The French Formula (LSD, #3)

8. Still Got The Blues

Still Got The Blues

My mission goes nowhere. I've searched everywhere, but no sign of G.O.D., no hard evidence that G.O.D. exists, no leads towards manufacturers or sellers, no G.O.D.-father who pulls the strings behind the curtain, not even skeletons of doped winners coming out of closets. All my initiatives backfired on me. This morning, three new messages from #1, The Boss, shouting: "I need results!", and "I need them NOW!", and "That's an ORDER!", without any clue how I should get these results or where I can find them. I feel depressed.

I enter room 472, Doc's office, and salute: "No jokes today, Doc. I still got the blues from last weekend."

Doc notices immediately: "Did you sleep well?"

"Like a log. I was lucky. It was quiet at the Emergency Department. At 06:00 AM, my female colleague looked me in the eye and said: «You are tired. Go to bed. I will take over. And take some vitamins, or you'll catch the flu.» Thanks to those two extra hours, I slept for almost three and a half hours."

"She could tell you were tired by looking into your eyes?"

"By looking at the two matchsticks I used to keep my eyes open. She threw a cup of ice-cold water in my face, and I didn't even blink."

"Don't expect me to be so generous with our time. The Shopping Trolley Racing starts at noon, a high-risk game where we expect many accidents, and right now, we have office hours, to give medical advice to competitors of the European Games. You'll need to swear the Hippocratic Oath of Secrecy."

"Damn you, bloody Hippocratic Oath of Secrecy. More swear words? Rostov! Should I spell The F-Word too? Fukushima Nuclear Disaster!"

"Okay, that's enough. Now you have the obligation to remain silent. Every bit of information you will hear while working with me is classified, even more top-secret than the launch codes of the Russian missiles in Mexico, almost as secret as the training of Paris Saint-Germain before a match in the Champions League."

"I don't know about Paris Saint-Germain, but I do have those launch codes for you on my phone, if you like. Don't worry. Secret is my middle name. My lips are sealed."

Our first patient comes in. It's a handsome, no, eye-blinding breath-taking good-looking man in his late forties. He shakes hands with Doc like they're old friends: "Hi Doc. Do you remember that pill you gave me last Friday? I told you, I invited those seven hot foxy ladies to come over to my place for the weekend and I was a little... concerned. At my age, Mister Johnson might refuse to stand up and deliver..."

Doc nods: "Yes, that blue potential prototype. You promised you'd tell me about your experiences. Did it work well?"

"I took it on Friday afternoon. It worked perfectly until Sunday afternoon. I produced and produced and produced... That pill was fabulous. If you can give me some more for the upcoming weekends, I would appreciate it."

"Were there any side effects?"

"No side effects at all, except for a little pain in my right arm: those seven hot foxy ladies didn't show up."

Doc waves it away: "When life gets hard, you need to get harder."

"Like I said: getting hard was never the problem."

Doc writes a recipe and the next patient enters, a teenage boy with a worried face: "Do you have the analysis, Doc?"

Doc looks into his papers and reads aloud what it says in the report: "Yes. You have AIDS. But don't worry. AIDS is no longer an instant fatal disease. There are treatments. You'll have quite a few years to look forward to."