He's never been afraid of needles, even ones pouring slow poison in his veins.
"And that's is!", said the young doctor whose name keeps eluding Mat's memory.
In a hall of a community pediatric clinic filled with noisy kids and their indifferent mothers sits Mat, attended by his doctor, a geeky-looking Mexican wearing round glasses and a white robe.
"Have the nosebleeds stopped?" asks the doctor.
"We'll find out after this new treatment kick in, right?", Mat replies.
A woman holding a baby complains to the doctor, something in Spanish, but Mat never got to learn the language. The doctor then gets close to him so as to whisper.
"People don't like seeing you here, this is a pediatric clinic. I will talk to Marty to arrange another time for your appointments".
"Yeah, whatever, man. I've got to go anyway, this woman looks like she's going to kill us or something", he says and grins, feeling good that he made a joke.
The doctor looks at the poor-looking woman, her bare feet and her unattended hair, and he laughs.
"She's probably a whore or something", the doctor say. "And don't worry, she can't speak English."
The woman turns to Mat and stares at him, as if a witch from a fairytale, putting a hex on him with her evil gaze.
"Man, I'm off, call me for the next shot", he says as he pats the doctor on the shoulder and exits.
Outside the sun burns. The slums of Tihuana are busy, full of walking here and there, some selling stuff in the streets, some talking, some sitting pointlessly under the sun. He does the same. He finds a broken bench and sits and lights his last Mexican cigarette.
"Mister?" The call startles him.
Behind him, motionless, stands the strange woman from the hospital, this time without the baby.
"I have something for you, mister", she says.
She hands him a creepy rag doll. Without even thinking about it, he takes it and is amazed at the level of detail the voodoo doll was made, with elaborate Mayan drawings, countless stitches, multicolored pins on its head and a scary smiley face that will definitely be a part of tonights nightmares. His momentary gaze allows the woman to disappear unnoticed. He looks here and there but she's nowhere to be found. There's no way she could run this fast. Or was she a ghost? An illusion from all the drugs? Or was he somehow hypnotized by the voodoo doll and was lost in its snare for longer than he thought? His cigarette has already burned out.
He drops the doll to the ground as if dropping a hot chunk of iron. This thing is freaky. Why the hell would anyone want to own something like that? He stands up and leaves hastily towards his next destination, the gentlemen's club. He won't think of that stupid voodoo doll ever again!
Someone told me today that the fast-paced simplicity of these posts are closer to a screenplay rather than a novel. Well, why not? ;)
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