touched my skin, it was cool and slippery. He said that the problem of the lower back is not too serious, but it is also necessary to pay attention.

He said, you can try walking backwards.

That's really a really good piece of advice. I've never thought that way before. Assuming that the pain in the lower back is caused by the fact that we are accustomed to walking with our legs upright, then it is entirely possible to achieve the purpose of healing by walking backwards, and it seems that experienced and skilled doctors must have a unique way of thinking. This is clearly a contrarian thinking treatment option, and it can be said to be both economical and affordable. I am very satisfied with this suggestion.

The doctor prescribed me a prescription with a few lines of earthworm-like text, and the doctor said that after taking these medicines, my headache would basically be reduced to the point that I couldn't feel it. I am grateful and trusting to the doctor and his advice is so convincing.

When I walked out of the hospital, I took a few big breaths.

Two

When I came out of the office, I started walking backwards on the doctor's advice.

The first attempt was always cautious, and after a few minutes of walking, I noticed pain in the semitendinosus muscle in the back of my thigh. The doctor had already predicted this and had already given me a vaccination when I was in the office. When I asked him about the secret of walking backwards, he talked about the composition of human muscles, and I was confused and thought he had some truth in it. As for the secret of walking backwards, he asked me to listen to it, and his voice was so small that I felt mysterious, which is probably the habit of everyone to say the secret without passing it on, even in a room where there are only two people. I want to hear him word for word. The most important thing, he said, is to ensure safety.

The doctor said the wise words, and sure enough, the most important issue I needed to solve in the initial stage of walking backwards was safety. When I was scolded by the chestnut vendor for being blind, I became more and more aware of the importance of this issue. The chestnut seller leaned down to pick up the chestnuts that had fallen to the ground, and I quickly apologized to him, and the responsibility was mine, and I felt guilty that my ass had hit his tricycle, and the basket on the cart was knocked over, and the chestnuts inside flowed all over the ground. I wasn't hurt, just an eyeball-sized bruise that went away after a few days. If the ass could have grown eyes, nothing like this would have happened, and the chestnut seller would not have had time to care about my apology, he would have to pick up the chestnuts, otherwise they would be trampled by pedestrians, and some people would slip and fall, and maybe lead to a lot of unexpected things......

I'm not a troublemaker, but when I have a headache, it makes people a little unpleasant, and my family is not used to seeing my ugly face grinning in pain, so in order not to affect their mood, I will go out of the house and avoid their gaze.

Although the doctor said that my headache and back pain were not necessarily related, I always felt that they were all in my body, and it was inevitable that they would be related. In order to cure my headache, I have to cure my back pain, and if my back doesn't hurt, my head probably won't hurt anymore. To do this, I had to work hard to train the skill of walking backwards, which is a relatively complex system of training, which involves the balance of muscle tissue, and if there is a radar perception system on the body, it is equivalent to putting an eye on the buttocks, and maybe the safety problem will be easily solved.

Installing a radar system on the body is not only expensive, but also requires the approval of the relevant authorities, and people like me, who have no money and no way, have no hope of obtaining permission at all, so they can only work hard and train the skills, and the safety will be greatly improved after the skills are mature, and with a sense of security, they will feel very happy.

In my experience, the ancient four-exhalation and four-inhalation method is applicable to any walking, and it is not a high-tech invention, but an experiential application, and the use of this breathing method is enough to absorb enough energy between breathing. Walking with your back to the world, especially to be proficient in using this breathing method, is not only good for body balance, but also makes the muscles more relaxed, especially when the sun is warm, sunshine on the back, can drive away sadness, you can still feel a gentle and stubborn power, in the wind, in the eyes of people.

Three

I walked backwards to the door of the house, turned around and opened the door, my wife saw that I was in good spirits, took a plastic bag of vegetables I bought, and helped me get slippers, which were a pair of thick-soled sponge slippers, sometimes the soles of the shoes rubbed on the floor, which would trip me up, and she would laugh out loud, saying that I was deliberately amusing her, for this, I could only laugh, in fact, the stumbling was purely unintentional.

