For her, it was just a dream.
A dream that felt authentic, of a tedious similarity.
"The verdict, Doc?"
"Pneumonia. Complication stage."
"So, no other way? Surgery?"
"Yes. Lung abscess removal."
"Understood. I'll prepare."
From a certain perspective, she still bore such a resemblance identical to her own memory. Her blue eyes, foreshadowed by exhaustion, meeting each other for a few seconds. Her presence perceived to be distant, as if she went unnoticed. The strands of her long chestnut hair fell over her back. It was unkempt and neglected, as she hadn't got time to tie it back.
To be fair, it's still hard to imagine someone like her would have ended up becoming a pulmonologist, let alone having a "specialist" title as one.
Hold on....
Did you just expect the one who was narrating this story to be some kind of stranger?
Jokes on you, this story wasn't narrated by any stranger. It was me, Kairi!
Okay, that reference was gay and cringeworthy enough. So, let's move on, shall we?
Perhaps this was what one would call as 'nostalgia'—your body remains distant, yet your mind still clings tightly to the closure of its memory, as if refusing to fade away.
I then reviewed the patient's record again before considering the surgery costs. His body laid weak and frail, almost skeletal in appearance, barely clinging to life. The thought that even the smallest mistake during surgery—just a tiny error—could take a life, restrained my mind.
As a doctor, this was the greatest challenge I have had ever faced in my career. Dealing with such a noble profession, to save a patient's life, no matter how many attempts it takes, whether through medical intervention or clinical care. I must do whatever it takes, regardless how many attempts of removal I would have done to ensure the patient's survival.
Apparently, you might assume this was done for a noble intention, tending people as if it were to be a charity event. But bold of you to think such a naive line of thoughts. Meh, as if every doctor has a pure intention to begin with, which is likely convenient as a trope genre of becoming a doctor. But fret not, not every doctor acts as such.
Perhaps, I am that exception.
So, I suppose I shall tell you my story. Real quick.
...
The sterile scent of antiseptic felt akin to a lie. A clean facade was masking the raw, messy truth of the human body. Even now, scalpel in hand, years into my practice, the act of healing felt lesser of a duty and rather… an obsessive-compulsive puzzle. A puzzle I simply couldn't ignore from solving. Neither a job nor duty, simply an obsession.
Some might say it's a calling for duty, but such a calling would imply a certain sense of nobility, the one that I hardly ever experienced. If I were to reduce medicine as mere tasks, I would be no different than "Da Vinci", a precise yet soulless robotic surgical platform disguised as an artistry made by humans that insults the capacity of human beings to perform complex procedures with such an artificial system.
Where's the humanity in that?
When I first donned the white coat, never crossed in my mind to picture myself as such a saintly figure admired by many others. The fact is, I was never really driven by naivete kind of altruism. However, the sight of blood, the tang of iron, the raw vulnerability of a patient – those were the things that, no matter how uncannly truly intrigued me. My family, of course, saw it differently. They wanted me to be a titan of industry, a CEO wielding power like a finely sharpened blade. Money, they believed, was the ultimate force of life. But I had always found their relentless pursuit of wealth monotonous and tedious.
My captivation with medicine-related stuff began in childhood. Nope, not with those original anatomy textbooks like your average nerds, but those raw and messy experiments I conducted in my backyard. My "patients" were my long-suffering friends, and thanks to them, their scraped knees and feigned illnesses providing the perfect canvas for me flourishing curiosity with my tools, painting the canvas to colour each of them. However, I devoured medical stages, not for the dramaturgy, but for such intricate acts of diagnosis and treatment. The human body, a chaotic play of performances, became my obsession.
Among all of these memory fragments, one that stood out: The day when I attempted to test the limits of botulinum toxin. A sickly-sweet cough syrup, regarded as a miracle cure yet disguised itself as the death sentence. I drank far too much, as the world was spinning and began to obfuscating before I eventually collapsed. Soon after, the scene switched in a swift. From the panicked rush to the hospital, the taste of fear, the coldness beneath my cheek to the comatose-alike state when a chill struck my body...
Then all of a sudden, a gentle-spoken voice waking me up.
A young doctor, with his eyes wearing glasses, listening to my interest with a genuine curiosity that made me feel… present. He didn't scold, let alone did he dismiss my demands. He asked questions, my interest was sparking something within.
"You have a remarkable intelligence,"
By the time he had said that, his words were slowly but sure becoming a lifeline.
"You should consider to be a doctor."
Such an encounter had changed my life. My family, expectedly, dismissed such a suggestion. later treating him as a charlatan. They couldn't fathom that their daughter, destined for boardrooms, luxury, and power, choosing such a low-life struggling with patients in a hospital. The arguments were fierce, their manipulative tactics, honed over years, were used as a desperate attempt to reel me back in. They had taught me to negotiate, to manipulate, to get what I wanted. Little did they know, those lessons from them would eventually become a weapon that back fired their own ulterior motives to gatekeep me.
"I'm tired of being your puppet."
I had declared, my voice was trembling but remained firm.
"From now on, this is my life."
They yielded, begrudgingly, thus offering to fund for the medical education.
I refused, proceeded telling them that I wanted to earn it by myself, proving to them that my passion was more than a wishy-washy decision made by a mere child. And then, not long after I recovered, I worked, studied, waiting for everything I have done to come with a fruition. Ten years later, the aforementioned doctor who suggested me to embark my passion, now my mentor, brought me to this hospital.
Was it love?
Nope, I wouldn't say so. I never struck any lovey-dovey feeling towards him at all.
Yet the quiet chemistry between us, not to mention the shared passion for the medical treatments, it felt like… it was something so profound that I could hardly fathom.
Eventually, I would've spent the rest of my life as a doctor then lived happily ever after.
THE END.
...
"Miss Veylith... MISS VEYLITH!"
The dream then all of a sudden dissolved, vacating a lingering warmth of déjà vu. The scent of rosemary, stifling and dirtlike, unpleasantly filled my nostrils. My fingers instinctively traced the rough texture of the woven bamboo walls that cover the room, with my eyes were sight-seeing into the roof, also made of bamboos. The stark contrast to the sterile, brightly lit hospital room I knew was astounding. The air, thick with the scent of damp earth and herbal remedies, hummed with an uncanny energy. A single, flickering bulb cast long, dancing shadows, switched from a concert to the small space, a stage of an unknown drama. Where were the gleaming instruments, the heart monitors, the sterile hum of modern medicine? This was something else. Something ancient, something raw. And I, scalpel still clutched in my hand, was about to find out what these are.