Lowered Expectations – Friday Fictioneers, April 2018.

Copyright Doug McIlroy

Expectations change, almost imperceptibly.

After forty years, Dr Gillespie anticipates, almost welcomes that threshold… when ‘make me well’ becomes ‘make me comfortable’.

He says nothing; just carries on, trying to meet expectations.

Today Dr Gillespie senses his young patient crossing another threshold, more unusual… but not entirely surprising.

Some might say ‘the patient brought this on himself’.

Dr Gillespie doesn’t judge.

He could say ‘in future perhaps… medical science…”

But he doesn’t lie, either.

For now, it’s important to blank out the censure, deaf out the hope.

And pretend, over and over again, not to hear it.

‘Make me dead’.

 

The focal point of this photo  reminds me of a cage, and hence the story, quite out of keeping with my mood on this lovely spring morning in the UK.  It also reminds me of an old friend, Doug McIlroy, once a stalwart Friday Fictioneer whose presence is much missed.   I hope you’re enjoying life, Doug; it would be good to see you on here again once more.  PS:  Don’t go looking for me on the French waterways, as you always said you would – that ship has sadly sailed.

Thanks, as always, to our leader, Rochelle, still on her travels and having a whale of a time, it seems.  Come back safely!