fiction – Michael Seidel, writer

Excluding oral surgeries, I’ve had four surgeries in the past half dozen years.

A urologist did the first for a blocked bladder. Next came a broken arm and orthopedic surgery, followed by an orthopedic surgeon repairing a ruptured tendon. Then, last fall, a different surgeon removed my gallbladder.

What’s interesting about this is that these four surgeons left the system within a few months of doing my surgery.

My suspicions are inflamed. Were they just put there to operate on me or did operating on me give cause to have them removed?

Either way, it’s a troubling trend.

I’m keeping an eye on my oral surgeon. At least he’s still here.

For now.

I nuked something this morning in the microwave. When it announced, “Done”, with five beeps, I responded by pressing the cancel button three times.

Thinking back with a smile, I remembered how I developed that habit. Those ‘three beeps’ are supposed to be for good luck. I first did it in the 1980s when we lived on Okinawa when we bought our first microwave. I started to nuke something but canceled it, inadvertently pressing the button three times.

Later, I had a good day. When I remembered that the next morning, I thought, I’m going to keep doing this, because maybe those three beeps brought me luck.

It’s all fiction. I did hit the cancel button three times today and smiled, wondering if it would bring me good luck, and then I made up the rest.