Flash! Fiction 3 by Peter McMillan - HTML preview
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51
Doc Baxter had been our family doctor going on 50 years. On Momma's side anyway. Daddy was from the city.
The first time I remember going to the doctor was right before I started first grade. Just a checkup, Daddy said. He took me because it was Saturday.
The waiting room was huge and square. Hanging on the blue pastel walls were bright paintings of the town and set against the walls were heavy wooden chairs that couldn't tip over. On the large coffee table in the middle were neatly arranged copies of Southern Living, Field & Stream, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, and the weekly newspaper.
It was the end of summer and it wasn't crowded. There was a skin-ny guy with a thick black beard and a cast on his left leg. I asked Daddy why he didn't have any names on his cast like my older sister Tessie had when she broke her arm climbing a tree in our neighbor's backyard. He said it was probably a new cast and he just hadn't gotten around to it.
There was an old woman with sunglasses who seemed to stare right into me. When I told Daddy, he whispered, "She can't see you, son. She just hears your voice. Don't talk so loud."
Up at the reception window, a shaky old man with thick, white eyebrows was taking small bottles of pills out of a brown paper bag and handing them over to the lady. That seemed odd. Daddy saw where I was looking and anticipated my question.