“Doc, sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Why, Mork? Why… You wouldn’t tell me.”
He seems unable to answer, yet I keep wailing and asking. As if everything would have been magically better had he told me first. It would merely serve to notify me faster. One day, maybe? Or two days? It would barely move it earlier, making me start crying on some earlier day.
I feel it is sarcastic. I’m just realizing now after Mork apologized to me, that P'Por, the one who made me cry right now, hasn’t said any sorry to me. The first word of sorry I heard was from the guy who had no hand in this at all.
I hear him telling me to calm down.
I hear him telling me grownups don’t cry.
But I can’t stop. My tears just keep gushing.
“I can’t stop crying, Mork.”
I reply while still weeping against his chest.
My desperate hands cling tighter onto him with every weep.
He holds steadily onto me, one hand keeps stroking gently on my head.
“Then, keep crying. Cry all you want. I’ll be here with you, doc. I won’t let you cry alone.”
With that, I rely my whole weight on him and continue crying, as if trying to fill the crater in my heart with tears. It’s like the crater has been dug out on sand, and it’s impossible to completely fill this void with water. I keep crying while Mork holds me…
I come to my senses again when my stomach protests that it is hungry.
How intriguing. Our heart can be completely shattered and yet the stomach will still be working so earnestly, as if it doesn’t acknowledge the deep sorrow that’s overwhelming the heart. How can the stomach not care and get hungry anyway?
I tell Mork I’m hungry, and he promises to take me somewhere with delicious food. He asks if I trust him, and I give him no answer except climbing onto his passenger seat as usual. I think when the heart is broken but the stomach is hungry, what we need is a motorcycle taxi guy whom we can trust… Is that right?
“Doc…”
He turns to talk to me while starting to drive.
“What is it, Mork?”
I rest my face against his back and tighten my hold around him.
“Tonight… I think you shouldn’t be alone.”
I return no answer, I simply hold him tighter still.
It is the answer…
…………
I am awakened by the sound from the kitchen.
How long has it been since I’ve last woken up by this kind of sound? When I was living at home, my mother and Pa[64] Un, the housekeeper, would wake up early to prepare food offerings for the monks. Mother always purposely cooked loudly, to wake us, the three siblings, up to join the almsgiving. It was our family routine.
But after I started attending medical school, then until I finished the intern years and came back for specialty training, I have to live away from home. I’ve never been woken up by this nostalgic sound again. Hearing it right here and right now feels strangely wonderful, in spite of my current condition, being devastated by a love disaster less than twenty-four hours ago.
Waking up to such sounds warms my heart, and I like it.
I get up from the mattress and stretch. The t-shirt I’m wearing is too big and hangs loose on one side of my shoulders, showing the other side. Whoever that takes a look will be able to tell right away that it does not belong to me. The t-shirt smells unfamiliar, but it is a nice smell which warms my heart as much as the sound of the kitchen that woke me up.
I rub my eyes and look around. This unfamiliar room has unfamiliar beddings. I am not in P'Por’s condo room, nor my dorm room.
I am in Mork’s room…
I look to my side, Mork is sleeping on another mattress next to mine.
Yesterday, after eating, he brought me back to his room. We sat leisurely and at first, I tried to teach him some English, in an attempt to keep myself occupied so I couldn’t think too much. It failed, though. I couldn’t. Eventually, I ended up just rotating between staring vacantly at the ceiling and crying. Mork sat beside me the whole time.
“Oh, doc… You’re awake already?”
He opens his eyelids and slowly props his upper body up sideways on his mattress.
I nod. “Uh-huh. Just a while ago.”
He moves closer, staring hard at my face. “Your eyes are still swollen, doc.”
I immediately put my hands over my eyelids to feel them. He’s right. “Yep, I cried a lot yesterday. No wonder they’re swollen.” Hopefully they will get back to normal soon, I still need to go to the hospital today… Oh, wait.
“Oh, crap, I forgot! What time is it now, Mork? I must hurry to the hospital.”
I look around for a clock. I don’t know where I put my cellphone last night. I cried so hard I forgot I need to get to work and round the ward today.
“It’s just half past six, doc. Take it easy, you aren’t late yet.”
He replies, handing the phone to me. What a relief, it is only 6:28 a.m. My ward round starts at 8:00, so I still have time. Luckily, now I won’t get an earful of it. I turn to Mork again.
“Oh, right, Mork. I’ve been wondering since yesterday, where’s Khai?”
Yesterday I was too busy crying and completely forgot about his nephew who calls him papa.
“Today he’s with his mom. Tomorrow he’ll come back here.”
“Eh… I thought you said he’s not close to his parents.”
Mork nods. “Yah, doc. But parents are still parents anyhow. I’m not his real father. Khai still has his real parents. Though they aren’t quite close, the bond is still there. I can’t replace them.”
