Courting Achilles.pdf

Courting Achilles by greeen goldfish

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5768928/1/

….

I never kept a journal before I started working in Sudan. Part of it was because,

for the first time, I thought events in my life and things that I was witnessing

were actually worth recording and remembering. But mostly it was because I had

no internet access, and I couldn't write lengthy emails to my friends and family

every day. I wanted to tell them these stories. I was afraid I would forget them

otherwise. It was kind of annoying when something would happen that made me

think of Bella and I knew it would maybe be weeks before I could tell her about

it.

Although I guess some things I encountered that reminded me of Bella were

things that I'd almost rather forget. Like the day I had to treat a woman who was

hemorrhaging after giving birth, due to the fact that she had undergone female

genital mutilation. They hadn't come to me when she went into labor. I might

have been able to prevent the hemorrhaging if they had.

Infibulation is practiced widely in Sudan. It's what the WHO refers to as "type III"

circumcision—meaning it's pretty much the worst. It's where they sew together

the labia majora to seal the vagina, leaving only a small hole for discharge like

menstrual blood. Sometimes they also remove the clitoris and the labia minora.

Women who have undergone this often have chronic yeast infections and get

other types of infections as well. Sometimes it causes sterility. And it often

causes complications in childbirth—especially if the infibulation isn't at least

partially reversed beforehand.

This woman's baby didn't survive. Then, neither did she.

So yeah, I wish I could have talked to Bella on the phone that day. I'm pretty

sure I will never, ever forget that woman. And as much as part of me would like

to forget it all, I guess it's more important for me to remember her. I can at least

do that for her, since I wasn't able to save her.

Bella and I have had conversations about cultural relativity—the whole 'well,

we're not from that culture so we don't really understand' bullshit. I've decided

that's what it is—bullshit. According to Bella, it's apparently hotly debated within

feminist circles whether to refer to it as 'female genital mutilation' or 'female

circumcision.' People apparently argue that it's imperialistic and insensitive to

refer to it as 'mutilation' when some people (including women who have

undergone it) consider it beautifying and necessary, according to their belief

systems.

Bullshit.

I've seen it.

It's mutilation.

Bella and I have discussed this type of shit at length. I don't buy into that bullshit

back at home. Why would I buy into it in Sudan? It's why I hate plastic surgeons

so much. I can't believe that people actually risk their health in hopes of

achieving something so arbitrary as beauty. It's as if people believe there's

actually some right or wrong answer to what is beautiful. And that strikes me as

Hitler-esque. Yeah, there are good plastic surgeons out there. Yeah, some of

them are doing reconstructive surgeries. But the majority of them? Not all that

much better than the idiots who do these mutilations. OK, maybe not always

quite that bad, but you know what I mean. And I'm going to condemn them both.

I don't give a fuck what culture it is. I know what I believe in. And it ain't that

shit.

So I wrote about Zeinab in my journal the night that I lost her. What else could I

do? I intended to give my journal to Bella when I returned home, so that she

could know all the things I had wanted to tell her at the time. It was somehow

comforting to know that she would read the words I wrote eventually—kind of like

I was telling her about my day, even though she wasn't there.

But that night was different. Fuck, was the whole long distance thing getting old

that night. I was so tired and angry and frustrated. As soon as I finished writing,

I slammed the notebook shut and threw it at the wall—which did not at all have

the cathartic effect I was hoping for. Fortunately, Alex, my assistant, knocked on

my door at just that moment—with the best possible news.

"Dr. Edward, there's a car going into town tomorrow. Do you want a ri-"

"YES!" I answered before he could even finish. He smiled and laughed at me.

"Ready to escape this place, eh?" he teased. I felt bad, then. Dabinga, the small

village where I was assigned, was Alex's home.

"It's not that. I just would like to get in touch with my family is all," I said. It was

the truth. I'd probably be as content in Dabinga as anywhere if only it had some

freaking wireless.

"I understand. Get some sleep now, then, Doctor. The car leaves at 6:00 in the

morning."

"Thank you, Alex."

…

The next morning was like Christmas. Yeah, I was sharing a car that was

obviously as old as me, meant for at least two fewer people than we crammed

into it for a long and bumpy ride, complete with AK-47s. But I was going to get to

check my email! And if the stars aligned, I would get to Skype with people. If the

stars aligned perfectly, I would get to Skype with Bella.

