jane and the doc tease

So I have to apologize. After optimistically posting the first page of Jane I went home, re-read the rest and remembered why I didn't continue. I actually threw the pages across the room and then crawled under the bed with Fred to hide from my own mediocrity. But as my mother has always encouraged me to finish what I start, I'm going to try to press on. Truly, it's not something I've ever taken to heart, but it sounds good doesn't it? (Translation: don't hold your breath. All I'm saying is that I'm going to try.) My hope is that you won't hate it so much because you don't live in my head with my good friend self-loathing. Of course, there's got to be some re-writing, so the process may be a little slower and the posts a tad more brief than I first hoped, but that's okay because no one reads the really long blog entries anyway. Right? Right then. Here we go. Without any further ado, Jane and the Doc Tease:

Jane left the hospital AMA, against medical advice, signing her name at the bottom of the form with a flourish, enjoying the look of abject disappointment on the faces of the doctors.

"But you'll call if anything happens, right?" they asked, almost desperate.

"We're here if you need us."

"Please, come back immediately -- to this hospital -- if anything changes."

"Or if nothing changes."

"You should just come back. "

"You shouldn't leave."

"Can we have your phone number?" This last question asked in what could only be described as a whimper.

Jane had never felt so popular, so she graciously left her contact information, juxtaposing numbers here and there, just for fun.

The truth was, she was sick... sick of their poking and prodding, the smell of illness that seemed to cling to the white coats and stethoscopes, the rich color of her own blood that really didn't flow, so much as ooze from her arm without a heart to pump it, the whine of the heart monitor they insisted she wear in ridiculous compliance with habit and form. Really, what was the point? But she wasn't sick sick.

She was getting angry by the time she signed the form. "Where's my heart," she wanted to say, "Doctor, where's your hair?"

It was such a personal question: where's your heart? Not so much because of the object lost, but because of the act of losing. She hated losing things, almost as much as she hated being late. Both qualities belonged to people with flaky, flighty personalities. Jane, however, liked to think of herself as grounded and practical, so the question embarrassed her, forcing her to rethink her own picture of herself.

She wasn't a person who normally lost track of her possessions. Primarily because she never threw anything away. Her house was full of the detritus of years' worth of pack-ratting. The usual clutter, out-of-date magazines and solitary socks joined by old gas bills (some never opened), the toilet seat behind the bathroom door she'd replaced last year and the broken phone that she'd dropped in said toilet while describing the new seat to her mom.

Even broken, this stuff had to have value and she had a hard time letting go.

To be continued. . .