The House Surgeon

Moving to a new home is difficult for everyone. To begin with, there’s the financial issue. Mortgage is not cheap, even when you move to the smallest house with the least amount of rooms while still maintaining the basic needs for the owner. An apartment tends to be a better option, but landlords are the greediest creatures known to mankind, always raising rent almost every month until your next paycheck no longer satisfies their hunger. Such bastard descendants of dragons who hoard gold to themselves. At least dragons burn down villages and castles to put the people out of their misery and encourage a brave knight to kill the creature.

But once the money is given and your name becomes another dash of ink on paper in exchange for slightly-corroded keys in your hand, there comes the next issue: how exactly do you live in your new home? Well, you choose it. You find it closer to work or school, the price is easy to pay without regret and the mortgage or rent is somewhat manageable, there’s one or two bedrooms with enough space to hold a bed and a desk and a lamp, the water looks clean enough, and there’s running heat and electricity. That’s why you moved in - to take the next milestone and prove to your parents that you are independent and can handle being alone without getting headaches from their endless arguments.

But the house is missing something else.

It always does.

That’s why the keys fit neatly into that lock. It’s welcoming you again. It knows very well what it is like for people to settle in its warm heart, only to get colder and quieter when the owners move out years later.

Yet, despite the cycle of heartbreak and mourning, the house always welcomes you. It always will.

But its kindness doesn’t last long. Hopefully, if you’re a good owner who cleans well, it gets tired.

If you don’t help the house, then it gets angry.

When that happens, try not to be scared. A house surgeon will come to your door, tell you that you must leave and stay somewhere else for a day or two, and don’t come back until they arrive at your doorstep again.

You must listen to them. Some owners never listen. When they arrive too early, they don’t return to the house’s heart. They go straight into the stomach after a welcome hug from its teeth.

That never happens to a house surgeon. Sometimes it happens, but it’s a rarity.

—

I’m not a house surgeon myself. I‘m too squeamish around blood. I can’t stand the sight of a house bleeding in any of its corners or some drops falling from the ceiling to my face. That one happened to me when I was fourteen. That was how I met the Doctor.

He‘s always known as the Doctor. Even though he introduced himself to my parents as William Goya, I knew that he was using an alias. When I became his assistant later on, he simply told me that only Doctor or “the Doctor” was acceptable to refer to him. He keeps changing his professional name every few months when he meets his clients.

When I asked him why, he had sternly told me that places that need a house surgeon like to collect secrets and use them against people, whether it be owners or strangers. Names are one such secret that house surgeons must be careful of even whispering. “After all,” the Doctor said, “the walls have ears.”

“Even in this ratty apartment of yours?” I asked.

Yes, even his apartment.

The Doctor is someone you can perfectly imagine as his title confirms. Tall with tired yet understanding eyes, trimmed dark hair, pale skin with a faint glow, still handsome even if he consumes three extra cups of coffee, and a wry smile. He‘s grown facial hair since the last I saw of him — years ago after he accepted the thankful hugs and handshakes of my parents after he told us that our house is clean.

I remembered afterwards, when he handed his business card that had a phone number on the back and told me to I could talk to him again if there’s another problem.

I’d kept the card in the second drawer of my desk. Forgotten for years until I couldn’t stand the angry rasps in the vents of my college, the pleas behind the basement door to be finally noticed by my friend Tamara and heart family, or the sensation of my neighbour’s house windows staring at me. Even after I tried to hammer myself in the head, I still remembered that damned card.

It took nearly a year to get the chance to see the Doctor. I wasn’t trusted to go out alone after needing stitches, a suicide watch stay, a recommended psychologist, and some pills. But slowly, I convinced my parents that I wasn’t crazy anymore and I might go off the edge again if I never got out of the house. That joke didn’t go well, but they finally let me go.

I‘d called the Doctor beforehand and after a greeting for our appointment, he eventually remembered my face. I still cannot recall how the hell did he choose me as his assistant despite me unable to end my first year as an undergraduate and my episodes, but I got a job anyways.

A week later, my work began.

It was an apartment. Not just a room of an apartment — it was the whole building. Considering how Glinton West is now a construction whorehouse these days (my friend’s words, not mine), it wasn’t a surprise that one of the complexes that grew more rundown than the machines digging up the streets started losing tenants, along with rumours of bleeding walls, cracking stairs, and sobbing in the walls. It was enough for the landlord to flee and request it to be torn.

But the Doctor wanted to provide a proper euthanization so the apartment would at least be long at peace before it felt more of its walls torn down. However, he wanted to be sure if the rumours were legit and if the reported damage was exaggerated. Usually, a house surgeon would do all of that, but as an assistant, that’s where I come in.

I do not have the expertise on any of the tools the Doctor has. But I possess the excellent wonders of people skills, so I wasn’t mortified by the act of easing the tenants into a comforting interview about their experiences in that building.

Some of their encounters are vary in intensity and patterns, but are nonetheless similar to the reports we’ve heard. I’d also done background checks to make sure they were all at least mentally sound. Out of the nineteen tenants, only six of them took prescribed medications or gone to therapy for their mental disorders. A drastic ratio, I know, but it was enough proof to me.

The Doctor seemed convinced enough by my findings. Then he told me to go back inside and “spent as long as I can.”

I still do not know why I‘d listened to him again. But I went inside the building as he requested and took on to wandering the third floor.

I cannot properly describe of what exactly I’ve heard and experienced in that building. All I could remember were the whispers fading away in my ears as I shakily approached the Doctor with a sudden nosebleed and parched mouth. All he‘d done was nod his head, pat my back to encourage me back into his car, and went back into the building himself.

This is what I’ve been doing for these past few months now. Listening to all of those forgetable but horrendous words.

Every time, I run outside and back to the Doctor. Every time, he nods his head once or twice at the sight of me, grabs his bag of supplies, and walks inside. I usually wait in the car for hours, depending how long it takes him to clean those . Recently, I‘ve bothered to just go home by myself, making sure to wipe my face of any tears and dried blood.

Even more recently, I’m starting to hate the Doctor. Why isn’t he helping me? What’s the point of being his assistant when he was doing his job just fine without me? Is this some sick way of trying to groom me? Or am I just going more crazy?

I want him to do something about me. I don’t have the courage to go to another doctor, a real licensed doctor, so he should at least try a therapy session or whatever!

I stole one of his tools yesterday. A scalpel. How predictable. Not too bad than another hammer.

I’m waiting to see if he’s done house cleaning yet. If he isn’t out by midnight, then I‘ll be relieved that the house ate him.

If not, then I can wait a bit longer for the right moment.