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It was just a normal day in a peaceful place called semi-retirement. Except for this day, I had a routine medical check for swollen feet due to some Predolin, I was taking for PMR. The doctor wanted to rule out any other possible causes before settling on it merely being a side effect of the steroids.
I had a full-body MRI CAT scan to check my vital organs and bones for any sign of inflammation or a tumour. It came up clean, thank the lord. Next, it was an echograph of my heart to make sure that that was all ok.
I was asked to take off my top and lie down on my left side on a trolley. Within a minute the young female machine operator was scanning my chest across my left breast. Suddenly she stopped.
An older-looking doctor came in and took her place. After two minutes he too stopped and stood up to leave the room saying he wanted to see me later. On we went with the rest of the test and after forty minutes of scanning I was asked to get up and get dressed. I was then told to go and see the doctor in his office. As we entered the room I could see from his face that all was not well.“Ok,” says the Doc all matter-of-factly. “When exactly did you have the heart transplant?” And I’m like, “What? What the hell are you talking about Doc, I ain’t never had any transplant in all my born days”
“Oh yes you have Steve, and you wanna know the strangest thing? I don’t see any signs of any major surgery. No scars, no old stitches, nothing. And there’s more. Can I ask how old you are? See I think there’s been some mistake in our records.”
“You got it there on my papers Doc,” I said tersely.
“Ok, let me have a look……so, you were born in…….” he said as he rifled through various papers looking for my date of birth.
“Doc, I’m sixty-six years old, what the hell is wrong with you?” I exclaimed impatiently.”
“Steve, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. I am looking at a so-called sixty-six-year-old man who doesn’t look a day over thirty, with a heart to match! What’s more, there is clear evidence that it is not the heart you were born with! In fact, I have never in fifty years of heart surgery seen anything quite like it. I am not even sure if that heart that is beating inside your chest is even of this world! Do you get me, Steve? Do you get me, for Christ's sake? And I am having a whole lotta trouble comprehending it Steve. I mean, shit Steve, are you even of this world?”
“Hey Doc, I was born in Detroit sixty-six years ago, ok? My pop was a line worker at the Ford car factory. My mom was a midwife at the local hospital downtown. Are you crazy Doc, are you kidding me? What in the hell are you on Doc? How old are you, 'cause you know what? It’s time you had a break Doc, like a really long break for the rest of your life!”
“Ok Steve, here’s what we’ll do. I wanna run some more tests to see if I can figure this all out. There has to be a rational explanation for what I’m looking at here. Let me see when we can get you in for some further investigation. I don’t know, maybe it’s some weird diet your mom fed you when you were a kid in diapers or something, I just don’t know. What I do know, is that I have never ever in all my born days seen anything quite like it.”
“You know what Doc, I’m out of here you crazy old coot. I am just a regular guy enjoying my retirement after fifty years of hard work, roping and sheeting forty tons of cabbages or god knows what and driving it from state to state on a multi-drop nobody else in the company would touch with a barge pole. Half a century driving from state to state, man and boy, sweating and busting my guts for a few dollars an hour, and now all I wanna do is go fishing and read a good book.
Do you know what they say about fishing Doc? It legitimises doing nothing, sweet F.A. And that Doc is exactly what I am gonna do nothing. And I ain’t gonna let no quack like you, some well past his use-by-date poop expert, stop me from spending the rest of my days doing sweet nothing except cast a line and sit back and read War and Peace to my heart’s content. I’m out of here. See ya never, loser. You’re weird man, I mean really, really strange. You wanna know what I think Doc, you are not of this world!”
And with that, I got up and left the hospital never to go back ever again. And you wanna hear something that really is strange? That was eighty-four years ago! That’s right, I am 150 years old, give or take a month or two either way. Of course, I have aged some, but I don’t look a day over thirty, or so Laura the next-door neighbour with a whippet called Dandy tells me.
This is the first chapter of a story from a collection of stories called ‘In The Shadow Of The Moon’ which can be found on Amazon by using the following link.
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