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Rather unshockingly for a hospital -- well, other than some hospitals, where nurses were ever-present and doctors were fleeting figments of your imagination, disappearing like mythic creatures as soon as you spotted them -- a doctor walked through Elke's door.

On her first week in the hospital, when powerful painkillers had been her treasured fairytale forest friends, it was possible that Elke could've mistaken Dr. Baskov for a unicorn, or a griffin, or a dragon, or some other mythical creature (and maybe she even had: but if that were true, hopefully Dr. Baskov was tactful enough not to mention it). But now that she was on a much more lucid regimen of percoset and penicillin, there was no mistaking the doctor for a pixie. (Alas.)

He looked like the sort of doctor that didn't actually do any doctoring: a spotless white labcoat accessorized nicely with what was otherwise an expensive-looking business suit, and a pair of Brooks Brothers-quality leather loafers. Other than an exotic-looking silver streak, his hair was darker than his eyes, and his eyes were dark enough on their own; Dr. Baskov wouldn't have looked out of place in the pages of the Cosmo issue she'd strained herself to hide. Like a magazine doctor. Or maybe he was one of those doctors who spent their time looking at X-rays and telling people in a steady, somber voice that they had finger cancer and they only had six months to live.

'Elke, you have bellybutton cancer,' was what she, in a fit of whimsy, imagined coming out of his mouth. 'I'm very sorry, but you only have six months to live.'

He put his clipboard down on her sidetable, next to her laptop, and then settled himself down in her guest chair, like this was a social call. What he actually said, by way of greeting, was not a diagnosis of bellybutton cancer. It was a more cheerful, "So, what's shakin', bacon?"

Dr. Baskov looked, briefly, like he had seen a goat. In a hospital. Then he laughed. "Don't sweat it," he reassured, though this was yet another idiom. "My family's FOB too - that's 'fresh off the boat.' English as a Second Language. U.S. Citizenship classes, the whole nine yards. 'An American Tail: Fievel Goes Capitalist.'" Elke didn't quite follow this, but the doctor didn't seem to require that she understand what he was saying -- he was in an upbeat mood.

"You've got good taste, Elke," Dr. Baskov said, reflexively smoothing his tie. It was soft, patterned satin silk, dove gray, with little paisley teardrops gamboling faintly about on it. "This is a two-hundred dollar Brioni."

He looked around the room, taking in the oddly tidy array of personal possessions and get-well gifts. Elke had had quite a few visitors in between the long stretches of hours where she was trapped alone in her hospital bed. After a moment, the doctor nodded his approval, and then -- what? -- reached down with one hand and began taking off his shoes. This done, he leaned back in his chair and propped both his feet up on the plastic railing of her bed. He had on black socks with gold heels and toes. This definitely did not seem to be a prelude to a discussion about bellybutton cancer. "I'm going to go out on a limb here," he said -- then paused, as though to indicate that he was purposely speaking in nothing but idioms to impart some kind of a valuable lesson, "and guess that you don't remember meeting me before, since the last time I saw you, you accused the surgeon wearing the headlamp of being a cyclops and then giggled. Poor Dr. Polyphemus, I'm not sure his ego's recovered yet." He shrugged as though to indicate that Dr. Polyphemus's ego wasn't much of a priority. "So hi, I'm your admitting doctor, Gene Baskov -- I was here when you came in, I've seen you in all your blood and guts. Not an idiom this time."

He didn't hold out a hand for a handshake, but instead looked over to see if she was following, while he wove his fingers together behind his head. He smiled. "Let's start with an easy question, Elke. How are you feeling? On a scale from Eeyore to Tigger."

Dr. Baskov shook his head lightly, staring up at the ceiling. "No, that's a little something I stole from Wikipedia, his name's Dr. Banner. But don't you worry about it -- Dr. P's a douche, we don't even like him. He does, in fact, look like a cyclops, and stitches about as well, besides. We had one of the attending nurses do you up, or it would've been like the scientist's frankenstein -- also not an idiom."

