A Thing.

When I was very young I had a toy doctor set, as many children do. I think my only patients were my stuffed animals and my younger brother. I have a vague recollection of putting a fake plastic band-aid cuff on his arm. It was when he was in his roly-poly, pudgy stage that he bounced around in ages zero to two. So I must have been three or four when I mended his fake ouchie with my fake band-aid.

I remember that the toy kit came with a plastic stethoscope that was too small for my toddler head. But I was very serious about playing doctor, so I shoved the yellow plastic ear pieces into my ear canals and endured the pain. My head throbbed as I listened in vain for the sound of my brother’s heartbeat, moving the grey foam listening doodad over his chest and back like my own pediatrician did. “Breath in”, I would say. “And out. Ok good.”

I don’t think I ever diagnosed anything more serious than a mild skin lesion as I didn’t have the tools to fix a heart murmur or pneumonia or whatever it was that I was looking for with that dreadful stethoscope. Most of my toys suffered from horrible neglect, so a kit with so many pieces was soon dismembered and forgotten.

Around fourth grade I was rummaging through one of our wooden cabinets looking for art supplies for some outrageous school project (making a model of the solar system, most likely). As I filtered my way through a rainbow of pipe cleaners and the remains of half finished art projects I rediscovered my old toy doctor’s kit, sitting in the back of the cabinet.

Its little brown vinyl bag was dusty and ripping at the corners. I pulled it out and opened up the plastic handles to peer inside. The only piece that lay remaining was that stethoscope.

I took it out and looked it over. It was slightly dusty and the yellow ear pieces seemed to be smeared with a grayish substance (probably the remains of dried up toddler ear wax). I used my shirt to wipe off some of the grime then moved the ear pieces into place. The blue plastic “Y” pushed my ears closer together and squished my brain in its shell, causing me to squeeze my eyes shut. But I sat there with the yellow buds in my ears, trying to endure that pain. I looked around for something to listen to and, finding nothing in the immediate vicinity, settled on lifting up my shirt and listening to my heart. Breathing in and out.