dialog snippet

I've spent most of the last few weeks in the hospital. Lots of stories there but I don't want to tell most of them. I will share this...a snippet of dialog as best as I can remember it. Little pieces of life like this are where stories are born, and small slices of the human condition are far more enlightening than all of the great philosophies.



The doctor was a cardiologist-Pakistani or Indian-very dark red-brown skin. He seemed to have a "matte" finish-no depth to his skin tone-a kind of spray painted look. He was questioning an elderly white lady, as translucently white as he was matte dark.

"So," he said, "your heart-it hurts when you walk?" His voice rose and fell in a predicable, sing-song accent. Pakistani or Indian.

She shook her head. "No. When it hurts I can't walk.." she shook her head and frayed Grey hair spilled from her elastic plastic cap.

"So," he went on, "you would say it does not hurt when you walk?"

"No, I only walk when it don't hurt. But that isn't quite it." A woman, possibly her daughter, patted her hand. She said nothing.

The doctor chuckled but was clearly becoming exasperated at her being so contrary.

"I don't walk if it hurts. If I walk and it starts to hurt, I sit down. If I'm sitting down and it starts to hurt, I don't walk."

He raised his clip board, "So...I'll put 'no' for that."

She sighed and laiy her head back.