The Doctors By Rupprecht Mayer

I found a doctor today. Doctor, dear doctor, your friendly door opened automatically upon my buzz. As if I were awaited; as if you fully trusted me. Whether I’ll be tickled. Whether I’ll be clamped in your best machine. Whether as partial payment you’ll accept a blood sample. Such practices are usually one-doctor, but how can one doctor keep so many alive? Other practices are two-doctor — a few number even five. I once wound up in a two-doctor practice with a very crowded waiting room. Then it turned out that the doctors were dancing cheek to cheek in one of the examination rooms. How can someone dance when so many are dying? Doctors are normally in such a hurry — only death is patient. Doctor, dear doctor, do doctors die too? Before me, maybe you? Who can take over your one-doctor practice and keep me alive? Doctor, dear doctor, I clutch your white lab coat; I grasp your gray hair.

© 2016 Rupprecht Mayer

Rupprecht Mayer was born near Salzburg. After some twenty years living and working in Taiwan, Beijing, and Shanghai, he resettled in SE Bavaria. He translates Chinese literature and writes short prose.

Translated by Eldon (Craig) Reishus

Eldon (Craig) Reishus lives beneath the Alps outside Munich (Landkreis Bad Tölz – Wolfratshausen). A writer in his own right, he has translated into English a broad score of German films and books, plus a growing selection of flash fiction by Rupprecht Mayer. Come visit: http://www.reishus.de 

Comments are closed.