Diary Of A Person Keeping The Doctor Away With Apples

By: John Merriman
merriman.john@gmail.com

Sunday

Dr. Bernstein stopped by the house around noon today, which was kind of odd since he normally only sees patients at his office. I also don’t remember saying he could just randomly show up at my house unannounced. Anyway, I told him I was going to eat an apple for dessert — I’ve been on a health kick lately — at which point he smiled, apologized, and left.

 

Monday

Dr. Bernstein came back, this time as I was getting ready for work. When I opened the door, his eyes were bloodshot, his face pale, and he appeared to be sweating. He was having trouble forming complete sentences. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a Red Delicious, and took a bite right in front of him. He kept staring at me, so I kept eating. When I nearly got down to the core, he abruptly walked away, but not without stealing several wild-eyes glances back at me.

 

Tuesday

Slept for about two hours last night because I kept having nightmares involving Dr. Bernstein strangling me with a stethoscope. Called in sick and spent the whole day driving to every grocery store and farmer’s market in town just buying bushels of apples. Honeycrisp, Gala, Fuji — you name it, I bought it. When I came back, I spotted a shirtless Bernstein lurking around my front yard, so I threw a Granny Smith at him. He didn’t put up much of a fight and ran away screaming.

 

Wednesday

This morning, as a precautionary measure, I started eating an apple every five minutes. No sign of the doctor today so far, but I know he’s watching me, waiting for me to slip up somehow. If he shows up again I may have to start eating the cores, seeds and all. I have no idea if that’ll even work. All I know is, I once had a life, and now that life has been replaced by whatever you call being too scared to leave your own house while contemplating eating apple cores. I might be going completely, utterly insane.

 

Thursday

So apparently all that apple-a-day stuff is a complete load of bull. Now fully nude and foaming at the mouth, Bernstein woke me up at three in the morning trying to break in through the back door. Instead of eating more godforsaken apples, I finally did what a normal person would’ve done days ago and called the police. They arrested him on the spot. Now I have a ridiculous amount of apples in the house for no reason at all. Also, I keep hearing voices coming from their direction, but that’s silly because everyone knows apples can’t talk. I’ve been repeating that to myself while I rock back and forth in a fetal position on the floor, and so far that seems to be working.

 

Friday

Guess who paid me a visit today by trying to climb down the chimney? Hint: it wasn’t Santa, and bail was involved. Well, this time I was ready. I went outside, taunted him into coming out of the chimney and off the roof, and when he was close enough, I knocked him unconscious by throwing an entire case of Mountain Dew at his head. No apples involved at all! Now he’s tied to a chair in my basement. Oh, and I was wrong about the apples — apparently they can channel their thoughts directly into my brain! I hear their voices constantly now, and I have to find a way to get rid of them all. So many voices. So many crisp and juicy voices.

 

Saturday

Just came up with a new expression today: “A doctor a day keeps the apples away.” Can’t wait to see if it works!

 

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *