Sleepless Nights 87 - Blade

I suppose I really do like older women.

*

I have a scar on my left index finger, close to the proximal interphalangeal joint. I cut myself bad with a fucking machete when I was a kid. I still remember every detail about it, for some reason. I saw my Mom sharpening a knife on a whetstone and I thought 'Hey, I can do that shit'. So I took the machete out and got to work. I must've done a bloody good job because I didn't even realise I cut myself immediately. It was a pretty deep cut and while medical attention would've been needed, I was more afraid of my Mom finding out. So I tied some pieces of tissue hard against the wound and pretended nothing happened.

I remember, with precision, how I got every single scar on my body. They're like video snippets that I never manage to delete from memory. I have a scar in the middle of my forehead from the time I slammed the metal kitchen door against my head. It wasn't intentional, I simply had a bit of a brain malfunction at the time. I was running (For no reason, of course, people don't believe me when I say my soul is a spirited one) towards the kitchen when I thought that I could reach the door handle, open and close it in one move without decreasing speed. I'm not very bright, see, so what happened was that I misjudged the breadth of said door, yanked it open anyway and received divine retribution right smack in the centre of my forehead. Hence the slitlike scar.

My knees are scarred to bits from countless falls; each of them immortalised in memory. The biggest one I received while falling down and having a jutting piece of stone lance itself a quarter-way through my knee. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt. I was running (Again with the running) from nothing, come to think, it was just my way of entertaining myself. I used to get so... Lost in worlds that I created. I still do and I think that's my biggest achievement to date. I kept the child in me alive, well and thoroughly corrupted to the point of no return.

Then there're the self inflicted ones. I guess those'll always remain a mystery when it comes to the 'why' aspect. I honestly did not have any motivation to do it. I just simply did. One possible explanation was that I needed to understand the reason why other people did it. However, one might argue that surely one cut is enough? Why did I 'graduate' to molten plastic and so on? I remember my Mom's face when she first saw the scars. Putting aside the fact that I might be over analysing it, she didn't look angry. At all, which was surprising to me. She just looked very... Befuddled. I don't think she knew how to handle something like that, her kids were suppose to have some sort of basic logic, after all. At the same time, I think that she was slightly upset over the fact that she only found scars and not wounds. I think I wounded her ego a bit there.

I have no reason to talk about this, really. It popped up, just like everything else.

*

I'm in the Endocrinology department and today I met with one of the first doctors who actually made me want to be a doctor.

She was our teacher two years back when we first ventured into the seemingly fucked up world of clinical medicine. I use the term fucked up lightly because to be honest, the only other phrase I can use is 'masochist education centre'. It's a wonder how none of us quit.

I joke a lot about having a crush on her. Too much maybe, that might explain the weird looks but I digress. For a while, even I asked myself if it's just a fucking joke or am I seriously falling into some sort of inescapable abyss of the insane. She was a beast. I'm not even fucking kidding. I can't kid about this shit. We'd go into class, get a new asshole torn and leave with our tails in between our legs. She took my confidence, threw it into a blender, coated the pulp in chilli powder and concentrated acid and then proceeded to shove it so far up my ass, my liver burned.

And God bless her for that. I can count on one hand how many people I am truly thankful for and she makes the list. Today I met her again. I was so bloody desperate to achieve some sort of level recognition and if this was the middle ages, I would've chopped off the head of the smartest kids in class and skullfucked them just to get noticed. Then this exchange took place: (She will be referred to as the Grand Beast)

Grand Beast: You... What was your name again?
Me: Zufar.
GB: What?
Me: Zu-
GB: Whatever, nevermind.
Me: [Internally screaming]

Okay, that might have been fabricated. I don't internally scream. [Internally scream]

In all seriousness. I wasn't dejected. A little maybe, but I attribute it to the whole 'Why the fuck can't you even pronounce a simple fucking name' thing I always have. So I thought about it for awhile and the whole maturity-wisdom-sage thing kicked in and I made sense of the whole thing. This might take a paragraph or two.

We can't help but seek ways to better ourselves. This comes in many forms, obviously, like everything else and it differs from person to person. Personally, I hate feeling stupid. That's the reason why I like to be in the company of people that are so much smarter than me. I feel small in their presence, I constantly feel like I am merely a shadow to their mind and while it tends to drive me batshit insane at times, it has a much greater benefit as a whole. I take my pride and my envy and I pitch it against these monumental behemoths of persons and it's very clear that I fall short by miles. And I condition myself to not want to be envious of other people but not in a noble sense. It is, truthfully, a very twisted way of living. I want to be able to not envy them because I want proof that I am so much better.

So when this aforementioned she-demon of a doctor enters the picture, the same thing happens. Here is the most intellectually intimidating creature I have ever had the pleasure to meet and she is basically telling me day in and day out that I will always fall short. Of course, in reality, she doesn't use this term but that's how I saw it through my diseased eyes. It became a challenge that I could not resist and it ate me up.

Fast forward two years and I meet her once again. I have managed to learn a thing or two and became a sliiiiightly better student and she didn't seem as insanely intolerant anymore. She was still far more accomplished, obviously, that much is definite.

The problem is that I tend to romanticise everything. I've always, always had this problem. I take an event that's not even slightly life-changing and then I proceed to create these brilliant (Am I allowed to call my creations brilliant? Seems somewhat... Narcissistic. Wait, I am exactly that) stories around it so that it could conform to my crazy fucking expectations.

It's good to know I'm not obsessed with some thirty over years old married lady. Still, she is up to this day, one of the most brilliant doctors I've met. I mean she managed to take medicine, something I previously loathed, and presented it in a way that I could appreciate. It's like taking dust and convincing people that it's actually the soul of the universe.

You gotta be fucking awesome to do that, man.

*EDIT: I would, of course, appreciate not alerting the Grand Beast about the existence of this post. While when analysed, it is shown to be full of praise, I doubt she would consider that over say, running me over with her chariot.

**EDIT: I would also appreciate not having the term Grand Beast thrown around. Or she-demon.