obiwanjabroni

Before I post the story, I'd like to ask politely for some major critique, not just of the story itself, but the stylistic elements and how I can improve on it. I know this isn't the "critique" section, but I figure I should post it here since it's a completed short story. Thanks in advance.


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Hello. I am Doctor Anderson, and I run a clinic, of sorts, at the corner of Six and M Street. It’s not a normal clinic that I run; rather, I see it as a center of discovery and research. I consider my work more scientific than science itself. For my research is the study that is most relevant to man, a study that is connected to the very essence of the human being, and, therefore, is the most important. I run a suicide clinic.

People come to me when they have grown weary of this earthly existence; my job is to carry out their request based on the presented coinage. Thus I make my living; thus my role to society is fulfilled.

When I tell people that I’m a doctor, their immediate reaction is one of delight, followed by the customary questions as to the place of my education and the kind of car that I drive. In short, my answers to these questions disappoint and distress. I, in fact, possess no medical degree. My car isn’t a Volkswagen or a Mercedes; it’s a six-year-old Honda.

There is always the hesitant pause after my less-than extravagant answers, and an abrupt change of subject. There is a questing darkness in their eyes, which I don’t feel obliged to put to light with any information.

Outside of my clinic, there are always groups of protestors. "Anderson ain’t God", "Murderer", "Down with Anderson!" How little these people know of me. You see, I am a firm believer that every human being is responsible for everything about themselves. It is their right to do as they please with their lives. If they wish to become a menace to society, then they have fulfilled their purpose to this world by being uniquely themselves. I believe that, although every person is not responsible, they ultimately should be in control of the very basis of their existence: their lives.

It is the communist and the absolutists who believe that people should not have the choice to decide their own lives. The threat of such protestors is what keeps the number of clinics such as mine so few. And thus, profits for such clinics are phenomenal for their size. My clinic, however, has not fared exceptionally well. Nor has it ever been an exceptionally well-funded clinic. Some of my employees have even asked why they had so little work to do, even though at least twenty customers enter my office on a daily basis.

As for that, it is my fault, I suppose. I’m not cut out for this kind of work. But, this is what I want to do. Though I’ve dated many women in my life, not a one lasts more than a month after she’s discovered my line of work. It is considered a filthy profession; one that deals in the dark arts of murder and suffering. But I like it because - and this will sound odd - I am a people person. I can connect with people on a deeper level, and as a result, I can understand those dejected people who enter my office asking for a pill that will put them to sleep forever. Unfortunately, this empathy of mine has made me a very ineffective businessman.

Perhaps I can put this into perspective by telling a story about my life. Though I am called a Doctor, do not let the title fool you. Where many other doctors will tell you a rags-to-riches story that is often embellished and enhanced, I will tell you a story of the opposite progression that is vulgar in its honesty.

People would say that I lead a life that was well-off. I lived in a gated community, and as an only child, I was spoiled obscenely. My parents, nevertheless, were loving of me and tried to teach me the responsibilities that go with so easy a place in life. My life was filled with all the luxuries that a rich family could garner: private tutors, lessons in my course matters, elegant parties, and rich families. By the time I had graduated high school, I had acquired a large inheritance that I swore to pay my parents back once I had earned the money myself. It was also in college that I met my first serious girlfriend.

She came into my life as inconspicuously as a hurricane, I suppose. Like a tide, her influence drifted into a life that I had felt was perfect. She was an intoxicating human being, filled with vitality and graced with an infectious smile. My college years flew past as time linked our souls closer together. We shared our pasts, our lives, and our dreams, and, though neither one of us could admit it at the time, we wanted to spend our lives together.

At the time, I had a friend, who was a sculptor at New York University, whom I often approached with questions. During my second year of medical school, I asked my friend if it were time to propose or not. He smiled at me, and asked me if I were crazy. Soon after, it was decided that my girlfriend and I would no longer be girlfriend and boyfriend, but man and wife. Our marriage ceremony would be in one month. My parents, happy to see me with a nice girl who made me happy, decided to celebrate with a trip to Europe. I had to stay in the States to continue my studies in medical school, but they promised to return within three weeks - just in time for the marriage. They wanted to take my fiancé with them.

By the time my family and my fiancé left, autumn had turned the leaves of the campus trees a smoldering orange. The air stood still; there was a sizzling undercurrent of anticipation, as if there were something beneath the surface of reality that was waiting for its chance to move into our realm. We never think it could happen to us. The media gives us every aspect of life. We’re so used to gossip that it ceases to surprise us. A train is derailed, killing twenty. Loss becomes so far away, so detached from life, that even when it happens to us, we cannot begin to comprehend it.

I was sipping coffee, aimlessly flipping through the pages of a textbook, when the news caught my eye. Apparently, an engine malfunction on an airplane caused it to go down at sea. The Navy was searching the seas of its general position before contact was lost. I smiled in compassion and pity for the loss of the plane would cause, or at least, my heart imitated the conventions of compassion and pity. You cannot feel these things unless you understand those feelings. I, a spoiled, high-class boy reared in a society filled with extravagant dinner parties and a home filled with every luxury, had never truly experienced these things. I had grown used to things going my way.

