It was not the question he was expecting. He was not sure
why the doctor asked him that question. How was it even an appropriate time to be
talking about this? He couldn’t even remember how he got there in the first
place. He had just woken up two minutes earlier in this gloomy hospital room.
As soon as he was awake, he felt this sharp pain on the back of his head and
let out an unflattering scream. A figure that was standing next to him had
seemed startled by his scream and had muttered something before running out of
the room. The doctor came in around a minute after he woke up and after
checking some equipment inside the room, she had asked him the question.
“Landscapes around our city are quite beautiful”, the doctor
continued. “My personal favorite is the sunset over the mountains this time of the
year.” The doctor was still looking into some machines and writing something in
her notepad. She put her pen down, looked straight into his eyes and said,
“Come on, man. There must be something that you consider to be the most
beautiful thing in the world.”
Lying in the hospital bed with the headache that felt like
someone continuously bashing your head with a hammer didn’t seem like the time
to talk about the most beautiful thing in the world. But the boy decided to
answer the doctor’s question. “The most beautiful thing I think is a smile”, he
said.
“You are one of those philosophical people. I knew you were
one when I first saw you”, the doctor confessed. She sat down on the side of
the bed and continued, “Smile is just an expression produced by flexing the
muscles at the side of the mouth. Why would you consider it the most beautiful
thing in the world?”
Obviously, the doctor was neither a philosopher nor a
romantic. The boy was a little confused and did not know how to answer this
question. He thought about it for a moment and answered, “Well, yes. A smile is
just a facial expression but it signifies joy, happiness and pleasure. You
asked me if a child’s play is beautiful. Yes, a child enjoying playing with
friends or with a new toy is beautiful. But the thing I actually consider is
the joy I can see through their smile and that is what I think is beautiful.”
He wanted to give more examples and explain the doctor that her scientific
interpretation was simple minded, but he decided against it. It was difficult
for him to talk and he did not want to piss off the doctor.
“Usually I do not like diving into figurative meaning of
things. I consider myself driven by logic and science but I can understand what
you are trying to say. Happiness is a base emotion humans gravitate to and
seeing the joy of others does set you into a jolly mood”, the doctor exclaimed.
The doctor seemed to understand what the boy wanted to explain and humbly had
acknowledged the thinking of an abstract mind.
Before the boy could talk, the doctor continued, “I
understand why a smile can be beautiful and even I think it is. But you
consider it the most beautiful thing in the world. I don’t think you were
talking about smile in general. There is a specific smile that you are very
fond of, aren’t you?” As soon as the remark was made, the boy could feel a
chill down his spine.
Embarrassed, he tried to face away from the doctor but could
not move. He wanted to hide his face as he could feel it was flushed. The
doctor saw this and calmly explained, “Please do not try to move swiftly. Your
body still needs time to heal. You are going to be here for a while and I know
this place can be lonely. I want you to take me as a friend and talk to me
comfortably. I am here to help.”
“My view is reserved to a specific person, yes”, the boy
opened up. “There is this girl who I like very much. She is kind, pretty and
intelligent. She has long black hair that shines beautifully in the sunlight. Her
brown eyes complement all her features and the way she looks at you, you can
feel the warmth of her kind heart.
“I think she is wonderful and I try to compliment her a lot
but she does not believe me. She laughs it off.” He concluded. The doctor was
listening to the boy attentively and could see the glow in his face while he
was talking about the girl. She asked him, “You are clearly very fond of this
girl. Does she know how you feel? Have you told her?”
Numbing sensation gripped the boy’s whole body after the
doctor’s question because he remembered why he was there. The boy had a tumor
in his brain. He had consulted many specialists and they had given him a few
months to live. Finally, he had found this one doctor who was willing to try a
high risk procedure to save his life. He was in the hospital for the same. It
wasn’t sure that he would even wake up after the procedure. He had woken up five
days after the procedure was completed. The boy after this realization said, “I
never told her how I felt because I knew I had this condition and I did not
know how long I had.” He looked into the doctor’s eyes and asked, “How did the
surgery go?”
Enthusiastically, the doctor stood up, held his hand and
said, “You are fine now. You need a few weeks’ rest and then you can go and see
the most beautiful thing again – The girl and her beautiful smile.”