There were two pens sticking out of the breast-pocket of the lab coat he was wearing, and he took one out. "Alright, I'll mark you down as a Rabbit for the day, then -- 'Patient is uptight, irascible, slightly obsessed with gardening.' Me, I'd rate you at least a Piglet -- but it's your life story, I'm just a highly paid biographer with a clipboard." He didn't actually shift position at all to try and grab the clipboard that was now behind him and slightly to his left; on the contrary, Dr. Baskov continued sitting there looking relaxed, clicking the pen on and off repeatedly with his thumb.

"So, let me level with you, Elke -- 'Elke,' I've been saying that this whole time -- you do say it 'Elke,' right, as in, -Seltzer?" She nodded that this was generally the right pronunciation, and he nodded back before continuing. "Part of the reason I'm on clipboard duty today, other than to slack off from work for half an hour by catching a daytime rerun of The Simpsons, is that being a young doctor with excellent dental hygiene is supposed to make me seem like someone you can open up to. Now, if you're with me on this, you think that's kind of a load of crap, which it is -- however. I'm just going to offer up this general rule of thumb at you, and I want you to tell me what you think about it, as an objective third party. Pretend you're the person on the street being interviewed after Judge Judy's just handed down a ruling. Tell me what you think about this rule of thumb.

"Pretty teenaged girls who show up at a hospital in their pajamas with multiple lacerations and creative puncture wounds do not usually describe what happened to them as 'mugging.'" He wrapped his left hand around his right, still holding the pen, and clasped them in front of his face, waiting -- for the moment -- with patient curiosity.

Dr. Baskov unclicked the pen, just once this time, and then raised his index and middle fingers to press them against his right temple in a strange gesture. He made a one-eyed squint. It wasn't quite a 'gun to my head' gesture, it was -- something else, his hand was lower than horizontal. "Using my amazing powers of deduction," he said -- the gesture apparently having been for 'psychic abilities', "I'm going to further suggest that the person who did this to you is someone you know, this time operating on the rule of thumb where victims don't usually lie to protect their abusers in cases of stranger crime." He looked away at the window, thoughtfully, like he was watching the ships go by. But then, Elke knew, now, that of course there were no ships. "Rebuttal?" he offered.

Dr. Baskov seemed to be turning this over in his head, like a pancake. "I see what you did there," he answered her, with an almost-smile that looked more like a frown. He wagged his gold-toes back and forth, looking almost bored.

"If I told you the sky was green," he said, vaguely nodding toward the window and the gray wall beyond, "you'd think that sounded pretty unlikely. But if I insisted it was green, you'd say, 'prove to me the sky is green.' And then I'd say back to you, 'well, it's not orange and it's not brown. Therefore, it must be green.' Would you be convinced?" Elke shook her head 'no.'

"Why do you want out of this hospital so badly?"

"Because the sky being green is bullshit, just like your story," he said immediately, but apparently without any rancor. "But alright, in the interests of catching the last half of the Simpsons, I'll play along with your game. Well, kind of. Humor me." Dr. Baskov was studying his own thumbnail, though there wasn't much to study. There seemed to be a thumb, a tidily trimmed nail, and a dark, inky spot that looked to be a blood blister. As far as Elke knew, there was nothing you could do about a blood blister, except wait for it to go away on its own. He had a frown on his face when he looked at it, like his blood blister had murdered his entire family in front of him.

"We can do this without naming names. So. You could have died -- but you're zipped up right now like a ski jacket, and just by doing that you're trying to protect someone. Is it the guy who attacked you, or someone else?"

The doctor was still playing with his click-pen -- now it was balanced between his index fingers like a tightrope strung between two platforms. Elke felt a bit like a tightrope walker herself, trying her best to get to the too-distant platform without falling, one foot in front of the other. "Details, details," Dr. Baskov scolded her. "Don't embellish the truth with lies, just write what you know. You're protecting someone -- a sibling, a girlfriend, whatever it may be -- no problem. Here's the thing, Miss Arma. Meaning no offense, but the police are a corps of trained professionals who do this sort of thing for a living. You're in high school. What do you really think you could do, kiddo? What help can you be? Help me out here. I'm trying to help you sans bullshit. Level with me a little."