Medical School Dropout - a cautionary tale

Somewhere in the back of his muddled brain he seemed to recollect he'd been a medical student once, before the cognitive decline, the skin problems and the muscle stiffness. When he could still put more than a few thoughts together he had speculated that he must have come into contact with some exotic disease in the tertiary care hospital on campus. He should have sought medical attention at the first sign of symptoms, but he was someone who kept to himself, always in fear of being called out or considered a slacker. He was not one to self-diagnose like many of his classmates who were eager to utilize their newly acquired knowledge. He made do even as his grades plummeted and he began to sneak into the gross anatomy lab late at night for a little snack.

There was a time when the idea of eating brains would have greatly disturbed him, he was not ignorant of the risk of prion disease after all, but that was before the hunger began. He'd been studying in the medical library one Fall evening (a futile endeavor as he could retain little) when a picture of a brain in his anatomy text triggered a growl in his midsection. This was quickly followed by the thought that the anatomy lab was only one floor above him and maybe he would just put in a little time working on his cadaver. The books were doing him no good, so why not some hands-on work?

He put his books away and shuffled through the door and into the darkened hallway. He held his arms out in front of him because it felt right somehow, though he told himself it was just to feel his way through the dark. The elevator was an old fashioned affair that could only hold a few people with a metal-cage door that folded to one side with a tug. He stepped into the center under the sickly hue of the single light that cast shadows over his eyes.  He turned awkwardly then pulled the cage door shut.  The elevator jerked and rattled upward. A blank stare mirrored a growing single mindedness.

Standing over his assigned cadaver he clicked on the low hanging fluorescent light above his head illuminating the dissecting table. His eyes kept wandering up to the head before he forced them back down to the dissected abdomen. The brain dissection was not for a few more weeks into the curriculum, but his own pre-frontal cortex appeared to be misfiring. An impulse had him reaching for the bone saw and plugging it in. A flick of the switch and its half-circled cutting blade buzzed to life with a kick in his hand. He found himself breathing quicker as he applied it to the forehead and pressed downward. Flecks of skin and small bone chips began flying off into the darkness of the room.

It took some doing, but with the help of a small crowbar-type tool he was able to eventually pry off the top of the cranium as the arachnoid mater separated in web-like strands. He paused and took in the sight: a shiny grayish beige surface of what appeared to be intertwined sausages. A pleasurable shudder shot through his body. It was a welcome sensation after what had been a growing sense of numbness over the past few weeks. He pushed down on it and it pushed back with a kind of rubbery resistance. He pushed harder and his finger broke through the surface, buried to the second knuckle. He retrieved his finger and placed it into his mouth. It was a little bland, but not too bad.

The next few days he noticed that he had little appetite for his normal fare and was not visiting the cafeteria or making his typical late night Taco Bell runs. His thoughts kept returning to the anatomy lab where he'd made a few more trips taking thin slices of the brain before carefully replacing the top of the cranium. He'd discovered that the slices tasted even better when laid on a Ritz cracker, yet something was missing. This was quickly becoming his sole source of nourishment and he was growing paler by the day, preferring to come out only in the evening hours. He also began staying in his apartment less and less, hanging out instead behind an abandoned dumpster in a back alley that he could crawl into for shelter when needed.

His clothes were getting a bit raggedy and hung loosely on him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd changed them and he didn't seem to care. His main preoccupation had become one of trying to figure out how to get fresh brains which he was sure were much tastier than the formaldehyde scented slices he'd come to depend on. Before he'd descended into what appeared to be a premature dementia, he'd had the wherewithal to put the bone saw in his backpack which he kept behind the dumpster near a covered electrical outlet that was conveniently located on the alley wall.

The days passed and the lonely former medical student became increasingly depressed as his slow movements frustrated attempts to acquire what he needed to feed his hunger. The occasional nighttime passerby easily eluded him. He was dismissed as a mostly harmless and malodorous drunk by those who found their way down his alley. This went on for quite a long time as technology and human habits began to change, changes that resulted in an upturn of his fortunes.

