A Walk to Remember

Today's check-up went smoothly -- the worst of it was just getting to the examination room. Waiting rooms tend to be more crowded on Saturdays than most days of the week, I've decided. Being one of the few people I know who has ever actually BEEN in a waiting room every single day for a week straight, I'm qualifying myself as a local expert. In fact, Wednesday or Thursday, mid-morning, seems to be the ideal time to come down with something worthy of a hike across town to the doc's. And you can just forget about seeing anything other than the waiting room wallpaper for hours on end if you have plans to see the doctor on a Monday morning. That's the day when all the little old ladies and hunched-over grand-daddies who live in the outlying villages take a trip into town.

I left Dr. Shin's office with relief that the severe swelling I experienced yesterday was a normal part of the healing process and nothing to be alarmed about. The good doctor gave me the green light to loosen or remove my bandages when the swelling gets unbearable and give my ankle a gentle stretch to get my circulation flowing again. (This, of course, is my loose translation, but I think I got the gist of it.) And also, I've graduated to 48-hour stretches between appointments! This means I can stop single-handedly keeping the taxi drivers of Seosan in business! :) Today's trip to the doctor marks my tenth since my leg troubles began. The statistics: 1 emergency room stint, 1 hospital visit, 2 surgical procedures, and 6 office visits. Wow, I'm becoming a regular in medical circles all around town.

After leaving Dr. Shin's office, I stopped in at the pharmacy next door to refill my prescription. The pharmacist always greets me with a warm hello and a chilled mini-beverage from his "vending refrigerator." It's always some kind of energy drink laced with gobs of vitamin C, which is probably a good thing, as I don't get much citrus these days (it just goes against my grain to pay as much for a kilo of oranges as I would for a gallon of gasoline). I sipped down the cool drink while I waited for my prescription to be filled, and I felt a welcome, if odd-timed, smile wash over my face and a quiet contentedness start to kind of ruffle through my insides like the tickling of a feather. Wherever this feeling was coming from, it felt fantastic.

In a bright mood, and joyfully aware of the absence of rain at the moment, I decided that rather than pile into yet another taxi cab to whisk me home, I'd just hoof it. The skies were chalky gray, and ahead I could see a dark cluster of storm clouds building up for another downpour. But for the moment, at least, no rain was falling, and I could make out the tiniest whisper of sunshine from behind the gray haze. As I walked slowly back down Seosan's main street, I felt that my senses were somehow heightened, that I was, for whatever reason, taking in the buzzing of comings and goings around me with more than my normal dose of perception. (Maybe there was more than straight vitamin C in that energy drink...)

I passed a young mother, dressed to the nines, with her three little kids in tow, traversing the hectic sidewalks and detouring around the cars that had unkindly pulled up onto the pedestrians' walkway. The youngest looked to be about four, and he toddled behind with full concentration on the puffed rice cake he was trying to navigate to his mouth. My eye caught a colorful umbrella to my left, down the narrow little where a local woman usually sets up shop. Today, she had laid out baskets of carefully portioned tomatoes, and a large, steaming tub filled with purple-flecked corn on the cob, steamed and ready to eat. I sidestepped two taxis that were about ready to sandwich me just outside the bus terminal, and put on a little speed to make the green light across to Seosan Mart (where I do most of my grocery shopping these days. You don't want to get stuck at this light, as it's a minimum 3-minute wait -- trust me, I've eyed the clock more than a few times this week from the back seat of my taxi ride to the doctor's).

As I rounded the last stretch before crossing the street and heading up the big hill towards home, I passed one of many local eateries, with patrons sitting out front under large shade umbrellas. It was going on noon, and Seosan's version of cafes lining the piazza was, while notably less charming than its European counterparts, equally entertaining. It wasn't the locals queuing for lunch who caught my attention, but a loud, flapping sound, like birds wings rattling against a metal cage. Curious, I looked, trying to place the sound. What I saw evoked a chuckle -- two fish, soon to be on a serving platter, were flapping their little hearts out on the hard cement sidewalk, just out of reach from the safety of the bucket that just moments before had held them.

Splash! My attention snapped away from the flip-finned fish as my foot sent muddy water flying every which way. I had been too immersed in the cafe scene to notice that I was heading right for a mud pit of a rain puddle! Somehow, it didn't seem to matter -- my jaunt across town had been nothing out of the ordinary, yet still quite a walk to remember.