MEDICAL NOTES OF AN ILLEGAL DOCTOR

By Alexis Kirke

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It is not the news that is bad, But the interpretation. - I am the Doctor on the Galleon. The whip-striped backs paraded through my surgery belong to complex Bio machines. Circuitry quite similar to my own, but chained, forcedly, within a grid of oars. - I am the Whipper on this ship, To have so many people - emotions, hopes, dreams - chained within my target reach is just enough to keep away my own fears until the evening comes & I go drinking w/ the guards. Soon (it is rumoured) they will merge these two positions, to cut down on fleet expenditure. The Doctors & Whippers live in fear of redundancy. Who has the greatest skill? Who are the whipperdocs of the future? INTERVIEWS: [1] Doctor: How can a whipper appreciate the finer points of medicine? How can he cope With lacerated backs & viscerality that turns the stomach of the operand? Interviewer: But can you whip another human? Can you bare the pain & screams? Will empathetic agony overwhelm you? Doctors are trained to help a person, and if they hurt them in doing so they do not feel bad, but only because the pain is to the greater good of the patient. Doctor: I see pain on a daily basis, my treating of a slave just dooms her to longer slavery, I am no stranger to human pain. But let me whip, let me whip & I can truly be of help! I'll drive those slaves to build their muscles: "No pain no gain!" I'll scream, & those whose muscles grow will find their rowing easier, and those who are too weak I'll whip until they die: and help them find their only escape. [2] Whipper: How can a Doctor learn the finer points of whippery? Too hard or too soft leads to inefficiency & low morale. A Doctor is too educated to cope w/ this riff-raff, they will hare his cultured ways. There will be no chat. Interviewer: But can you bear to see a constant parade of pain, that is not induced by you? Pain abstracted from your anger, & placed onto another human coming begging to you for help? And can you learn to be a pain-remover after so long as a pain creator? Can you wield a scalpel with the skill of a whip but the love of a parent? Whipper: Love? Love! My love for people is surpassed by none. I spend my working & my private hours amongst people. I feel the agony of each whip blow, & it drives me on to whip the more. It is because I love that I hurt: But abstract the pain & you abstract the love, & so I will love for the sake of love, and cure for the sake of curing. The Doctor and the Whipper, wait to hear the news.


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GUARDS

Good lads!
fed with tripe/trauma, lasset, lust - breathing fumes - sweat of day evapoured in night cavern - gallery, Wooden cups slap so loudly: never shatter (crack?) little waves of drink spill over side. Red hand print on back, We sate/forsake this burning


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DAILY

the shifting of sun over head reflection skimmed across the blue each day - shallow sun. Doctor's bald patch red: fingers touch it. The passing of peelings on the deck - scuff note - scuff mark: a doctor's good shoes


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THE INTERVIEWER

has much to say & so little time to say it, She retires to her cabin, hears the guards dancing, buggering. This is a dream - this is not a dream. this is a total battle of the senses, in the realm of her dark bunk, she thinks of promotion.


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FUTURE

no parallels, just fears, dishonest futures. They were all are unlinear: they were all a fearful approximation; but when bound by this approximation she could not escape not even in the depths


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DEPTH

In depth, in troth, in dream of corrosion, I smelled/smelt your drinking. somebody smiled: a questioning look was burned onto my retina



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BURNED

Fire kindled at ship's base, We swore across the sea at dream rate/dream speed, I and you we turned & shifted gazes past osiron's burning beak, past the rhythm of the wave, & the cool fresh saltiness I can almost touch & cool against.


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