Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Once again, I’m apparently taking purposeful refuge in mis-understanding the week’s prompt. Clearly the word is ‘axes’. In my defense, my intention was to establish the plural of that word, but alas, mis-logism reigned, (once more), and a story grew, around the word ‘axis’. Please don’t tell anyone, especially zoe/ivy! She puts a lot of effort into this Thursday bloghop, the Six Sentence Stories and, seemingly every week, I show up and mess up the word prompt, all semi-rogerian confidence, never letting the facts get in the way of my imagination.

The Clockwork, the Mortal Axis and the World

“And these little dots,” the black magic marker moved around the big red circle in the center of a spiral-bound note book, the newly placed dots showing a practiced randomness, “show what can happen, even when we successfully remove all of the primary tumor,” the physician’s voice was directed at the man and woman sitting on the far side of the desk, yet his eyes never rose from the drawing, clearly more comfortable with the certainty of his illustration than the reaction of the people who were watching the pad with dutiful eyes.

Ironically, the good health of the couple, combined with the suddenness of the diagnosis, resulted in finding themselves in the office of a highly rated surgeon, (“Blue Cross Blue Shield is listening and knows that you want to take responsibility for your healthcare!“), who was, nevertheless, a total stranger. Despite (or because) of this, both halves of the couple were at their personal strongest and personal weakest, as is sometimes the way with long married couples, the strength each had was intended for the other, the weakness, a deception that both wished for the other, yet accepted for themselves.

The Doctor continued his lecture in that patiently-focused manner shared by successful dog trainers and beloved kindergarten teachers, he chose to believe (without actually being aware of his decision), that the distant look on the face of  the patient indicated non-comprehension or, worse, in his opinion, the refusal to come to grips with a problem that he was demonstrating his competency to solve.

The man, sensing the approach of a turning point, probably the last level spot on an un-seen roller coaster, decided that he had to do something and took advantage of a momentary pause (between metastasize and mortality) to say, “I believe you know Bill Hendron, a client of mine, he said to give you his regards, apparently the two of you did your internship at the same hospital, what a small world, isn’t it?”

“Oh! I haven’t heard that name in years, Bill’s an exceptional physician, up at Children’s Hospital in Boston, isn’t he?”  as the Doctor spoke, there began a change, as if the world, (or at least this small and private section of it, a doctors office and a doctor presenting his prognosis), were a revolving stage, almost imperceptibly, the physician was beginning to see two people in his office, instead of two patients, …the clockwork of the world, the wheels and gears of that mortal axis, moving the stage, (as Shakespeare would like it), backdrops and props exchanged, the actors remain yet relate differently to one and another, the way that they relate themselves to the world around them, making all the difference to quality of the un-folding drama.

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