The GP’s Waiting-Room
A
few days later, as he was sitting in his GP’s waiting-room, waiting to
be taken in for his regular check-up, he started to browse through the
pile of magazines on the small table out of boredom. He picked up Modern
Man Magazine (The Magazine for Modern Men Who Mean To Be Modern). An
article jumped at his eyes, literally. It was one of those articles
focusing on the inner male narcissism (inner because all his life he had
noticed women were allowed to display their narcissism outright,
whereas men were expected to hide it only revealing it to their inner
sanctum of a social circle, else they were
rated as gay, effete, or metrosexual). In this case, the article dealt
at length of facial beauty. The article explained in no less than five
pages, complete with pictures, that a male’s handsomeness, actually just
as a woman’s gorgeousness, was so dependent on the symmetry of the
eyes-nose axis. If both facial elements were symmetric, you were likely
to be considered as being handsome, or gorgeous in the case of your
wife, whereas dissymmetry called for a miserable aesthetical life to
you, or your wife, from the point of view of the beholder. It amazed him
at first that such a seemingly trivial plastic subject needed that many
pages; it surely meant the importance, and assertiveness, of it.
He
knew his eyes were a bit too close to each other. He also knew his nose
was too big. How many times had he been reminded of both throughout his
life, he could not tell. He had been called many names because of them.
Short-eyes, big nose, etc. He did not wait to go back home to start on
correcting this obvious affliction done to him by Nature. He pinched his
nose from the tip up to the bridge, twisting it in a circular movement;
when he was called in to see his GP, the latter thought at first he
suffered from some sinusitis of some sort, until Miller told him
reassuringly he was only in for his routine check-up.
The
sensation as he erased his nose off his face through the next few days
was not unlikely what he had felt when he had done his ears. He thought
it surely had to be with the same cartilaginous structure of the bridge.
The nostrils were first to disappear, a blessing, as they were covered
with disgusting tiny capillary vessels, permanent witnesses of his past
excesses. Soon, from his rather long and big nasal appendage, only a
fleshy flat vertical line remained.
He
waited on a couple of days only to go on with his eyes. The eyelids
were very soft, he had always thought they were the same consistency of
his penis’ foreskin, and at first he rubbed them off gently as he was
somewhat scared he could rip into his eyeballs, and thus lose his sight.
But it would not be the case. So far he had erased his ears, his nose,
his mouth and his eyebrows, and yet, he was still able to hear, breathe,
eat, talk, and frown. Reassured at the thought, he carried on rubbing
his eyelids off with even more vigor and energy than before, and spread
the movement to his rather dark circles, and crow’s feet.
Once he was finished with the last two remnants of his facial
individuality, he contemplated his reflection that his mirror cast to
him.
He
was now completely featureless. His boss, his friends, Modern Man
Magazine had all been right. There was no way now he could feel
different or odd in the crowd. Every distinguishing detail had been
taken off his face. It was a perfectly smooth oval now, making him one
of the crowd rather than outstanding because of some aesthetical
imperfections. It gave him a sense of security, of belonging.
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