The Medical Room-Personal Narrative

After finishing his peppery speech, the Medical Director brusquely turned his attention to a stack of papers and began discussing them with Jane Woodford, effectively shutting out Surina. As a result of Jane’s sickly sweet perfume permeating through the austere room and intermingling with the Medical Director’s pungent aftershave to create a nauseating odor, Surina’s head began spinning. To put it another way, it resembled the residual smell left when incense cannot entirely mask the stench of death. Rex, of course, being immune to any odor, noxious or otherwise, maintained a fixed thin smile throughout the unpleasant proceedings. While Surina reeled from the acrid smell, the comet once again began orbiting around in her head. Then, Rex chimed in with his singsong voice, “Dr. Mathew, there is time now to clear your lab for the next occupant.” Despite her twenty years of toil and moil at the hospital, it took the Medical Director less than two minutes to summarily dismiss her on her birthday with a shrug. That was the extent of her relevance to the
hospital; she thought dejectedly. Why had she even expected bouquets and plaudits for all her travails when brickbats were the norm? In light of the inveterate Section Four Hundred policy of reassignment to the planet Gnaritus being widely acknowledged as necessary for the survival of Earth, governments worldwide had accepted it complacently without any protest. Nonetheless, members of the powerful ruling elite together with their extended families were exempt from the relocation policy. Suddenly, the shocking realization of her premature departure, as sixty years was the usual age of resettlement, overwhelmed her. Even worse, her vain hopes of her accomplishments in medical research being enough to maintain her place on Earth seemed altogether foolish now. Was she being cast out by virtue of not fitting in Earth’s society? Perhaps, she should not have raised any questions about the Stinguard viral vector, a sacrilegious act by all accounts, especially in such a stultifying, hidebound world. Regardless, having a cockalorum like Dr. Stinguard for a supervisor stacked all the cards against her, making her chances of staying on Earth essentially nonexistent from the beginning.
The Medical Director remained seated with Jane Woodford at the table as Rex nimbly steered Surina out of the bleak office and into the elevator in the hallway.
From the external building elevator, she saw the sky imbued with the warm golden rays of the setting Sun that also drifted as shimmering ripples on the lake in front of the hospital. In the distance, the sparkling emerald green shrubs and trees on the gently rolling hills made a picture-perfect backdrop to the main hospital building. Although the Earth had never seemed so beautiful to her as today, in one week, she would never see it again. Nevertheless, she understood how certain unexpected events could transpire in the lives of hapless, ill-starred individuals such that nothing would be the same again. Presently, she had already reached her point of no return! What else could she have expected? After all, she had dreamt about a comet last
night.