Barbie

            Her mental capacity wasn’t the greatest, Barbie had been told. She had also learned this through many encounters in which her mind had failed her. One of her patients had been telling her how he was five with his birthday coming up, when he asked her, “How old are you?” she just sort of stopped. Her arm ground to a squeaking halt as it returned the patients file back to its place at the foot of his bed. Her unblinking eyes continued to stare off into space as they always had.

            During her afternoon rounds, she decided to ask the Doctor when her birthday was. He was in his office, shuffling papers and smoking some kind of plastic cigarette. When she walked in, her jerky steps making a sharp clap clop on the hardwood floor, nothing really seemed to

            “Karen?”

            “ . . . what was that?” the Doctor looked up at Barbie quizzically from his paper signing. Barbie wasn’t sure what had happened. She tried to scratch to her head in a quizzical gesture but couldn’t, because her arms wouldn’t move that w—

            “Earth to Karen. Are you with me, Karen?”

            Karen came to with Rick snapping his fingers in her face. The lights in the cafeteria were dimmed, and the lights in the nearby by cubicles had been shut off for the night. Data entry wasn’t exactly glamorous, and the night shift didn’t provide the comforts of human distractions the day shifts had with a staff present.

            At night it was just the two of them: Karen and Doug. Karen didn’t mind working with Doug; he was easy enough to get along with. She didn’t really know anything about him, though. When she thought about asking him to tell her more about himself, she could never overcome the feeling that she just didn’t care enough to sit there and listen to him spell it all out for her. Doug never seemed to take an interest in Karen, either. They were coworkers first, and to the utmost.

            Karen did know that she found Doug somewhat attractive, but not attractive enough for her to ever consider flirting with him. The sterile office environment they worked in set the no-nonsense attitude of their relationship, coupled with the fact that when they got off of work there were no bars gearing up for the night. At the end of their work day the sun was coming up, its rays cresting the bleak skyline of squat cement buildings and casting cold shadows onto the city’s stonework.

            “Why is that whenever I come back from my smoke break you are out somewhere in la la land, staring at a puzzle that you’re only half-finished?”

Doug had a way of making acute observations in a cool, effortless way. Sometimes it was funny, but other times they hung in the air like the disconcerting squeaks of a rusty carnival ride.

            “I always start daydreaming at night here. This place just seems so dead without anyone else around,” Karen glanced up from her puzzle, taking a quick inventory of the dimly light cafeteria that she had been brought. “How much of the quarterly reports do you have left to input on your half of the sector?”

            “Not too many. Let’s get it wrapped up and duck out of here early.”

            As Karen settled back into her work cubicle that she commandeered from some “day worker” every night, she couldn’t help but think of her daydream. To Karen, Barbie was a number 8. So much of Karen’s mundane life revolved around numbers, and 8 was the same number as Barbie’s figure. It was also the infinity sign, turned on its side.

            The sun was barely a glow in the horizon as Karen pulled onto the freeway to drive home. The road was a barren track of cement, without a single motorist out on it in the early hours of the day. Karen turned on country music and hummed along as she tried to pass the time. She couldn’t help but think about Barbie. She wondered if her insides were made of plastic, and if they were the same jarring red color of her nails.

            “No mom, the Doctor’s visit went fine. He said there was nothing unusual about the ultrasound.” Karen’s mother had the habit of calling while Karen was on the way to work; most of the time it was just idle chit-chat, but today was a more serious kind of conversation.

            “Well, ok honey; I just want you to follow up with him in a month or so. It’s important to stay on top of these things.” Jamie was a gracefully aging woman of fifty-five. Karen thought of the shapes that those two fives made in her mind as she talked with her on the phone. Such sharp, jagged edges 55 had. Nothing like the number 8.

            “Ok honey?” Her mother’s voice carried concern with it as it came through the speaker in Karen’s phone.

            “Oh course, I’ve already scheduled the appointment already.” Karen wondered when she had stopped lying for her mother’s sake and started lying to herself; if she could pin point the exact moment the change had started to take place. Karen’s brief moment of introspection passed, leaving her with a heavy feeling in her stomach. She parked and started to head into the office, seeing the door close behind Doug as he walked into the building.

            There wasn’t much to say to each other at the beginning of the shift. They had both been working the night shift so long that neither of them tried to have any normal semblance of a life that a normal “day-worker” would have. Going to bars and not drinking and then going to work was about as crazy as Doug got. Karen would sometimes go to a movie before work, but that had become more of an exception than the norm in her life. Karen’s life had leveled out to a steady repetition that embodied the definition of mundane. The only thing that had brought any variety to her life was the growth on her ovaries, and those might end up killing her.

