Wasn't that a Mighty Storm

i lay there listening to the howl of wind and rumble of thunder while the needles imbedded deeply in my flesh did their work. An artificial sensation of heaviness held me fast to the table and any tiny movement sent a shock of electricity outward from the point of the needle like ripples in jello. I stared at my surroundings, a hastily painted room needing an additional coat of chalky white, the Venetian blinds held over from the 50's, clean and sterile. There are no familiar instruments or high tech gadgets, only a tray of glass domes and one closed cabinet, one table. My eyes keep going back to the three piece chart on the wall, a naked Chinese woman quite cheerful about her role as a porcupine for science.. My doctor enters the room in her white coat to check the progress of her handiwork.

"Stick out your tongue," she commands, illustrating with her own. "No, no, too much, like this," I look at her mouth, curious, not ever having thought about a wrong and right way to show a doctor my tongue. I mimic her, closing my wide open mouth and exposing only an inch of my what I hope is an acceptably healthy tongue. She stares for a long time, making no comment. Finally she turns away, talking mostly to herself, "I expect it pinker." I have no idea what this means, but she quickly distracts me by adjusting my metal spikes. "Hurt?" she asks solicitously.

"No, not really. It's just odd," I reply, truthful but hesitant. I need words to describe the feeling, words I don't have. Perhaps they are Chinese words, but having lived my life in ignorance of the language they would provide no more information to me than whales singing. She is busy beside me and I brace for more needles. I have three in each arm, four in each leg, and some around a marvel of Western medicine, my navel. The doctor could not keep the look of shock off her face when I showed her my stomach. "This your bellybutton?" she asks, astutely looking at the perfect contrived navel my plastic surgeon created for me. The scar below and above it have faded from an angry red to a thin white line, but the navel is still alien, totally unlike my original. I laugh with her and explain about the surgery again. She searches for the correct pressure points using my hipbones as landmarks. I feel only the tap but not the sting when these are inserted. I am grateful for once that I hate the crunches that build those muscles into a six pack.

The doctor notes the blisters along my side and hips, the reason for my visit. All that Western medicine has to offer has been exhausted in a search for relief from the itchy rash that has plagued me since the new year rolled over. She is not offended that i come here as a last resort. She works philosophically from this moment forward. As she prepares me for the remainder of the treatment we chat about her life, my life, children, husbands, mothers. We laugh often, finding that we have much in common. All the while she looks for the correct spots, punctures my skin in four places with a needle she complains is too small, and then places one of the glass domes on the spots one by one, When the flame shoots up to heat the cups I must admit I felt like I was visiting the witch doctor, despite every effort to keep my mind open. After the first one I relax and put all my effort into believing.

The wind outside has stopped it's rampage by the time we are done. I am grateful we did not have a direct lightning strike while i am playing pincushion. I put on my clothes and meet the doctor in the front room. We sat and chat barefoot, both pairs of shoes a short space away on the front door mat along with 4 other pair. There is no concept of a receptionist in Eastern medicine, nothing to insulate or separate the patient or the doctor from each other. She writes notes on the form she handed me to fill out when I came in. She gives me a bottle of pills, herbs I am told. I am to take 24 per day and come back next week for a second session. I probe to find out how long to wait for the cure I have been promised. She finds a non offensive way of telling me that I am predictably impatient. I ask how much I owe her for the pills and almost two hours of her time. She details it but the total is $81.00, no debit or credit please, cash or check. I thank her and slip on my shoes, heading out into a world washed clean. There is a rainbow in the sky over the freeway and at least a dozen accidents being scraped up by wreckers and police cars along the way. I steer carefully around the debris and deep puddles, thankful that I was well out of it, and that for now I choose to trust the promise in the sky.