Joe Gold recently sent in this gem. If you like his story, check out his site at http://www.goldscribe.com. On Oct. 22, Joe will be launching his new book entitled 'The Lamp Post Motel' , a novel about alien university students visiting earth to study the anthropology of the human species. Hopefully we will be able to present you with a full review of his new book soon! Until then, enjoy 'Malaise'.

Malaise

by Joe Gold 

I can't say,exactly, what's been bothering me. All I know for sure is that lately I haven't been feeling right. You know, sluggish, not quite with it, like the everyday just isn't worth the trouble and I'm just going in circles. Ever feel like that?

At first I didn't pay attention to the rashes. But they've swollen to painful sores, and new irritations seem to be popping up everywhere. I'm not breathing so well, either. I sort of wheeze along.

I put myself into the hands of the medics. They scanned me sixteen ways to Tuesday, in every direction, isolating my breathing, my circulation, my digestion, my I-don't-know-what-all, examining my every molecule, it seemed, encoded into data that's supposed to tell them what's ailing me.

Maybe. Usually what they want is more tests.

More tests it was. They smothered me to check out respiration and got all involved in movement of oxygen. Then they gouged me with some story about possible mineral deficiencies. Some sort of problem came up with their instruments, I think, measuring radiation. They don't tell me a thing, but I could hear them mumbling with what sounded like concern, then ran off to their computers to enter more data until they had generated a working model of my body that will tell them what they won't tell me for months.

And all this time I'm not feeling so hot. Waiting, spinning, going through the motions. Work doesn't matter any more. I've done it a billion times and it doesn't change. But I change. I feel like I've grown so much older all of a sudden, so tired and slow.

I waited. What else could I do? I looked at the stars, keeping their cruel distance, and the planets dancing to their endless tune, and wondered if my once proud body was just crumbling to stardust so I could join the ages.

How is it we feel so vitally important when none of us matters in the scheme of the cosmos? So I'm crumbling to dust before my time. Does it matter in a universe that goes on forever in every direction? I doubt it. Some of us die young. So what?

Maybe if I were used to this I could live with it. But oh, how they admired me once. The medics talked about me in their classes as a standard of biological excellence, the very picture of vitality and life.

Those rashes are itching. Itching hell, my skin is crawling. Breathing is definitely harder. I'm coughing, too.

Finally, a message comes:

Preliminary analysis indicates the presence of Factors that appear to warrant Further Inspection. All Secondary Examinations indicate positive for Specific Ailment.

The next fourteen paragraphs were legal disclaimers that absolve them of any responsibility, even if they're dead wrong. But down at the end, the line stood there by itself, short, simple, and without comment:

The Doctor will contact you in a year.

I read it three times. A shudder went straight through my body. The object of all this medical crap is to get to The Doctor, but most patients never do. Instead, they're siphoned out of the system, prescribed something useful and told to get in touch if the problem persists. Usually, that's the end of it. More serious problems are sent on their merry way to treatment. Only a few, perhaps one in a thousand, the cases where all the medical miracles weren't enough, when the therapies and remedies and specialties fell short—only they ever see The Doctor.

I didn't know whether to rejoice at beating the system, or dread this condition whose very name mocked me with vagueness. I spent that whole apparently endless year spreading the word: "Oh, it's all right, I have Specific Ailment." And feeling like hell, I might add. But the looks I got, the horror, the elation, the awe when I told them The Doctor was going to contact me. Other than that I itched and burned, felt nauseated, and dragged myself around. And decided any life decision, no matter how drastic, was better than this.

Today I saw The Doctor.