DOCTOR

I went to see a doctor, finally. Suburban doctor, the kind with a normal house as their surgery, the sort of house you’d drive right past if it didn’t have a wheelchair ramp layering up to the front door. The reception was where you’d think a lounge room might be, normally, and the receptionist had her desk next to a nice lamp, where you’d maybe put an armchair to read a book in. The doctor came out and she was dressed casually, the way someone might around their own house. She took me into her surgery, which would normally be a bedroom, and it had a clear view out onto a tidy garden. A row of pots, with herbs, sat along the windowsill. She sat me down and I looked up at the ghost of a suburban ceiling, imagining remnants of glow-in-the-dark stars.