Short Story Number Two

Pete

“Mr. Atkins, your wife is out of surgery, and she is in recovery. Her procedure came out nicely. You can come in to see her in half an hour, after she is fully coherent again. I’ll come and get you then, if you would like”.

“That would be great Dr. Goldstein. Thank you,” I said. Dr. Goldstein quickly shuffles back behind the surgery wing doors. He walks very hurriedly I’ve noticed. Always seeming to be in a rush to go somewhere, to see someone, to something more important than talking to surgery patient’s visitors. I don’t blame him though. Who wants to talk to people in the waiting room, while they would rather be doing more surgeries, getting more money, from suckers like me? He already has my money, and knows nothing he does will change that. Plus, as we both know very well, he will see me many more times, in this same visitor’s room, over and over again.

It seems like the hospital is another place of work for me. I work here as much as I do at my Los Angeles law firm. It doesn’t matter really where I work though, as long as my associates bring in client after client for the firm, then I really don’t have to do anything. I barely practice law anymore, I merely run a business. A business of blood sucking lawyers who will get every last drop of cash out of each divorce, accident victim, and etc. It sounds terrible, because this isn’t what I stood for before. I stood for what was best for my clientele, to make their lives better. Now, all I seem to stand for in the eyes of others is for the money. To more than an extent now, this is true. The money I bring in feeds the habit that has been slowly growing for five years, consuming my wife’s heart, mind, soul, and literally body. My wife’s addiction to perfection.
What is perfection? It is what each person thinks is perfect to them, in my opinion. Achieving perfection to me is virtually impossible. Why though should anybody try to achieve perfection? If everyone was perfect, there would be no mistakes, no learning from those same mistakes. There would be millions of “perfect” zombie Barbie and Ken dolls walking the street. It would be bland and repetitive seeing absolute perfection over and over again with no diversity. There are people though, who do strive for perfection and will do anything to achieve that. My wife is one of those people. She is obsessed with achieving the perfect body.
When I first met Alison, she was as close to perfection to me, as anyone could possibly get. She was tall, slender, auburn hair down to her shoulders, piercing green eyes that would mesmerize you from miles away. A flight attendant on my business trip, I met Alison while I was flying to Las Vegas. She had me at first glance. Besides her looks, my future wife was smart too. She was trying to earn enough money to go back to school to get her master’s in business. She was care free and full of life. I eventually talked to her on the flight. Eventually we went on a date, which led to me asking her out, my proposal, then our marriage.
Right after our marriage, we moved to Orange County, the home of the rich, young, and the beautiful. This is where my wife, Alison, created her desire for perfection. Constantly surrounded by beauty, she strived to be better than she thought she was. So she started off with one breast lift, which led to a tummy tuck, which led to a nose job. Twenty procedures later, we are here with me lingering in the waiting room once again, to help support my wife on her road to perfection. I have been spending pay check after pay check for years and years, to help my wife pursue the evil she calls perfection. Nothing is ever good enough for her it seems. Now every time Alison comes out, I don’t even notice it’s her, because of all the changes that have made here a blow up doll. She looks like a fool now, a clown even; but I cannot tell her that. The evil that has possessed her has become too big for me to try to fix. If I did tell her what I thought, I would be afraid of what would happen. It could be too much for her to handle, who knows what she would do to herself to achieve perfection even more that she already has. What I still don’t understand is, why go through such pain to achieve perfection that’s fake.

Colleen
He is lying there. Innocent and calm, he sleeps peacefully. This is the first time he has slept for more than an hour at a time in two months. I hear a knock on the door. I whip my head around.
“Mrs. Cook, how are you?” says Dr. Goldstein.
“I’m fine thank you,” I say.
“I just wanted to check on you and Michael. He seems to have responded well to the surgery. He is looking better and better everyday it seems. I am thinking he only has a few more to go until he is virtually looking like himself again”.
“Yeah, he is looking better every procedure” I say.
“Well I let you two have some time by yourselves. I’ll come check on you guys later”. He walks hurriedly out of the room. I turn back around and look at my son again. I lied. He doesn’t look better every time he has surgery. To me he will never look like the same eight year old I remember seeing everyday up until a couple of months ago. His bright blue eyes, wavy brown hair, his little dimples, and slightly oversized ears are only some of the things that I remember. Smiling brightly every morning he would say “Hi Mom! I love you”. Always so happy and full of energy, he would get everything possible out of every day.
Then the accident happened. He was on his way home from school, his first day in the second grade. He was so excited at the bus stop that day. He made me go out with him to the bus stop an hour early that day because he didn’t want the bus driver to think he wasn’t going to the first day of school.
“Mom, if he doesn’t see me get on the bus the first day, he will think that I am a bad kid who never goes to school and then he will never pick me up. Then how will I get to school?” he said to me.
“Michael, I don’t think the bus driver will ever think you’re a bad student or that if you miss the bus one day that you never go to school” I said.
“Mommmmm, how do you know that?” he asked me.
“I know because I am your mom, and I know everything. How do you think I knew you wanted a Power Rangers back pack for school this year without even asking you?” I said.
“Ohhh. Well I still want to go out to the bus stop early because I want to make sure Mom because you never know, and plus what is more fun than waiting for the bus with all my friends on it”.
“I don’t know Michael,” I chuckled, “that does sound pretty cool”.
“Oh Mom it is! It’s the best thing ever. Don’t tell dad though, because I told him his meatloaf was the best thing ever. He might get sad, and I don’t want daddy sad, so please don’t tell him,” he said with his big blue eyes staring up at me.
“I promise,” I told him.
I got the call later that day. I was waiting outside our house at the bus stop wondering where the bus was. My cell phone rang.
“Hello”, I said.
“Hi, is Colleen Cook there”, a voice said.
“This is she, what can I do for you,” I said.
“Mrs. Cook, I’m sorry I have some terrible news for you”.
I soon found out that Michael was on his way home on the bus, when the engine exploded. The bus bursted into bright red and orange flames. Everyone died, except Michael. Although he survived, my son was burned from head to toe, until he was not even recognizable. Tears streamed down my face for days and days. The face I saw everyday that was bright and happy was burned and distorted. He had no hair, no dimples, nothing resembling my son. His bubbly personality has faded along with his confidence and happiness. Now in the morning all he says is “Mommy, my body hurts. Please make it stop; I don’t want to feel how I look anymore. I just want to see my friends at school again”. Whenever he says that, I cry. I cry for hour and hours. Every night I lie in bed, not sleeping, just staring at the ceiling. I wonder: Why has this happened to him? to me?, to his dad? Why has such a young, perfect child been put through so much? Why does he have to suffer?
Now two months and fifteen plastic surgeries later, Michael is still in pain. He goes through the pain of the burns, of the surgeries, and everything else. Michael was the perfect son on the outside and inside. I’ve been told that many people get plastic surgery to obtain perfection, but how is that true, if it can’t even help my son feel and look normal again?