When we arrived near lunch time, the other guys looked at me like I was crazy

when I skipped out on them. I went straight to the "internet café." It was kind of

a misnomer. Really, the "internet café" was one computer in a guy's house, in a

room that looked like it was supposed to be a bedroom. He had erected a curtain

in the doorway and put little in the room other than a desk and the computer.

There were some random posters hung up on the walls of things like the Eiffel

tower, Sylvester Stallone, and Barack Obama but, other than that, it was just me

and the glorious internet. I tried not to think about what probably occurred in

that room behind that curtain before I got there.

I was super annoyed when the computer hadn't even been turned on. As I

pushed in the button and the thing started to hum to life, I rolled my eyes,

realizing I would probably get charged for the time it took for the decrepit thing

to boot up.

Decrepit might be a slight exaggeration. It's not like it was from 1985 or

anything. But it still had a disk drive. And when the desktop finally started

plopping icons down, one of them was Minesweeper. Maybe that's normal. I don't

know—I switched to Apple years ago. Maybe PC's still come with Minesweeper

and people still play it. All I know is that I haven't played Minesweeper since the

late nineties, at least. It was actually kind of amazing that this computer was able

to Skype.

I waited impatiently, drumming my fingers on the desk and waiting for the

humming to die down some before I began clicking on stuff—didn't want to

overwhelm the dinosaur. It was a tenuous connection with my outside world she

provided me and we had a sort of understanding between us—I wouldn't push her

if she would be at least pseudo-reliable for me.

After finally clicking the big blue Skype bubble, I sighed with contentment when I

heard the reassuring doopy sounds the program makes when it launches. I loved

those doopy sounds. But then my heart sank when I quickly scanned the list of

people online and Bella wasn't there. I looked at the clock. It was 11:20 AM my

time, which meant it was….two…three…four….3:20 PM her time. Which meant she

was probably at work. Sometimes she would stay signed into Skype while she

was at work, but this probably meant she was "out in the field" or some shit. Just

my luck. Fuck.

Before I had time to throw myself a pity party, a chat box popped up on the

screen. It was my mom. Of course.

She was thrilled to see me online, so I plucked up some enthusiasm before

donning the headphones with the microphone attached. Really, I was excited to

get to talk to her, too. It was just that I was disappointed I wasn't going to get to

talk to Bella. I think she could tell when we started talking, because she asked

me what was wrong. Of course, she immediately leapt to the worst conclusions—

thinking I had been shot or kidnapped or something. She calmed down

considerably when I told her the reason for my slightly lackluster mood. Then she

had the nerve to laugh, reassuming her own usual buoyancy.

"You try navigating a relationship across two continents!" I snapped petulantly.

"Oh, Honey. I'm sorry. I'm sure there will another chance to speak to her. How

long are you in town for?" she asked.

"Just the afternoon. It's between a five and six hour drive to get back. If I don't

get to talk to people today, I'm not sure when I'll have another opportunity. In

fact, I should probably be typing up emails to people right now."

"Well, talk to your mother some first. I did birth you, Edward. Besides, I always

type up updates from you and send them around to all the usual suspects to

make sure everyone knows what's going on with you, anyway."

"Oh yeah?" Part of me was concerned she was spamming friends, neighbors,

relatives, and distant acquaintances with all of the mundane details of my life.

But part of me was relieved because it took some of the pressure off of

communicating with everyone myself. Though it's not like I had that many people

I felt compelled to communicate with—Alice, Rose, Emmett, Jasper, Jake. That

was about it. Plus, now that everyone was all coupled up, I could kind of kill two

birds with one stone on some of those.

"Yes. So fill me in, so that I can fill them in."

And so I launched into what the past couple of weeks had been like. It felt totally

self absorbed, but there was a lot to tell. And I knew that that was what Mom

wanted. And I did want to hear about what was going on at home. But I didn't

mind delaying that part until the end, since it was often when I was receiving

updates from my friends and family that I felt the few short pangs of

homesickness that usually didn't bother me.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the entire time I spoke to my mom, I was eyeing

my buddy list to see if Bella would appear.

She didn't.