He would never forget that first time (though it was quickly forgotten). She was likely a college student or may have even been attending his former medical school. She was using the alley as a short cut and was thoroughly engrossed with a glowing rectangle of some kind in her hand. He watched from behind his dumpster in dumb amazement as she approached, her face and blond hair cast in a bluish light from the thing that she held. He stepped out and she almost walked straight into him as he closed his hands around her throat to cut off her scream.

From that moment forward more and more distracted persons made their acquaintance with his bone saw and ended up in his dumpster. He learned to use their small devices by tapping them with his mottled finger until the batteries were dead. He no longer had to feel the anguish of hunger and their glowing boxes provided hours of mindless entertainment inside his darkened dumpster. He did not seem capable of introspection, but he thought he might be happy.

***

High Street

Driving home
'round midnight
on High Street
steady rain falls
putting a thick
shine on every
conceivable surface
the lane lines
barely visible

floating sensation
like a small fish
skimming along
the back of a
Killer Whale

neon lights from
Tee Jaye's create
a psychedelic slick
on the street
colors running together
over the washed windshield
puddles sending out
splashes of synesthesia

NPR's "Echoes"
on the dial
ambient music of
Tangerine Dream
flowing from the radio
like liquid sound

a pseudo-experience of
sensory-altering substances
striking the cortex.


***

Watching the Wheels

"People say I'm crazy, doin' what I'm doin'..." or so sings John Lennon, a man and his music that I've grown to appreciate over the years. This has been especially true after becoming a father myself and seeing the positive changes it made in his life after Sean came into the picture. It didn't hurt that in my college years I grew my hair long and wore circular spectacles for a time. Those were the days of the occasional comment that I resembled the former Beatle which helped solidify the affinity.

This phenomenon had its strangest manifestation when I was living in Korea. One of my friends during that time was a Korean man who went by the name "Paul". The first time I saw him was at Seoul Union Church, barefoot and sitting Indian-style on a side pew with his eyes closed. He wore all black and had a large wooden pectoral cross hung around his neck. We went out after the service to a coffee shop where I learned he was a Catholic attending a Protestant church because "I'm learning about all different kinds of spirituality." He was a peculiar fellow, fancied himself a monastic of some sort and never without a lit cigarette on his lips.

He had a part time job at a Catholic bookstore and was always broke, which he reframed as a monastic virtue. We spent most of our time together hanging out in coffee shops with me picking up the tab, but on one occasion he took a notion to treat me at a small restaurant near his neighborhood. He was very excited about this and ordered a good amount of food that I slurped down gladly. We were there for what seemed a very long time and the restaurant owner was becoming increasingly impatient, asking Paul if there was anything more we needed. Finally, he came clean with them that he had no money but assured them that he would return by week's end to cover the bill.  What could they do but agree to this atypical arrangement?  I did not have the money to cover the tab or I would have paid for the feast we'd just indulged in.  This, as I was to learn, was par for the course when hanging out with Paul.

Another incident involved one of the ubiquitous coffee shops which cover Seoul like a pleasant rash.  These establishments must top the list of Korea's entrepreneurial endeavors as there are so many unique offerings and so few chains.  I must have visited at least a hundred of these places in multiple cities and towns. The one I'm thinking of was very dark with no windows and low lighting.  Either side of the room had booths lining the walls and running down the center were tables and chairs separated by chest high wooden dividers for a sense of privacy.  Paul was chain smoking as usual and complaining about his extreme sinus pain. He said that he needed just fifteen minutes to sleep and laid down in the booth with his dirty bare feet sticking out into the aisle.  The female owner eventually saw this and came over to tell him he couldn't sleep here.  She looked very stern with hands on hips, but I held up my hand to keep her from shaking him and told her in Korean to please not do that, he was not feeling well. A waitress had come over by that time to see what was going on. The owner's stern look broke at my attempt to intervene with minimal Korean language skills and she gave a little forced laugh. She then directed the waitress to help her move one of the wooden divider walls and they placed it in front of our booth so that people couldn't see Paul sleeping there like a homeless person from the street.

