The Block Doc

The “doctor’s” office looked like the lobby of an old train station.

I sat in a large open room with tall glass ceilings. There were two circles of blue and brown plastic chairs (the ones with the three vertical slots in the back from middle school) alternating color in no particular order. The floor was covered in black and white tiles, also not in any particular pattern, that were cracked and chipped throughout the room. A welcome desk sat empty in the back of the room between two tall pillars that ran from floor to ceiling.

Next to the desk was a dispenser with a sign next to it that read “Take a number.” I pulled off the next tab - 67 - and turned to find a seat.

The chairs were almost all full with waiting patients, but no one was talking. They were all tapping pens on their knees, bouncing their legs, and even snoring. How long had they been here?

This was probably all a scam. Justin was right and would laugh at me for months about this. But, I had to try it.

My roommate had been laughing at me since I first brought up the ad in the newspaper. I was working on the crossword puzzle (after reading the comics and a poor attempt at sudoku) on yet another day as an unsuccessful writer.

I had been getting more and more depressed after receiving rejection letter after rejection letter in the mail. I felt like I wasn’t good enough, like my mom would forever be my biggest fan, and I would never have the patience to write that groundbreaking and inspirational novel I’d dreamed of.

I even tried to write a children’s story for a magazine (which was way out of my comfort zone and not my usual genre), but I hunkered down and edited that thing more than I ever had before. I thought this was a foolproof plan - writing for children was easy, wasn’t it? But, after three months of waiting, I received the rejection letter in the mail.

“We are not accepting fiction at this time.”

Great, just what I wanted to hear. Foolproof.

Then, I had an idea that I thought would be my next greatest piece—my magnum opus. The thought hit me one day in the shower one day and I wrote the whole story in my head. I could imagine the setting as if I had been there before, in a tangible fog like a place from my childhood or vivid memory, I wasn’t sure which. I ran through the plot in my mind all day, hardly able to pay attention to anything else, developing each of my characters as I finally fell asleep in the early morning. I knew them all and was ready to write.

But, when I woke up, everything was gone. I had glimpses of the award-winning tale I’d planned the day before, but I couldn’t remember the exact words that would draw readers in with their perfect and poetic composition.

I strained to remember as I lay in bed, but nothing came. So, I got up to make coffee and read the newspaper and do the daily crossword (yes, I still subscribe).

I was struggling with a particularly obscure crossword clue when my eyes drifted to an ad at the bottom of the page.

The Block Doc

Do you have writer’s block? I’ve spent my career helping authors just like you find their words.

Don’t believe me? Visit Blockdoc.com to learn more and hear recovery stories from real patients like you!

Of course, I was skeptical. Who had ever heard of a doctor that cured writer’s block? Also, the Block Doc? Really? It was ridiculous to even consider but I visited the site…out of curiosity.

I was greeted with the face of a smiling man in a lab coat. Glasses, bald, and his arms crossed at his chest.

The website was covered with raving reviews and even an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau — could this be legitimate?

The bottom of the ”Visit Us” page read “No Appointment Necessary.”

How odd, I thought.

But, I needed to write. I needed to prove that my English major wasn’t a waste of time. And I needed to stop working at the discount home goods store down the street. So, I decided I would go.

Them, as a sat I my chair wearing a business suit — where did I think I was — a job interview? — I wasn’t so sure this had been a good idea.

I looked around at the dozens of other silent patients and wondered why they weren’t talking. And where was the doctor? I hadn’t seen anyone called back since I arrived.

I was thinking about picking up my briefcase and leaving. I couldn’t handle awkward silence and lacked patience. But no, I thought, I was here for my story. The story that would change everything…my novel that I couldn’t even begin to write.

Then, she sat next to me.

She was wearing black leggings, a black zip-up hoodie and, and a black crop top with some sort of firework burst of purple powder printed on it. She had ice-blonde hair with bright blue streaks throughout.

She sat down, put one foot up on the plastic chair, and just started talking — a complete disregard for the fact that no one else was.

“What are you in for?” She asked.

“In for? Are we in prison?” I responded in a whisper.

Others were starting to turn and look at us.

She laughed loudly, obviously not caring whose attention she grabbed.

“No, that’s not what I meant. Why are you here?” She rephrased.

“Why are you here?” I retorted, not quite ready to share my failure to write with a stranger.

