Doctor Shtiva and Her Mysterious X Machine

I still have not found my tengu friend, nor have I heard from him since the night we were separated in the forest. I didn't dare go back there alone when the healing flower blooms, but the pain in my back has worsened and my options have slimmed.

I had but one choice left--Dr. Shtiva.

I hadn't heard much about her, because I don't really know anyone whom she has treated. No one really goes to her unless they have to. As far as I know.

But I'd do anything to make the pain go away. So I went. I borrowed Aprilla's squeaky white van and drove up to the address I'd kept on a piece of paper. I drove through a long road that cut through a thick orange grove and found the clinic at the end of it.

Inside, it was small and cramped. A few minutes after signing in at the front desk, a stuffy voice called my name from around the corner and I followed it until I met a young nurse with a surgical mask.

"This way to see Doctor Shtiva," she said.

I followed her down a narrow hallway, and then down another; they got darker as we went. Tangled cords occupied the floors of the hall, and we even passed a few holes in the ceiling, with ladders beneath them. The nurse stopped at a half-open door, handed me a baggy gown, said "Change into this, please. Doctor Shtiva will be with you in a few minutes," and left.

The light resonating from inside the half-open door had a reddish tint. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. A big clonky machine with different arms and legs hung down from the ceiling over a bed with a long piece of paper for a sheet. Connected to the machine were more cords, all tangled together. They looked like they were growing from a hole in the ceiling. There was a chair in the corner and in the corner across from it was a little booth with a little window. I pressed my nose against the glass of the window to look inside the little room. I saw what looked like a big keyboard and engine with lots of little switches and buttons. On one wall hung a big, thick pair of leather gloves and a huge lab coat. On the other wall was a big, shiny red button. I wondered what it did, and if Dr. Shtiva would push it while I was on the table under the machine.

The gown the nurse had given me looked like an oversized apron. It was heavy too. I took off my dress and boots and wrapped the heavy gown around myself and tied the strings together. The rest of the time I spent sitting in the chair in the corner and staring at the big mysterious machine and the red button.

Dr. Shtiva walked in a minute later, wearing a surgical mask just like the nurse's, although I didn't know why, since I had come for an x-ray and not a surgery. She had short, somewhat disheveled brown hair and a pair of big brown eyes that peaked over the mask covering the rest of her face.

"Um. I am here for an x-ray, right?" I said. "Not surgery?"

Dr. Shtiva rolled her eyes. "No, you're not here for an x-ray; you're here for an x-rae." She sounded annoyed.

"An...x...but you just said x-ray and x-ray...their the same thing."

"They don't have the same things, but they are the same things...so they're the same things. T-H-E-Y-apostrophy-R-E. You're not getting x-rays, though, you are getting an x-rae. Please, take a seat on the table."

I blinked a few times and felt a little uncomfortable about the mysterious machine hanging from the ceiling and very confused about Dr. Shtiva's strange words, but I left my pile of clothes on the chair in the corner and tip-toed to the table in my bare feet. Dr. Shtiva motioned to me to get onto the table, so I did, and tried to lie down without crinkling the paper too much.

Dr. Shtiva directed me to lie down and sit up in different positions while she used the switches in the booth to make the machine take pictures of my bones. I think the weirdest position was the one that looked like this weird statue--

--and after that was over and done with, I had to have even more x-rays taken standing up while the arms of the machine moved around me, making threatening noises.

When it was all over, I asked Dr. Shtiva when I would be able to see the x-ray results.

"No, no, darling," she said. "Never will you see your x-ray results; this is my x-rae machine, named after me. Doctor Rae Shtiva. X-R-A-E. Yes?"

"Ohhh. Of course," I said, and she led me out of the room, leaving the red button untouched.