There was a strange woman in the house, I couldn't tell her age, forty or fifty, short, short-haired, square-faced, like a second-hand robot, and if it weren't for a small red bag bulging out of the upper right of her lips, I could hardly see the blood on her body. His wife introduced that it was her hometown, who went to Suzhou to do errands, and wanted to stay at home for a few days.

That's what our guests are.

When I was changing clothes, I took a look at the study, the door was ajar, there were her cosmetics and a pack of sanitary napkins on the desk, the folding bed was also opened, and the woman's pajamas were spread, I knew that she had encroached on my study, which I didn't want to see, but what could I do?

I usually sleep in the study, and my back pain affects my sleep, and when I share a bed with my wife, she can't stand me always tossing and turning, and sometimes she puts her legs on her abdomen, and she says that I have nightmares that make her think she is going to suffocate to death. Later, I went to the study for the night, and we both slept much better, and the next morning we looked at each other, and we both looked good.

Was there a time when sex was no longer a necessity of life? In other words, it no longer needs seamless physical contact, or it just stays in fantasy to complete that wonderful process. I think this can greatly reduce the emptiness after sex. But my wife still has to keep the tradition, and when she needs me, I will still go back to her bed, and when I am done, I will go back to the study, and sometimes she will stay, and I will let her snuggle up in my arms and fall asleep, and then I will get up again, and in the darkness I will carefully find the slippers, and tiptoe out of the room, as little as possible to make any noise. When I close the door, I always breathe a sigh of relief.

The guest brought the Northeast roast chicken, it smelled very good, my wife asked me to tear it open, I said I didn't wash my hands, the guest did it himself, she lifted the chicken legs, didn't use much force, the red skin cracked, the white meat jumped out, the chicken bones were crispy and soft, and they were broken when they were broken, and the minced meat was stacked on the plate, and she pulled off the chicken butt and threw it in the trash. While doing this work, she said that the business of the roast chicken shop is booming, and if you want to buy one, you always have to queue up early. I said, when I went to the hospital today, I was also queuing.

The guest asked me what was wrong.

I said, it hurts all over.

She said "oh", and his wife added that he was mentally ill.

We ate, and there was a large plate of roast chicken on the table, as well as a plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes that I contributed, and two side dishes, one with red oil chili sauce and the other full of leeks.

The guest is left-handed, and she sits on one side of the table by herself, and my wife and I sit across from her, which reduces distractions. During the meal, the wife chatted with her about a psychologist, the guest and the wife are from a psychology group, and they often discuss some family arrangement, husband and wife relationship, children's education and other issues on the Internet. When my wife first joined their group, she often used me as a target to analyze my personality, which made me very painful.

After eating, we ate some grapes that I brought back, I like to eat grapes, I don't like to eat grapes, there is more meat and less water, I like the kind of peeling off the skin and the water is rising, sweet and sour, and the taste is also rich. It's like a woman I looked for when I was young.

I said I'm going to lie down for a while.

My wife said, "You're going back to the master bedroom to sleep today."

I lay flat and didn't have a pillow. This makes my waist feel a little better, and my head doesn't hurt so much.

I thought of the woman I saw on the way back from the hospital, she was waiting for the red light, I was waiting, she may have just come out of the house, she was wearing pajama pants on her lower body, a jacket was put on her upper body, the pajama pants were very thin, revealing the edges and colors of the bottoms, while waiting for the red light, she twisted her waist and buttocks on tiptoe, like a pole dancer, she retracted her movements, her ass slit clamped her pants, and she had to pull her pants out with her hands. It's more than a meter away, you can feel the flesh completely, at the end of the red light, she turned her head and stroked her long hair, I saw her laughing, very happy, I can't accurately judge her age, in her twenties or thirties, I wanted to strike up a conversation with her, but she happily ran across the street, and finally disappeared into the porch of the mall.

作者‬：梁小九，中国作家协会会员，在《中国作家》《长城》《作品》《大家》《鸭绿江》《山花》《大益文学》等刊物发表文学作品，曾获萧红青年文学奖、天鹅文艺奖等奖项。