Sci Fi & Fantasy / It was better then
The rough brick wall scratches him slightly through his pale blue scrubs. He grimaces and squints at the bright sunlight from his usual shady spot near the side door. As his two o’clock appointment strolls leisurely towards, he wonders why management asked him to interview this prospective hire. The kid barely looks old enough to be out of diapers.
”Allen Winston I presume?” he asks as the young man nears the corner of the sidewalk.
”Yeah. Who’s asking?” The youngster replies, looking uncomfortable in his cheap suit and polyester tie. He looks about twenty five or twenty six years old, just barely old enough to remember how things used to be.
”Just call me Jack. I’ll be handling your interview today. Why don’t we start off a bit informally?” he asked while pulling out a battered pack of cigarettes. He proffers one to Allen.
”No thanks. Those things will kill you.” Allen answers. “Besides, aren’t those banned within five hundred yards of a hospital?”
”Suit yourself. After a while you do what you can to get through.” He sighs and slides the paper and plastic package back into his pocket. “This isn’t an easy job you know. It’s not glamorous or exciting. Nothing at all like what you see on television.”
”I know.” Allen agrees. “My father was a doctor, I’ve seen what it can do to a man.”
”Then why are you here? I definitely wouldn’t want my son following in my footsteps if I could help it.”
”It’s what I’m good at. It gives me a chance to make lives better.” Allen admitted. “I’ve been through seven years of schooling and this is supposed to be the best teaching hospital this side of Detroit.”
”Well, I’ve heard that before, but I’m always surprised by the ones saying it.” Jack mutters as he stomps out the smoldering remnants of his cigarette and turns to Allen. “I guess I might as well show you around the place.”
The interior of the hospital is much like you’d expect from such a place. There are brightly lit, wide corridors which are punctuated every few yards with signs directing patients and visitors to different parts of the facility. Jack walks briskly down the hallway, forcing Allen to move quickly to keep up with him. Several times they have to stop and make way for patients to be wheeled past, but it isn’t long before they come to stop in a quieter section of the hospital.
”Right through here we’ll put you to our standard aptitude test.” Jack opens the door to a nearby examination room. “Please perform a routine checkup on this patient.”
He sits down in the corner and watches while Allen pulls on a pair of gloves and begins to run his hands across the slick metallic curves of his patient. After a few moments of prodding and protestations from the patient, Allen comes to a diagnosis and proffers a course of treatment. Jack nods in agreement and motions for Allen to get on with it.
Through hooded eyes, Jack watches while Allen performs the procedure with speed and efficiency. “This kid might actually make it.” Jack thinks to himself. When the first complication hits, Allen looks to Jack in disbelief. “Well take care of it kid. We haven’t got all afternoon!” He admonishes Allen. “This is what you trained for after all.”
The test lasts another forty five minutes. Allen handles the standard tests with surprising ease. Observing this, Jack decides to trigger a trainwreck crash on the kid. The monitors start to blare their emergency alarms, which quickly grab Allen’s attention. He jumps to his feet, grabs a few instruments and gets to work. After a few moments of frenetic effort, Allen starts beating on the patient as the monitors shift to a flatline. Jack wishes to himself that he could go back to the days when he could just give up and say that it’s time to get a new one. But these days, a doctor has to keep working until there’s no hope left.
“This just isn’t working!” He yells while still vigorously working to put life back into his patient. After working for another moment, he hurls an instrument into the wall. Jack pulls him gently away.
“Don’t take it so hard kid, you can’t save them all.” He says consolingly. “I just wanted to see how you’d handle it. Besides it’s just a training dummy. It’s almost like the real thing. Isn’t it?” Jack leads his young charge down the hallway and plops him down in a well cushioned chair in the break room. After filling a pair of cups with black coffee, he sits down across from Allen.
“So do you still want to be a doctor?” he asks.
“Even after all that, I do.” Allen admits. With a sigh he continues. “I can tell it’s hard on a man, but it’s what I’m here to do.”
“Good. You did a good job in there, report to HR on Monday morning at 8.” Jack replies. “When you’re ready, I’ll walk you out.”
As they walked quietly back to the main entrance, Jack quietly observed his young companion. “I hope their screams don’t haunt this kid at night like they do me.” he mutters quietly to himself.
“What’s that?” Allen asks.
“Oh nothing. I’ll see you on Monday.” He replies as they reach the door.
“Ok! Have a good one!” Allen says. As he walks out into the summer heat with a bit of a bounce in his step, Jack returns to his shady spot to contemplate the events of the last hour. He retrieves the battered cellophane wrapped package from his pocket and gingerly pulls out his next to last cigarette.
“That kid would have been great in the old days, but now they’ll just grind him down until he doesn’t care anymore. “ Jack grumbles to himself. He takes a long drag on his cigarette and blows a few smokes rings.
“I miss the days when the cars didn’t talk. They whine so pitifully when you tell them they can’t ride the freeway anymore. The day I traded in my garage for an examination room was the worst day of my life.” he mutters as he throws his half burnt cigarette into the parking lot and reaches for the door. “They used to call me a grease monkey. It was better then…”
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This 94 word review has not been unlocked.
You write pretty well, but I really don’t get much of an indication of what the story is about or what would make it SciFi or Fantasy. It’s usually best to indicate that as soon as possible so the reader has an idea of what to expect. I’m not even sure who the protagonist is going to be, Jack or the kid. Also not much really happens to pull the reader into the story, there’s no suspense. You need to give the reader some reason to keep reading.
It’s okay if you don’t want to give away at the beginning how this is going to be scifi/fantasy but you should give us clues, give us some intrigue. Keep writing, this could be a promising start.
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