Story 1: Courage What is the cause of all this pain, the frustration? Am I afraid of death or am I thinking what my family would do without me? It sickens me in my stomach  just the though of going to the operation room and not coming out alive. I have heard all the horrible stories about Chemo and how it weakens you. I don’t know how my kids are going to react seeing their weak dad. And by the way…why me? Why me God?? I flip through the New Yorker’s pages, not really paying attention to the content. The clinic ambience sickens me, what is the physician going to do in this clinic anyways? Is he going to say Okay wait, you cannot start Chemo regimen and let me die? I am also annoyed by these people leisurely sitting in their couch pretending to go through the magazines in their hand. There is this kid running from one corner to another, his mom trying to calm him down with one eye on her Us Weekly. Another miss chatterly is still talking on her phone, by now we all know about her family, her house which has a leaking basement and so on. I wish they give priority to the severity of sickness. If I am dying, heck I get to see the doctor first. You might think I am complaining but wouldn’t you if your chances of survival were only 30%? My physician comes out and announces Mrs Sade’s name, the lady in her phone. She finally hangs up her phone and proceeds, good riddance. Thanks, Doc, could you have come a little bit earlier? A man only has few numbered days and he is wasting here waiting in the piles of magazines. I feel like making a dash towards the door and declaring to the Doc that I can’t wait too long, I am going to die very soon. But I am sure that miss-know-it-all secretary will show her attitude on me and drag me back to the chair. I hate her, I always hated her. My physician and the nurse aren’t the best either. They make me stay for an hour each time and spend 5 minutes with me. It almost feels like I am paying for waiting in the chair. And this lady, can’t she control her waywardly kid? If she had to come to the clinic, couldn’t she have left her boy home? She disgusts me with her loud noise flipping through the pages. And her son, the little devil, if it was my boy I would have smacked him and kept him straight. Suddenly the boy runs towards me, clearly bored running across the room. I get a little uneasy with the overture. He gets really close to me and asks, “Do you know my dad finished all levels for God of War?” Clearly annoyed and not knowing what the heck he is talking about, I try to give him a short answer to avoid further communication, “No.” His mom shouts, “Courage!! Get over here.” What kind of silly name is that? Courage. He then asks me, “Why are you here?” His mom doesn’t say anything and just smiles looking at me. I decide to get blunt this time and tell him the truth, “I am here for physical check before my chemo routine for multiple myeloma.” He calms down and just says, “Oh.” Now its my time to irritate him, “Do you know what myeloma is?” Courage replies, “Sure it is a cancer.” I am a bit surprised but elaborate, “Yes cancer of plasma cells. How did you know it is cancer?” Courage replies immediately, “Coz I have one.” He then picks up a small paperweight with “Merck” sign that was in the table next to me and starts running across the room again. I just keep looking at him. The End