Toubib Or Not To Be

  Unless you suffer from some sort of a psychological condition, the chances of you crying over a sad scene in a book or a movie are never zero. You can act tough and slurp the tears up before they manage to leave your empty globes, but we both know what you just experienced made you deeply wounded and maybe even disturbed. Each and every one of you, dear readers, will convey a more personalized display of this sort of emotion. Some might cry quietly as the tears roll down, burning their cheeks, sneaking sniffs from time to time, others will have a full-blown crash out, very warranted in my opinion, with snot and tears mixing and screams heard from afar, as they “just can't’ contain their emotions”. Others will close their eyes in self-preservation, will think of it for a fleeting moment, then let it pass and get submerged in the next scene. To evoke such emotion in oneself, the media portraying it needs to be well executed as well. It is, after all, the external factor digging out...

  I am sick of the smell of this hospital. It irritates my nostrils, I hope I never get to smell it again. The beds are washed with low quality bleach, the one they get for dirt cheap, its stench so strong it blinds you at first. They wash the sheets everyday, as if us breathing on them, touching them, is enough to sully their fabric to the point of no return. The nurses look at you, the most beautiful man to have walked this earth, and turn their scrunched noses away. They never see past your chart. They don't glimpse the ethereal beauty that entranced me the first time I saw you, that got me hooked until now. I walked into a room so familiar it felt like home. All the voices harmonizing on that stage were ones I knew and loved. Gary's baritone, Adam's slightly higher pitch, and Paul's inability to hold a note, they all mixed into an amalgamation of sounds that felt like a hug. I was never a singer before meeting these people, never cared for it, but I was starved for ...

  Today I woke up as one does. I had my cup of coffee, part of a routine I don't dare disturb. I wore the same outfit I had on yesterday, it wasn't hard to find it. It was right where I left it last night. And the night before. In a sad heap by the foot of my bed. I couldn't wear my rings, or anything on my wrist, its heaviness would make everything else unbearable. I left the house, keys jingling as I shoved them in my bag. I would struggle to fish them out of the mess when I get back, but that's something I'll have to figure out later. The bus is late, it always is. By the time I can see its carcass in the horizon, I've already developed a dull ache in my left knee. I wince as I climb the step. I pay the man whose face won't hold a place in my memories, they are already filled to the brim. I take a space to sway back and forth during a journey I know too well. The familiarity of it all is what makes it easy to navigate. It requires no effort to redo someth...

  With the verge between celebrity artists and the “commonfolk” being as small as ever, the rules of assessing an artist’s work have become just as tricky. And with the constant emergence of new subcultures by the hour, the concept of micro-celebrities makes the idea of criticizing anything even trickier, because we’re way past the time when you could buy your favorite artist’s record and just listen to it. Now it’s about being subjected to a streamline of the ins and outs of all the details from the conception to the eventual release. And it’s not just with the megastars of the world. Now practically every artist with a sizable following will have a community that knows more than just the final product, which gives us many artists who strive for the expansion of their personal lore with the idea that it will inevitably feed into the reception of their work, so that whoever is devoted enough will “get it” more. Because just listening to an album is not the same as knowing exactly w...

    The train to work was shaking at the weight of the people it encased. Warm bodies sticking to one another; the intimacy of strangers forsaking their boundaries. A woman pushed against the opposite doors was gasping for air. She was hugging her messenger bag close to her chest. The whirr of the train hummed in the back of her head as her thoughts raced. She was late to work. Dread filled her body, not for her tardiness, but at the idea of spending another precious day caged in four walls, a flickering lamp over her head, sitting stiffly at her desk, pretending that she cared. Her own insignificance made clear to her as the hours passed by, and she was asked to redo a document or her numbers. Presenting her ideas to a team she barely knew as her colleagues archly smiled at each other. Sweat collecting in the crevices of her hand, her heart protruding from her chest, asking to be let out, to breathe.  The train came to a stop, a flush of people dissolving from each other...

  Le cœur entre les mains, je serrais si fort, car je ne voulais qu’une chose : étouffer d’amour. Ma chambre était glaciale, une morsure sourde, incongrue en ce mois de juin. Pourtant, l’air, lui, était brûlant, étouffant, lourd. Je portai ma main à mon front, pour vérifier si j’étais fiévreuse. N’avais-je jamais pris le temps d’observer cette pièce ? Ou bien était-ce ma tête qui me jouait des tours ? Les murs semblaient rétrécir, se resserrer à chaque fois que je levais les yeux, alors je les baissai. Je fixai mes mains. Je comptai mes doigts. Un, deux, trois… Dix. Dix comme toujours. Encore et encore. Mais il fallait constamment vérifier, pour m’assurer que tout cela était bien réel. Que je n’étais pas en train de disparaître. Le vide en moi, quant à lui, s’étendait, affamé, grignotant les contours de mon être, jusqu’à ce que je n’aie plus qu’une envie : me fracasser la tête contre le mur. Assise sur le bord de mon lit, je sentis naître, au creux de mon ventre, une chaleur nouvel...