Wanda

Text:

© Grathy
The rounded wand of the ultrasound is hungry, as it bathes itself in the warm gel, traversing my abdomen, looking for foreign creatures.

It is like an excavator, moving up and down and side to side, until it halts, like it’s found a treasure, and chimes like the bells on a slot machine and for a moment, I feel like I am in a casino, and perhaps I have won a prize.

As it continues exploring my abdomen, the warm ooze bathes the wand and for a moment, I can also pretend that I am having a massage, not some sort of exploratory procedure where they are looking for flaws in my anatomy.

The bells chime again. How much was the jackpot this time? $50? $200? The wand makes a left turn and heads toward my rib cage. There’s something buried under there. She says that the spleen is hiding. I tell her that it is just shy.

The wand moves on and I hear more bells, as its metal head makes new discoveries.

The pings shout their triumph with every turn, and soon I hope to get my reward, a bucket full of good news, but who knows… I still have five to ten minutes to go, or maybe even longer.

Who knows what the future holds?