Right. That’s true. The boy has his own parents. No matter how good Mork takes care of him in place of a father, it doesn’t adequately compensate for the parts where Khai’s real parents are needed. Doesn’t that sound just like me? No matter how good I was as a temporary lover, P'Por is never mine.
“Well, doc… Are you feeling more okay now?”
Mork asks, perhaps because my face shows the emotions when I think about P'Por and I.
Although I nod my head, my mouth says the opposite.
“I’m not okay. But I’m still alive. Which means I must go back to work.”
Mork switches from reclining to sitting on the mattress.
“I feel you, doc. I, too, once opened the door to my dorm room and saw my girlfriend with another guy. I don’t know what you saw up there at the condo, but I guess the feelings we got aren’t different.”
“And...you got over it?”
I ask.
Mork nods. “I did cry though. But then, the next morning I went out and drove my motorcycle at work again. I think the pain we get from betrayal of a loved one is so strange, doc.”
“How? In what way?”
I think I might know that, but can’t quite put my finger on it.
“Well, the physical pain like a knife cut, a gunshot wound, or a motorcycle accident injury will be normally painful, and then they start hurting again if your wounds have inflammation. After that, they gradually heal. And they’re visible throughout all the stages, from fresh wounds, older wounds, scabs, and being healed, sometimes leaving scars.”
The look in his eyes is now different. I can sense a hint of hurt in there. Not severe pain from a new and fresh wound like mine. In fact, I can feel that deeply, in his mind, there lies a dormant pain, like a layer of undisturbed silt.
“But mental pain isn’t like that, doc. It hurts us in a way that makes it hard to breathe. Yet it lets us live on. It doesn’t kill us, it just keeps coming back, without order, without stages or process like other wounds. And sometimes it behaves so well we’re fooled into thinking it no longer hurts. Then, when we let our guard down, it would strike again and hurt us so much we’re almost breathless.”
“Does it still hurt for you now?” I ask.
Mork shakes his head. “I don’t know, doc. Maybe. But even if it does, I can’t really feel it anymore. It’s not that I f
orget it, I can still remember. I remember every detail.”
I have nothing else to say or ask.
I wait for him to continue.
“I guess it’s like our daily life, doc. We have dinner and then go to sleep. We wake up the next morning, remembering what we ate yesterday. We remember every dish. We remember the feelings of when we stuffed ourselves so full we almost barfed.”
Mork stands up and opens the curtains and the windows, before returning to fold up his mattress and continuing to talk to me.
“But when we wake up in the morning, we’re hungry all over again, doc. Although we can remember the dinner from last night so well, we’re still hungry. I think a painful memory can’t keep hurting us forever, doc. Someday it will stop, even if we remember it.
Now I feel like such a stupid person…
I feel stupid in front of this motorcycle taxi guy, who graduated in a vocational program, never went to university, never read any sophisticated literature, never took any philosophy class. Mork has learned wisdom from the nature of people’s hearts and conveyed it to me in layman’s terms, showing me a crystal clear image of something I, a medical postgrad, wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
It still hurts for me. And although the pain hasn’t decreased, I feel like there are cooling droplets that have drenched the fresh wound inside of my heart. I feel like it’s getting soothed and on the way to healing. The pain is still going on with its own mechanics, but I know that one day, the cogs of this hurt will stop turning.
“Doc, please get up, I’ll put the mattress away. Or do you want to snooze a bit?”
He walks towards me.
I shake my head. “Oh, Mork, let me take care of it myself.”
I volunteer and grab an end of the mattress, preparing to fold it.
But Mork laughs. “You’re tiny, the mattress is huge. You won’t be able to properly shake the mattress. Come, let me put it away for you.”
Then, he snatches the mattress from me, shakes it, and folds it before stashing it in a corner of the room.
“Let’s go downstairs to eat, and I’ll drop you off at the hospital. So you can get there before eight.”
He turns to smile, showing his canines. “Even when our heart is broken, our stomach will still get hungry, doc. Believe me. Been there, done that.”
It is the kind of smile that makes me want to smile in return, no matter how dead inside I feel.
So, I smile back at him. “Okayyyy, experienced guy.”
“Yah you’re my junior now. I’ve been through that pain first, so I’m a senior.”
He leads me to the door.
“Okay, okay, senior. I believe you.”
I follow behind.
“If you believe your senior, smile please?”
He smiles at me and wiggles his eyebrows, making a playful face.
“I already smiled a while ago. Wasn’t that enough?” I ask.
Mork shakes his head. “Nah, not enough, doc. Please smile again.”
Alright, alright, I will. I nod and smile. He smiles back at me again. Hmm… It feels quite good to smile and receive a smile in return. Even though it doesn’t decrease the pain I am feeling in my heart, at least I know that the corners of my lips aren’t dead yet and are still capable of producing a smile. Right now I might have to actively try to smile, but I know someday I will be able to smile naturally. Someday.