She smirked, “Okay I’ll go first, then. I’m here because I graduated with a creative writing degree over a year ago and haven’t been able to write a single thing since! I’ve tried prompts, I’ve tried writing from personal experience, I’ve tried writing essays and I just can’t get more than a sentence out.”

“Have you tried writing about not knowing what to write about?” I asked.

“Yepp! I’ve tried that too. I take it back though, I did get a little bit into one project months ago and I just absolutely froze in the middle of it. I have no motivation to finish it.”

“And what was that one about?”

There was a pause and I noticed some more murmurs throughout the room. I glanced around to see more people talking in groups of two, three, or even four.

“Uhh, it’s kind of hard to explain…”

“Isn’t it always?”

She smiled and began, “Okay so I read On Writing by Stephen King a few years ago and he said something about looking for things in everyday life and asking ‘what if?’ Something about developing stories about things that other people wouldn’t think about. Obviously not a direct quote. But that idea really stuck with me. So, I went to the gas station one time and noticed the payment amount from the previous customer on the pump I pulled up to — $5.06. I wondered why on earth someone would only put $5 in their tank. I kept thinking about it and thought maybe it was a single mom using all she had to fill up to go to work that day. I thought maybe it was some kind of driver topping off his tank because he was a little too early to pick someone up. And then I thought, maybe someone was abducted by aliens mid-pump because, like, what would Stephen King think? So I was working on this collection of short stories about these gas station characters, but I couldn’t make them real, you know? I couldn’t figure out what made them unique other than their situations. I felt like they were all just Alex in different situations.”

I had been listening politely and nodding along to the woman’s story. Then asked, “I’m sorry, who is Alex?”

“Oh, me.” She said, “I’m Alex.” She smiled and held her hand for me to shake.

“Nice to meet you, Alex. I’m Jonathan.” I shook her hand. By now, the room was echoing with chatter.

“So, Alex, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself and why it’s so terrible that your characters are based on you?”

She gave me a look. “It’s not that I’m terrible, but I mean my characters are just all the same, right? So, for example, not everyone can be a struggling writer just out of college and on her own. I literally live in the same small town I grew up in and I bike 5 minutes down the road to work in marketing at an old lumber mill. I’m not exciting.”

“A lumber mill? I’ve never met someone who worked at a lumber mill. What’s that like?”

“Are you serious?” She scoffed.

I looked around. There was still no one at the welcome desk and I could swear no one had been called back to see the Doc yet. I looked at my watch. I’d been there for almost two hours.

“Yeah, I want to know! And it seems like we’re going to be here for a while.”

“Okay well it’s not cool or anything,” she said. “I come home smelling like sawdust every day and I’ve seen guys saw their fingers off…several times. I was an assistant there in high school and ended up in marketing after I got a writing degree.”

“Wait, you just nonchalantly told me you’ve seen people saw off their fingers.” I laughed.

“Yes! It happens way more frequently than anyone would think. They go through all of this safety training, but the second they don’t pay attention. ZZZZERRRRR!”

She laughed and covered her mouth, probably realizing she just loudly made a bad saw noise in public and in front of a stranger.

I laughed too. “So what do you do in marketing other than watch guys lose their fingers?”

“I mostly do B2B — business to business — email marketing and social media. I also write blogs and other content for the website.”

“And how does one blog about lumber?”

“Oh, you know, industry and business trends, unique uses for lumber, why we’re better than our competitors.”

“And you don’t enjoy working in the lumber industry?”

“Ha! No, not at all. I’m used to it, but it’s definitely not my dream job.”

“What is that then?”

“I want to publish short story collections, but I feel like that’s kind of a lost art. Everyone reads short stories online if they do at all. Unless you’re Stephen King, of course.”

“It’s funny you say that because I’m working on a story that I hoped would be a novel, but is starting to look like a novella at most. And I’m also struggling with character development,” I said.

“Yeah? Tell me about it.” She said, seeming a little relieved to have the attention off of her for a moment.

I hesitated, the age-old fear of someone stealing my idea holding me back.

But, what was I here for if not to share my story with the Block Doc in hopes of a cure?

I sighed, “I was already struggling for inspiration, so I dredged up some of my writing from college to see if that sparked anything. I found a piece I wrote for some post-apocalyptic prompt where the narrator is running to find shelter in this rusty old building. They’re trying to escape a downpour of acid rain. The writing is mediocre and underdeveloped, but I think there’s something there. I just can’t figure out who the main character is. I’ve written pages of him as a man and pages of her as a woman. I’ve written them old and young, gay and straight, and nothing seems to fit. I’ve got a bland character that no one would care about in a dark, acidic world.”

