RELIEF

THEME OF THE MONTH: RELIEF
Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow, too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief? ~ William Blake

DR. MARVIN’S GOD
Ellie Searl

A string of spittle landed on the left toe of Dr. Marvin's brown Oxfords as he dumped a saliva-soaked cotton wad into the trash container. He pulled a tissue from his lab coat, bent down to wipe his shoe, and groaned in pain. On his return to Randy in the dentist chair, Dr. Marvin looked out the second-story window and barked, “Do you see that? Someone’s in my spot – again.”

Moaning from back pain and complaining about his filled parking spot had become daily rituals. Dr. Marvin's back ached all the time. “One of these days I’ll get it fixed,” he’d announce, on and off, to no one in particular. But he smoldered if someone parked in his private spot, which was pretty much every day.

I needed my job so I usually remained silent when Dr. Marvin fumed about the overarching transgressions of humanity - but my mouth shifted into gear before my brain turned on.

“You don’t drive to work,” I said.

“They don’t know that,” he sniffed and held out his hand. “Pliers.”

I slapped the instrument into his palm.  MORE . . .
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GRIEF AND RELIEF
Carolyn B Healy

My mother called me, incensed. She’d just found the receipt from her doctor’s visit a week before. Uh oh. How did I let that fall into her hands?

“Do you know what that doctor wrote down?” she demanded.

Yes, I did know. I had taken her in for an opinion on her increasing forgetfulness.

“Dementia!” she sputtered. “How could he say that?”

I summoned my reassuring reasonable self. “Mom, remember we went in to talk to him about your memory?”

“We did?” MORE . . .