Without further ado, we both go downstairs for breakfast...
…………
Mork parks the motorcycle in front of the Emergency Department. I climb off the seat, return his safety helmet, and walk to the emergency entrance, using the corridor that leads to the Observation Ward. Fortunately, it is a substitute holiday, so the hospital is closed for outpatients. I get a day off, too, only need to finish rounding the ward and then I will be free for the rest of Monday...
Originally, I planned to ask P'Por to go out for a movie with me, because the Dental Clinic is closed today. However, I guess I have to write it off. I will just go round the ward first and then think about what to do today.
“Doctor…” Mork calls me.
I spin around to look at him. “Yes, Mork?”
“Let me know if and when you want me to drop by to see you. I’m free today.”
“Eh? Don’t you have to drive the mototaxi today? Yesterday you skipped work for a whole day already.”
He shakes his head and gives me subtle smiles.
“No problem, doc. It’s a holiday today, there won’t be many passengers. P'Fueang is used to me ditching work.”
“Thanks, Mork.”
“Anytime, doc.”
Finishing that, he drives off.
Frankly, though, even if I get so lonely today, I probably won’t request his company. I feel like it is too selfish to make someone spend their time with me only because I feel lonely, sad, and have no one. I shouldn’t impose on anyone just like that, even Nadia, my best friend.
I enter the ward and see P'Nok exiting.
“Oh, hello, P'Nok. What were you doing in my ward?”
“Oh, Tawan, there you are! I was looking for you.”
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
“I already did, but you never answered the phone, goofy!”
I look at my cellphone and there are indeed three missed calls, all from P'Nok. Yesterday, after leaving P'Por’s condo, I muted my phone and went completely out of contact with this world, only realizing now that I never turned the sound back on.
And I have also noticed...there is no call from P'Por.
Not a single missed call. Not a message, either…
We humans can sever a tie this easily, really?
“Tawan. Hey, Tawannnn.”
P'Nok calls and pulls me out of trance.
“Ah, yes? What’s up?”
“I said Nong Jack who’s supposed to be on duty as the first call has come down with AGE. Can you take the whole loop of ICU duty for me?”
“Sure, but is Jack’s AGE so severe he can’t work?”
“Take a look for yourself.” P'Nok replies with a head gesture towards the ward area.
Well, my training peer named Jack, with chapped lips and darkened circles around his eyes, is currently lying in no. 1 bed which became vacant yesterday after I released a patient who was here for alcohol withdrawal.
“Oh, crap! What on earth did you eat? A poisonous toad or what?”
I approach his bed while laughing amusedly.
“Fish feed…”
He replies weakly.
“Hmmmm? Fish feed? Damn! Why did you go and eat fish feed?”
“I was enjoying my day off, and fed some fish. Forgot to wash my hands, and then touched my bread while eating.”
“Bah... To think you would neglect to wash your hands before a meal, don’t tell anyone you’re a doctor.”
I laugh while looking at his chart.
Oh boy, severe diarrhea and low sodium. This means moderate fluid loss. Had he gotten here later than he did, it would have surely escalated into severe dehydration. Everyone, please remember hand hygiene is crucial. Bring hand sanitizer with you wherever you go.
“I’ll take the duty in your stead.”
I close the chart folder and nod to Jack.
“Cool. Thanks.” He replies with a humorless smile.
“You get some rest, okay?”
I leave his bed to continue rounding the ward, but before I even start with the next bed, someone screeches my name from in front of the ward. “Tawaaaannnnn!” Without needing to look, I know it’s Nadia.
“Yesterday you disappeared after leaving the coffee shop! You ghosting me? Never replied to my LINE message, either. Is everything alright?” On top of his barrage of questions, Nadia closes the distance and squeezes my cheeks on both sides. “Dawww, you look so frazzled, like you didn’t sleep. Bitch, don’t tell me you and P'Por did it all night yesterday.”
I press my lips into a thin line… And even without a mirror, I know m
y facial expression shifts so much, as Nadia’s face immediately turns grave.
“Nadia… Wait for me until I finish rounding the ward and taking the duty handover. I won’t take long. I’ll tell you after.”
“Aw, Tawan, what’s wrong? You look so stressed.”
I turn to smile at him. Frankly, I want to just drag him away to a quiet corner and spill my guts about yesterday. Perhaps cry again until I’m satisfied. But I can’t. This is a doctor’s life, the life I’ve chosen to live. Even though today my mental pain is killing me internally, externally I still have to keep working. I have patients under my care in the ward. I have a responsibility towards my duty…
“After the ward round and duty handover, I’ll tell you everything.”
My Ride, I Love You Page 30