“Bummer,” Alex said. Somehow making the word sound actually genuine.

“Do you want to get up and walk around?” She asked suddenly.

“Now?”

“Yeah! I’m sick of sitting still.”

“Umm…sure,” I responded, frankly tired of sitting too.

We got up to take a turn about the room as they would say in the time of Jane Austen.

“So, who is your character currently? Tell me about them.” Alex asked me.

“Currently?” I asked. “Currently she’s Lavender Fischer. She’s kind of my go-to persona for anything. Short black bob haircut, very pale skin, passionate about her job and helping others, kind of an oddball compared to everyone else, but embraces it.”

“So what’s the problem?” Alex asked. “She sounds great!”

“I guess the main problem is that I know these are her personality traits, but I don’t know what she’s really doing or who she is outside of those traits. For example, I know she’s passionate about her job…but I don’t know what her job is.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yeah, so she was intended to be a chemist and I chose a flavor chemist because it’s what my uncle does and it always intrigued me.”

“What does a flavor chemist do?”

“They make flavors out of chemicals I guess.” I laughed. “That’s how they get artificial flavors.”

“Interesting.”

“It is! That’s why I thought that would be a unique profession, but I found out that I know nothing about chemistry and every amount of research, aside from a new degree, couldn’t tell me how to describe doing…chemistry things. So now I’m back at square one.”

“Well that is a doozy, isn’t it?” She laughed. “How are either of us ever going to be famous authors?”

“I guess that’s why we’re here,” I said.

She looked around as if she had forgotten where we were.

She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Has anyone been called back yet?”

“I don’t think so…”

We were quiet, looking around and listening as the once silent room grew louder around us.

We walked back to our seats and sat down wordlessly. After a few minutes, Alex started chuckling.

I looked at her and tilted my head slightly to the side (yes, like a dog.) “What?” I asked.

She, between laughs at her own private joke, said, “I just thought about something that happened to my sister and me when we were kids.”

“What was it?”

“Oh, it’s not going to be funny now!” She sighed, “Buttt I guess I already brought it up. So my mom brought us to a doctor’s appointment with her when we were little — Brea was probably 10 and I was 8. We were bored, so we wandered out into the hallway and went through a door at the end of the hallway. Brea said it led outside, but it didn’t. It led to this stairwell with a closet and a door to the employee garage. We tried to open the door in the hall, but it had locked behind us. I was terrified at this point, but my sister has always been so calm and collected. She went down the stairs and straight into the garage, so I ran after her. There was literally nowhere to go because every door we tried was locked. So we finally went toward the giant garage door and found the open button for that and it worked. We just strolled out of the employee parking garage at this doctor’s office and people were giving us the weirdest looks, including a police officer, and they just didn’t say anything.” She continued laughing.

I laughed too. “Wasn’t your mom worried?”

“She didn’t know we’d even left the building! We told her years later, but she never believed us.”

“You’re kidding! She doesn’t believe you to this day?” I asked.

Alex stopped laughing and looked away.

“I don’t know if she would. She died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

There was another long silence.

“Cancer, in case you wanted to know. That’s why we were at the doctor's. She was in and out of remission for years.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

Then, we heard someone from the back of the room yell out a number over the crowd. It took several tries and volume increases before we could hear the voice clearly.

“33! Number 33!”

Alex pulled the ticket out of her pocket and looked at it. She turned it toward me. 33.

“I guess I’m up! It was nice talking to you, Jonathan.” She said, reaching her hand out to shake mine again.

It seemed almost too formal after everything she had shared. I felt like I knew her and felt guilty, or rather disappointed, that I didn’t have the chance to share more about myself.

She stood up, picked up the satchel next to her chair on the floor, and walked away toward the man calling her number.

Alone again in the room full of patients and unwilling to start another conversation, I scrolled through my phone for probably another hour before dozing off in the uncomfortable plastic chair.

“It’s her!” I yelled, startling myself awake.

A man next to me looked over from the book he was reading and said “What?” In the most exasperated voice.

“It’s her. The woman who was sitting next to me.” I looked around without seeing her. “Did she ever come back?”

“With the blue hair? Haven’t seen her.” He turned back to his book.

“She’s it,” I said to myself. She’s my main character.