Star Candy (3) : In your mailbox, locker, or desk drawer appears a bag of star candy! There is no indication of where or who it came from other than a small tag that reads: “Happy Star Festival!” The small, colorful pieces of sugar seemed to almost glow faintly, and after eating them, the world looks a bit different. Cartoonish and much less…real. Is it a hallucination? Is it some new reality? The strange vision lasts only half an hour, and after it wears off, the rest of the candy seems to disappear. How strange!
He could do this, he could do this, he could do this. The needle was held loosely in Basyl’s hand as he stared wide-eyed and unblinking at the distended stomach of a middle-aged woman- who was awake and staring back at him. So he should just do it. Get it over with. He wasn’t squeamish, nor was he unconfident in his training. But it was still a procedure he hadn’t done on a live body that was clearly expecting him to do something-
“Get on with it, Basyl…” Dr. Mari grumbled quietly to him, soft enough that it was only for his ears.
And so he should. It would be embarrassing and demoralizing if she had to take over something so simple and routine that he knew how to do. And the woman was waiting and staring at him, and he was almost certainly making her more nervous the longer he took, so just do it. He was being unprofessional and cruel by dragging this out. Just do it. Come on. His jaw clenched, his grip tightened, and he leaned forward-
Beside him, Dr. Mari seemed to tense too, as if she might feel the need to stop him, but she didn’t.
The woman flinched as the long needle slid into her stomach, but she didn’t scream or jerk. Dr. Mari eased in the next second, as Basyl’s syringe filled with fluid, and even he was stepping back another second later. The whole process took literally five seconds. It had taken him longer to mentally prepare than to actually do anything. The patient sighed in relief as he stepped back. Dr. Mari collected the syringe from him, and Basyl breathed easier.
“You did fine, dear,” the woman said as she reached to pat a hand against Basyl’s arm, and he was immediately exponentially more flustered than seconds prior.
It should be him doing the reassuring! That was literally part of his job: to help them, to make them feel better.
His cheeks flared pink as he stammered, “O-oh, thank you! Y-you too, I mean. It was really great that you didn’t, uh, like jerk or g-gasp or scream or anything. It was very helpful, and y-you probably feel a bit better with the pressure down?”
He could’ve gone on, and he probably would’ve, if his supervising resident, Dr. Mari didn’t give him a helpful nudge to move him along so that he could stop saying uncomfortable things to the patient and she could continue to think he was competent enough to work with her. They didn’t get far before the woman told him once more that he’d done fine, and slipped him a small handful of little hard candies.
They were shaped like little stars and wrapped in a packaging that he’d never seen before. Given that she was here from some sort of party concerning the recent festivities, Basyl probably should’ve used all his critical reasoning ability to assume that he probably shouldn’t eat strange treats from people he didn’t know.
For most of the day, he did.
But several hours later, he was tired and hungry and had been working all day, and the star-shaped treat didn’t seem as worrisome as it had when he’d received it. It had been in his pocket all day and hadn’t hurt him yet, and a little sugar might give him that extra push to get the rest of the way through the evening…
So Basyl had popped the little candy into his mouth without another thought, and his first extremely unhelpful notion was that he couldn’t tell what the flavor was. He could define it as fruity or malty or sour… Kinda strange, but not altogether worrisome. He continued on with his day, and when the first candy was gone, he ate another, tucking it into his cheek as he flipped through the papers on the clipboard that had been shoved at him as he walked toward his next patient’s room.
Between one step and the next, between one blink and the next, something seemed odd. Like the tiled floor was more colorful? Or flatter, maybe? The shadows seemed especially crisp and the edges of each tile seemed minimalized? Something odd, but not altogether wrong?
He thought.
He hoped.
Maybe.
Basyl looked up, and the people were in a similar state, with movements seeming brisk and clipped, skin colors flat, and the shading very static. Like everything was in a game or computer program or… on the television. Basyl squinted as someone- Dr. Mari?- shuffled over to him.
“What are you doing?” She hissed softly. “Don’t be dragging your feet this late in the day. We’re almost through the rounds now, Basyl.”
His cheeks flared in that uncomfortable way when he was sure he probably should say something (how could he possibly continue working with sick, needy people, if he couldn’t even see straight? They deserved him at his best, not him hallucinating shapes and colors and a-anime doctor women…).
“U-uh… yeah…”
But he couldn’t tell Dr. Mari that! She was expecting a lot of him and he still had so much to prove, and he couldn’t be faltering here so early in his career! And he was pretty sure his mind was all there… Maybe. It was just his eyes. Just his eyes acting up! Maybe he only had to talk to his patients and give basic IV injections, and maybe this was fine for now so long as he didn’t do anything that could do something to someone’s life?
Was it fair of him to think that and risk it…?
Basyl reasoned that it was fine. It was fine, and he would be particularly careful, and if Dr. Mari asked something of him that seemed unsafe… he would just have to admit to his current confusing state.
The candy, it had to be the candy.
He’d admit to his stupidity in taking something from some stranger, but only if necessary. Only if it came to that. He could do this. Just stay calm and stay thoughtful. He could do this.
[WC: 1011]
