Fixing Things

I was late for rounds. Again.

Doctor O’Connor had already started by the time I caught up with him. He was lecturing his group of interns on a woman admitted with (and here I quote) a whole mishmash of complaints ranging from stomach ache to her unfaithful husband to chronic dandruff.

One of the interns giggled.

Doctor O’Connor raised his eyebrows reprovingly and tutted. “Patsy, Patsy, Patsy, Patsy. If you think dandruff is funny, then shall I tell everyone to examine your skanky head and chortle? Because, believe you me, there’s nothing even remotely humorous about watching your unwashed locks flying all over the place.”

Patsy bit her lip and stared at her chart.

Doctor O’Connor is like that. When he was my doctor, he would always comment on me or my mum or the patient in the bed next to me, and I was never quite sure whether he was being friendly or genuinely rude. Mum didn’t like him that much, but she never openly complained. She knew Doctor O’Connor was the best.

He is the best. That’s why I follow him around; to make sure that he doesn’t make the same mistake again. So he can still be the best. You’re only the best if you learn from your mistakes.

As rounds finished, I caught sight of David from Oncology following Doctor Melville. She was the one who misdiagnosed him with a tumour and suggested radical chemotherapy. It fried his immune system and he died from a cold a few weeks later. David stood back and watched as she ran with a group of nurses into Room 23 with a crash cart, the frantic beeping of the heart monitors signalling a crisis.

I didn’t wait to find out what happened but followed Doctor O’Connor to the lounge. He sprawled on the sofa and closed his eyes, one hand over his face, like a butterfly resting on a flower. The TV was on – Homer exchanging pleasantries with a spooky store owner in a rerun of The Simpsons.

I heard Doctor O’Connor sigh, heard his breathing deepen and even out, perfectly spaced and released, like a clock striking the hour, or like the pip of a monitor reading a healthy heart.

“Take this object, but beware. It carries a terrible curse,” croaked the store owner as a Krusty doll changed hands.

“Ooh, that’s bad!” Homer exclaimed.

“But it comes with a free Fro-gut.”

“That’s good!”

“The Fro-gut is also cursed.”

“Ooh, that’s bad!”

Doctor O’Connor shifted a little on the sofa. I looked down at him, watching the early wrinkles deepen in the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, his fingers splayed over his pale cheeks. He could have been a surgeon, I thought. He had such lovely hands.

I remember feeling the heat from his hands tempering the harsh chill of his stethoscope when he listened to my heart. I remember watching his fingers fiddle with the IV bag hanging by my bedside. I remember his long strong pale wrist reaching out of the sleeve of his white coat, his fingers steadying his watch as he called the code. “Time of death, fourteen-oh-three.”

His voice shook a little, and at the time, I thought he was truly upset at my death. Now, looking back, I think it may just as well have been from the long night. He had many patients then, and he still does. I was just one of many. I do wonder whether he remembers me at all. Am I just one face among many, or does my memory linger on in his mind?

It would be nice if it did. After all, his was the mistake that killed me.

I haven't read much of your work before, but even in a piece this short, I really like your writing style. It flows well and there were no awkward sentences to trip me up, and I was absorbed very quickly. I only have a couple of suggestions to make, and they're minor.

Firstly, the title. It's fairly mediocre compared to the very original subject of the piece, and I don't think it suits as well as it could. I suppose that's a personal choice, as there are so many prospective titles out there, but "Fixing Things" doesn't pull me in.

My other criticism lies with the ending, and the build-up throughout the piece towards the last comment. At first, we don't really understand the relationship between the two characters, but it becomes obvious when the MC mentions David from Oncology. That's fine, but you still seem to be building to a revelation, only to "reveal" the same point that has been established in my mind earlier in the piece. I think there could be more than one pivotal point to this story, especially if you choose to expand slightly on the relationship between doctor and patient. The last description of Doctor O'Connor is vaguely sexual, which was a little shocking, but left abandoned with the ending. It seems too fast.

Anyway, this was an interesting read and a somewhat scary, well-executed idea. I would suggest keeping my comments in mind for future writing rather than trying to lengthen this one, as the ending seemed to come about naturally, if not at quite the right time. *clicks like*

- Jet.

I can't tell if this is a story or a story fragment, but it feels like the latter. You have a clever idea, but it's not going anywhere. You've set up a premise, but what happens from here? A ghost haunts the doctor who "killed" her, and then what? This works as the beginning of the story, but it has no real movement, and sort of just depends on the reveal of ghosts-haunting-the-place. Put another way: there's no plot, it's all just backstory to a character that we don't have a chance to experience.

