Flashback

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“Harris?  I will take you right back.”

 

Harris followed the be-scrubbed woman to a dim room.  There was an exam table dividing the room and an ultrasound console with a rolling chair just next to it and the rest of the room was obscured in the darkness.  He wasn’t quite sure where he was supposed to be.  Should he stand between the table and the chair?  Probably not, that would be directly in front of the ultrasound machine.

 

“Here, take these.  Undress from the waist down.  Use the sheet to cover up.  Put this towel under your testicles, and use the other to cover your penis after you tuck it.  I’ll be back soon.”  The woman handed off the laundry, pulled the decency curtain and closed the door.

 

Harris undressed his shoes, pants and underwear before realizing he had no idea where to place them in the room.  He scanned through the darkness to find another chair hidden in the blackness of the other side of the room that could only be reached by traversing over the exam table.

 

He crawled, he placed his clothes, he tumbled bottomless back onto the crinkly paper covering of the exam table.  Then it dawned on him.  The woman had not so much given him instructions about the sheet and towel but riddle of anatomical orientation of tucking, propping with towels and presenting testicles.  Where were the towels to go if one is under the testicles, the testicles are also in front to be ultrasounded, and how does a penis get tucked around all of that order of business?  

 

Who was that woman, he thought.  Was she a doctor, nurse, technician? He was pretty sure she worked in the hospital.  She came back in the room after he approximated the whole laundry and junk organization on the exam table.

 

She gelled up the end of the ultrasound device.  “Are you read?” She asked.  “Go nuts!” he thought. “Sure,” he said.  That’s a new sensation, he thought, that’s why there was two towels.  He got the old junk gel, like a weird prank for a grade school sleepover.  Never fall asleep first.

 

Beep.  Beep… Beep.  The medical-type woman clicked away taking pictures, and video of his testicles and blood flow with the machine.  Harris glanced at the monitor.  It’s a boy! He thought.  He had been quiet through the whole ordeal, his hands were awkwardly placed and oddly still.  The left hand stationed near his tucking situation  to try to keep things out of the way and the right lingered in the vicinity as though it was pretending to help.  His neck crained to staring into nothingness.  For no good reason, laying back and resting his head didn’t seem like an appropriate position to be in.  It turned out that Harris didn’t quite figure out the towel placement according to the woman.  He was lucky he didn’t have any points marked off on his chart.

 

The exam finally ended.  It took a bit longer than Harris had expected.  “It looks like you’re right.  One of them is bigger, but it’s just because of a hydrocele, a layer of liquid around the testicle.  It’s harmless.  You won’t need any kind of treatment for it, it will just be.  The main story is that you’ll be just fine to have kids.”

 

Oh…  Shit just got real.