He had a way of exasperating people who weren't in tune with his oddness. It definitely made things interesting.

After being in Korea for two years, my tour of duty with the Army was up and I returned to the States to finish my senior year of college. That last year at Indiana Wesleyan University I befriended the six or so Korean students there and when I returned to Korea as a civilian I met up with two of them at different times to hang out, one in Seoul and one in Pusan. I met the one from Seoul, whom I'll call "Ki" because that is the half of his name that I still remember, at one of the many coffee shops I'd frequented during my two previous years there. We were sitting at a window booth on the second floor overlooking the front of the building.

By that time I'd grown my hair down to my shoulders and carried with me some retro green tinted sunglasses, very different from my military cut and look of the previous year. Ki and I were reminiscing about the good times we'd had the past year at IWU when I glanced out of the window and saw a man staring up at me from the street, fixed in place, eyes big as saucers. It was Paul. He broke into a huge grin and started waving frantically. My Korean friend looked at him and then looked at me with a distinct WTF? expression. As Paul hurried to the front door I quickly explained to Ki that I knew Paul from when I was last in Korea and that he was a little strange, trying to prepare him for what was to come.

Paul barreled up the steps and plopped onto the bench opposite me next to Ki. He was like a kid hopped up on sugar. Ki was bemused but also visibly uncomfortable with Paul's demeanor. I should add here that Ki was a "cool guy" who used expensive haircare products and wore fashionable clothes. Paul prattled on in a rapid fire manner and then, rather excitedly, declared that I looked exactly like John Lennon. He wanted me to put on my sunglasses and would not take "no" for an answer. I finally relented and as soon as they settled on my nose Paul exploded into squeals and clapping, "IT'S JOHN LENNON!  IT'S JOHN LENNON! WOO WOO! YOU ARE FAMOUS! YOU ARE FAMOUS!" Ki looked like he wanted to slide under the table and hide from all of the eyes that were suddenly drawn to our table. I quickly removed the sunglasses but it was too late. Ki was caught in a seriously uncool scene and I felt bad for him, but I couldn't bring myself to be mad at Paul.  No one had expected such a highly improbable meeting. Maybe it was just meant to be.

So, fast forward twenty years to last night. I was feeding Poppyseed her bedtime snack at the dining room table. She typically will refuse to eat any bites unless there is something that interests her playing on the iPhone. A friend had posted a link to John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" on Facebook earlier in the day and so I pulled it up for her. The video included pictures of John in various poses and situations as well as some live action stuff, some with a beard and some without, some with long hair and some without, some with glasses and some without. Poppyseed leaned forward to get a closer look and said very matter-of-factly "Dat's you." She said it again while pointing at a picture of John with medium length hair poking out from under a beret, glasses and no beard, "Dat's you, Daddy." She looked up at me with a funny little smile as I watched the wheels go round and round in her bright eyes.

The Brothers K

The Brothers K, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
I ask forgiveness
for everything
and from everyone
without exception
because the only
evil that matters
is that which
I've contributed
to the noxious mix
of self-centered
wants and desires
that do not
recognize limits
or restraint
where mediocrity
masks as virtue
and suffering multiplies
with my indifference

***

A Family Portrait

A family portrait
of perfect strangers
perfectly framed.
Side by side,
staggered, unsmiling,
staring straight ahead.

A glowing arrow,
disembodied voice
with lovely lilt,
"going down."
The elevator
doors slide shut.

A box of contained
pain, descending
into the depths
of my being,
looking for
a bottom.

The Melancholic Collector

Big Hat, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
I don't want to build
or own anything new
but to use and inhabit
what has come before
molding it to my needs
a Salvation Army store
approach to living
breathing in musty
smells while rubbing
my hand along rough
and uneven surfaces
imagining who has
worn these clothes
what has been
in these drawers
who has read
these yellowed books
being the latest
link in a long
chain of existence
feeling connected to
those who have
gone before while
my days play
themselves out
and the next
melancholic collector
wonders about who
I might have been
***