Doctor O'Connor, who seems like he might be House's long-lost cousin, has no chance to reveal the characteristics that your protagonist expresses -- mean, but good, a touch of compassion deeply hidden (or, as the ghost says, maybe just a lack of sleep). We have more dialogue devoted to a Simpsons episode than to him, and I find that fairly problematic. We also get little of the protagonist. I think it's a pity that you haven't expanded upon this, and if you aren't already planning to give this a little more dimension and forward movement, I would strongly encourage you to.

In conjunction with that, I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is. How am I supposed to feel by the end of it? What is the most vital thing I am supposed to be taking away from this story; the relationship between the ghost and Doctor O'Connor? Doctor O'Connor himself, as a character? The precarious nature of medical care? Figuring out what you want the readers to take from the story is probably the best (or easiest) place to start with this. If you want us to emerge with the realization that Doctor O'Connor manages his stressful crazy soul-draining life-consuming job with aplomb, take us through a full week of his, with the ghost trailing and providing comment. Build a conflict (doesn't have to be the world ending or a patient dying, but some simple struggle that keeps us reading) that showcases this. If it's the relationship between the ghost and Doctor O'Connor that you want at the forefront of your narrative, weave in more flashbacks and press the present-day events further. How will the ghost stop Doctor O'Connor if a mistake is being made? Or is it just clinging to life with the false belief that it can make some kind of genuine difference?

Good luck with this. It's a nifty idea, but that's all it is right now -- an idea. You should most definitely flesh it out into a full-fledged story.

Hi! So I'll get to the second part of Serpent's Teeth later, possibly today, but this is also on my review list and it's next in line. I'm not sure if you asked me to look at it or I just decided to but either way, on to the review!

I don't have any specific comments for you so straight into some general observation.

Clarity

You're very muddled in the beginning and it skips about. I'm not sure who the 'he' who got misdiagnosed and died is. I'm not sure if there's really enough flesh on that scene to justify it being there and that's your problem in it's entirety; flesh. There's just not enough of a story here. The scenes are skimmed through, the reader hasn't decided yet if the main character is another of the trainee doctors who decided after being saved to follow in this great guy's foot-steps, or just a nosy patient. And then you land it on us that they're dead and instead of being like ooooh, creepy, I'm more like ah, okay! So that clears up the relationship. No. You should lead us to place a solid relationship on these two, even if it's only to have it dashed later and then when we're all amazed by the revelation, it will be a stronger reaction.

Characters

There's not enough bones on them either. I care nothing for the observant, very passive narrator or for the doctor, though if I had to pick one over the other, I would say the doctor as he at least has some definition to him. But there needs to be more. I want to understand more about him. Does he have a superiority complex? Does he just simply not care about people, but is more concerned with medicine itself and the way it makes him feel like God to save a life? Or did he once care but has grown so tired now that he barely even registers that these are people at all? I don't know. But yeah, we need more on that. And we need more of the narrator's feelings. We need to see fear from her when he's treating the patients. Anger or pleasure when he gets it right. The demand of why couldn't he have been right last time? We need to see why she's still here because she's too quiet at the moment and too passive. Not the sort of spirit I would expect would have stuck around. There has to be unfinished business and anger and a need for resolution to keep them there, but I feel nothing like that from your main character.

Overall

I liked it. Lovely flow as always, some nice descriptions and a nifty idea. But it needs more work.

Heather xxx

Wow twit, a classic twist! I love it.

Heather seemed to cover it for the most part. I definitely agree with the point about Clarity. I think Doctor O'Connor was deliberately a difficult character to like, he did after all kill our narrator. But the way you introduce him makes him seem very unprofessional, and if he is the best, I would expect him to be a little more professional about the interns. The term skanky springs to mind.

You should also make him seem at least a little regretful. You could introduce a very faint subplot, talk about the flask of gin in his locker (Okay now who is being unprofessional.) Or talk about how he usually has a tan at this time of year - highlight the fact he is so hard on himself he hasn't taken a holiday after his mistake. I don't know, something that makes us care a little more for him, because you do a good job with the twist and the plot but you fail to really make us care for the doctor and I think he is the centre piece, his transformation, be it subtle and underlying, is the most important aspect of this story.

Hope this helps!

JP