            “How did the doctor’s visit go?” Doug asked with a voice louder than normal so that Karen could hear him on the other side of the room.

            “It went fairly well. I mean, I didn’t find out any news--good or bad--so I guess it went ok.”

            “Well, let me know if you find anything out. I mean, when you find anything out. I’m sure everything will turn out ok in the end.”

            Doug’s last words hung in the air. As soon as you tell people that you have a weird growth on your reproductive organs, everyone starts mentioning “the end.” Karen’s thoughts had taken on a weird kind of third-person vibe as they ran through her head, as if she wasn’t thinking them and they were just reflections that she would have made if she were really present in the conversation. Karen thought that maybe it was her minds way of coping with questions about her health that came from friends and relatives.

            I never should have told anyone. It’ll be months before I know what it really is; whether I need to have surgery or not.

            Another work day ended like the ones before it. Another night slipping into bed, wishing she didn’t work a job that isolated her from everyone who worked a normal job. More brief moments before her dreams became convoluted with thoughts about children.

            Karen woke up suddenly, gasping for air. A sharp pain in her abdomen had pulled her out of her dream. She rolled onto her side and curled into a fetal position for what seemed like hours. Finally, the pain passed, and she relaxed, unclenched her arms from holding her legs to her chest. The pain was becoming more and more frequent. She hadn’t told her mother about them; she didn’t want her to worry. The doctor had said that just because it hurt didn’t mean it was cancer. They could just be cysts on her ovaries.

            As the sun fought to get through her tightly drawn curtains, dim shadows played against the walls. They slowly traced the contours of the furniture, often jumping from one object to the next, bounding across the space instantly. I wish Eddie were here, Karen thought to herself as she rolled over and buried her face into her pillow and cried. Thinking about her ex-fiancée never made things easier. Sometimes she wished she could just cut him out of her mind--excise him like the growths on her womb were going to be excised.

            “I have some unfortunate news, Karen. The growths on your ovaries are malignant, and they seem to be spreading down your fallopian tubes into your uterus. Our only option is to perform a hysterectomy as soon as possible. I’ve got you scheduled for Saturday afternoon. My receptionist will send you an email. I’m very sorry.”

            Karen sat there, fully clothed, having just changed out of her white gown. The look on her face was the same one that someone who gets punched in the stomach makes. Did--did I just hear that right? She didn’t know what to say. The tiny egg-shell white room seemed to close in. The look on her doctor’s face wasn’t registering, not much of the doctor was registering at all.

            “Are you ok, Karen? Karen I’m sorry to have been blunt, but I know you hate it when I’m otherwise. When I try to be ‘nice,’ as you call it.”

            The doctor paused and looked intently at Karen. “I’ll let you collect your thoughts. Take all the time you need. I have to see other patients, but if you need to talk to someone feel free to press the call button for a nurse.”

            As the door closed behind her doctor Karen caught a brief glimpse of a little girl walking through the hallway with a Barbie backpack on. The little girl looked back and locked eyes with her for just a second before the door clicked shut. Karen slowly left the small room, feeling numb.

            She got to work a little early, since she went straight there from her doctor’s appointment. Doug nodded to her as he made his way to his work space. The shift went by as it always did--uneventfully. As the time drew near for them to leave, Karen did something she had never done before.

            “What are you doing after you get off?” The question sounded stiff to her as it hung in the air.

            “Ummm . . . nothing, I guess. Why? What’s up?” Doug asked without looking up from his computer.

            “Well, I just wanted too . . . I just wanted to see if maybe -- would you want to come over to my place for drinks, or something?” Karen stumbled through her offer of companionship, hoping that it didn’t sound as bad to him as it did in her own ears.

            Doug kept packing up his things but he slowed down to the point where he was barely doing anything; frozen while putting one folder after another into his bag.

            “I’m really sorry, Karen; I just don’t think that’s such a good idea. We work together, and I’ve never heard of this sort of thing ending well.” Doug couldn’t raise his eyes to meet hers. He muttered something unintelligible as he quickly shuffled toward the exit.

            Karen couldn’t sleep. The sun’s cresting rays tested her curtains once again. Her head hurt, and her pillow was stained with tears and snot from crying. She was alone, completely and utterly. Even Barbie had Ken, she thought. Her mind filled with images of Barbies, dolls, and toys. She drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of doctors who turned their patient’s insides to plastic.