I was actually kind of relieved when no one else popped up, either. After pouring

out my soul to Mom, it would have felt like rehashing if I was forced to play catch

up with anyone else. Although after twenty minutes, I was admittedly looking for

an out. I had emails to write. As much as I loved having access to the internet, it

was always kind of stressful knowing I had so little time to take advantage of it. I

had told the guys just to leave me at the internet café and pick me up whenever

they were ready to go back, so I probably had hours. But it always flew by.

After getting the skinny on Dad and the happenings at the restaurant and Alice

and whatnot, I hung up with Mom and pulled some cold tamaya out of my

backpack that I had packed for the express purpose of being able to skip lunch. I

was so tired of eating tamaya, but I was so hungry at that point that I didn't even

care. I debated about whether to type up my email to Bella or my generic mass

email first. For some reason, emailing Bella seemed urgent even though I knew I

had hours. Plus, if she signed on, it would render the email largely moot. So I

opted for the mass email.

I always kind of felt like an asshole writing those emails. Like it's awfully

presumptuous to think that people are at all interested in my life. And really

impersonal sending the same email to everyone. I tried to limit the cc list to only

those I knew wanted to hear from me. Alice fucking hated it when she got one of

those emails instead of a personalized one. She'd give me such a hard time when

she wrote back.

So after telling everyone I was still alive and filling them in on some of my more

exciting cases, I began clicking through the mountain of email in my inbox. I

printed out the ones from Bella and shoved them in my backpack in case I didn't

have time to get to them until later. Plus then I would have them. Then I began

skimming the ones from everyone else, flagging the ones that seemed important

and needed to be read more closely after I had e-mailed Bella.

Once I finished, I looked at my watch. I had been there two hours already. Just

as I glanced at my buddy list, reconfirming for the hundredth time that Bella

wasn't online, Alice's name popped up. Before I even had an opportunity to roll

my eyes, she started ringing me. And like the good big brother that I am, I

answered

"Hey Bubbles."

"WRINKLES!!"

"How are you?"

"Oh my gosh, I haven't heard from you in forever. Mom called and told me you

were on Skype."

"Yeah, I'm slogging through my email now."

"Did you get my one about the trip Jazz and I took to the Blue Ridge Mountains?

And how we saw a bear? You would have loved it, Wrinkles."

"Yeah, yeah. It sounded awesome. How is Jasper?"

"He's good, but not as exciting as my doctor brother who is saving lives in a

remote village in Sudan! Tell me what's going on there."

"I just sent out an email to everybody."

"Ugh. Edward. You know how I hate those. They are so impersonal. Tell me

something the e-mail doesn't."

I sighed.

"I lost a patient last night."

"Aw, I'm sorry. What happened?"

"She died shortly after childbirth because of complications from FGM."

"Oh god. That's awful. What was her name?"

Alice was like that. She made a personal connection with everyone. She didn't

realize that part of what got me through the day sometimes was distancing

myself from the people I tried to help. Maybe that's fucked up. And it's something

I struggled with daily. I try to treat every one of my patients with dignity, and I

hope my interactions with them reflect that I believe that every human

experience is precious. But sometimes how I treat them does not reflect the way

my head is usually intellectualizing the whole process. It's when that system of

distancing myself fails that I start to lose it and become slightly less capable at

my job.

Sometimes I wonder if becoming slightly less capable is worth becoming slightly

more human. But then I remember that someone's health is depending on my

being capable. It's scary as hell sometimes.

"Her name was Zeinab."

Alice must have been able to tell from my tone that it wasn't a detail I wanted to

recall at that precise moment.

"I'm sorry, Edward."

"It's OK, Alice. Tell me about work. You always have better stories than me,

anyway."

"Work's going really well! No one even threw any shit this week!" When Alice said

'shit' in this context, she meant it literally. She worked with autistic kids and

things could get…messy. But she loved it. I don't think there was ever a dull

moment.

"How's Gerald?" I asked. Gerald was a kid she worked with who was very high

functioning. He was Alice's favorite.

"Oh my gosh, Edward. He's doing so great. Last week we started integrating him

into the regular school. He goes there twice a week now, on Tuesdays and

Thursdays. I mean, it's difficult for him, but so far it's been going much more

smoothly than we anticipated. And he's so proud."

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