The Elegant Clinic on Floor F

We stepped off the elevator at the floor marked “F.”

The glass door slid automatically to the right and we entered. The room was elegantly decorated; black leather seats, gray marble counters, high ceilings. A huge flatpanel TV broadcast international news from the far wall. Minchul wrote my name on a list. I was number two. He was there in case I needed an interpreter. Minchul picked a magazine from the rack and we sat to wait.

Soon the mildly attractive woman behind the counter called my name. Well actually she couldn’t pronounce my name so she just said “cho-gi” which means “there” or “you there.” The doctors office was also smartly decorated. The stool was black leather, the bed was black leather. From behind two large flat screen monitors, the young doctor motioned me to sit at the stool.

His English was dreadful. And unusual. I leaned forward and strained my ears to understand him at all. All his P’s came out as F’s and vice versa. “Tell me ip you peel fain.” Except all the vowels were jumbled too. So it was more like, “Teel may eep yoo pal fain.” To make matters worse he spoke with a slight slur so it came out as more or less one word. “Teelmayeepyoopalfain.” I figured he probably learned mostly from books, and hadn’t had much opportunity to practice speaking. Somehow we managed to communicate anyhow.

I lay down on the black leather bed and they pulled the curtain. He felt my abdomen, where I’d been feeling the pain. His fingers felt more like cold surgical probes than flesh and bone. I couldn’t help but wonder if his lovers felt the same way. The probes dug deep and precisely. I felt they had passed right through my skin.

After a time, he smiled and nodded. Apparently his search had confirmed his suspicions. He told me that a family of small field mice had probably crawled into my mouth as I slept. They built a nest at the base of my ribcage out of black wire and twine. This would have been fine, if it hadn’t been for the several bottles of Soju I had drunk the previous weekend. The toxin, dangerous for humans, is downright deadly for field mice. They were killed in a state of great panic while trying to dig an escape hole in my intestinal tract. The pain I was experiencing was largely caused by the gases released by their decomposing bodies.† He then advised that I adhere to a soft diet, avoiding all alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, carbonation, hamburgers and all other of the more unfriendly dietary vices.

I picked up a prescription at the front counter and paid my bill of $3.00. Downstairs at the pharmacy I picked up my meds for the next three days for which I paid $1.50. I looked at my watch. All told the visit had cost me $4.50 and took 37 minutes.

This being the first time I have ever seen a doctor, I forgot to ask several pertinent questions such as, “I’ll be in Taiwan for the next five days and won’t be able to pick up more meds.” Well that’s not a question, but it probably is pertinent. I should probably also have asked, “Are fried eggs, kimchi, and buttered toast in a soft diet?” ...cause that’s all I have to eat.

† I don’t actually know what he said. But it did involve the words “gastric” and “intestinal.”