That night, when I arrived at my house, I received a phone call. It was the airline company, offering their condolences. It was then that my mind went down into a vicious corridor. It was like the Nine Gates to Hell. Every step, my mind came closer to the realization of a horror that had never before entered my consciousness.

The weeks came and went. Some may argue that my loss should have been easier to take than most. I disagree. I had never known this kind of loss before. To lose both of my parents, the ones who raised me and who have loved me more than anyone else in the world, and the one girl who I had invested all my hopes and all my life with, became a burden that I was ill-prepared to handle.

My days grew excruciatingly long. I grew reckless in my studies and classes. There were whispers and rumors that spread like wildfire; people began calling me stupid and they began to despise my new attitude. Indeed, I couldn’t have cared any less for what others were saying about me. I had become the lemming. There was no longer a purpose left in my life; I had lost everything.

Finally, the day came when I decided that my life was no longer worth living. I saw before me endless days of suffering, and I decided that I no longer needed to face this world. I no longer needed to strain this world with my sorrow. It was only with this decision that I felt a great joy; because this was the first thing that I had done that I felt would be of benefit to anyone. I was content with my decision and not a soul could possibly convince me otherwise.

I guess people noticed a change in me. My actions reflected my new content. I became suddenly happy after a period of depression, and people grew suspicious, but soon learned to accept that I’ve gotten over my initial feeling of loss. My friends, who had been worried about me for the entire period of my depression, were overjoyed to see this change in me. They were glad that I had finally gotten over such a terrible loss and they thought my change was for the better. All of my friends except my sculptor friend. Though he, like my other friends, were happy to see me happy, he maintained his suspicions.

One day, I was walking home, I met up with him. He smiled at me, and asked me how I was doing. I smiled back and said that I’ve never felt better. In turned out that he wanted to show me one of his newest sculptures. I declined because this was the day I had chosen to end my life. I turned his offer down and continued to walk home, but he stopped me. He was very persistent and continued to urge me to go with him. He said that I would like the sculpture. Reluctantly, I acquiesced, deciding that this would not depart much from my original plan.

His studio was a dusty, yet vibrant room filled with works of art strewn about in no particular order. I often wondered when I walked into that studio how my friend was able to maintain such good grades, if he couldn’t even keep his own studio in an orderly state. Perhaps what I had missed was that this chaos was exactly the thing that gave my friend his genius. It was from the chaos that he picks out the sparks of light and from the chaos does he shape his art.

We walked into the room and he took me to a cleared out table. On it was a half-finished sculpture. A block of marble stood with a rose that was coming out from the left side. The other half was still part of the original block, but there was a rose that stood out from the other half.

"What is this?" I asked curiously.

"This is the sculpture I brought you here to show you. Don’t you like it"

I was confused. "But why isn’t it finished?"

"It is finished."

And then he showed me the name of his sculpture. That night, I cried and I left out my heart to my friend. All my hopes, all my dreams, all shattered in the instant of realization that my entire family had been dispatched by a single swipe of fate.

I went home late that night and slept a dreamless sleep. The next morning, I laid out the pills that I had meant to take last night next to a glass of water. I stared at the means to my release for at least an hour. All the while, flashes of a future that could have been raced through my mind, always to be extinguished by the reality. And then I thought about my friend and the sculpture. I smiled and I picked up the pills and the glass of water.

Later that day, my sculptor friend came to me weary eyed. He took me by the hand and said to me, "I heard your toilet flush this morning." I hugged him then, and it was also then that I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. My friend had shown me the beauty of compassion and of companionship. He showed me that a sculpture unfinished is never satisfied because there would always be untapped potential that hasn’t been explored.

The world, once masked in a green haze of opulence and permanence, became a place filled with despair and transience. My world was transformed from the fantastic to the real. I could no longer ignore those people and problems. I had been to both ends of the spectrum, and what I found was that I could no longer ignore the kind of suffering that causes someone to want to take their own life. I needed to help people avoid these same problems that had afflicted me.

I’ve learned a lot since then. I started a suicide clinic when I realized that people, when convinced that they want to die, will not go for help. They will go see the suicide clinic. I learned that freewill was paramount if a person is to realize that their life is worth something. And that is why I sit in this office now: to show others what I had been shown. To show people that we don’t live for our past, we live for that which may yet become the past.

Today, I have a customer. It is a middle-aged woman, and she sits down across from me. I look at her gravely, and I attempt to make small talk with her. She tells me her troubles, and I nod with an understanding that is all too real. I allow her to speak longer. When she is finished, an even stronger look of resolve crosses her face, and even a smile tugs at the corners of her lips. I stand up and I show her a sculpture that I had bought from a friend and I tell her a story that I had once heard.

People think I’m cruel, running a suicide clinic. People don’t know the half of it. Patients enter my office with a smile and a purpose. They leave in tears and confusion. Though some choose to die anyway, the majority choose to see what this world can still bring them. People who choose to live often find that their perspective has changed. No matter how badly one has craved for their own death, their brush with death in this way brings deeper meaning to their own lives.

And so that ends another day of work. As I said, I make little money from this clinic of mine. But money no longer brings me much joy. Money represents my failure to bring my understanding of life to more people. And so, I do my best to make as little as possible.

Oh, and the name of that sculpture? My friend called it "Before It’s Time."