"Open wide." Dr. Jones held up a thing wooden stick which ended up pressing on Charwin's tongue the moment they opened their mouth. While it was smooth, the texture and the taste if something Charwin understood to be inedible for humans was nearly unbearable. Arching their tongue only made things worse as Dr. Jones pressed the object down harder.
If humans were genetically inclined to dislike wood why do doctors use it?
"Everything looks good in there." Finally the doctor pulled the stick out of Charwin's mouth. They ran their tongue around the inside of their mouth, trying to get the taste away and wet their tongue.
"Why do you look at the teeth, tongue, and uvula during a check up?"
"Make sure you don't need any teeth pulled, and the mouth can show all kinds of signs of infection." Dr. Jones tossed the stick into the trash. "Though I only talked about the uvula last week." A dark eyebrow raised up as he rearranged his tools on the table. "Have you been attending other lectures?"
As Jones’ fingers hovered over a scalpel, Charwin knew what the doctor was really asking. Providing other bodies?
“Of course not.” Charwin pulled up the collar of their trench coat. Too much alteration to my face perhaps. “When I cannot attend your riveting lessons in person, I make sure to catch up with the other attendees.”
“But you don’t want to be a doctor?” Jones’ hands rested lightly on the edge of the table.
“I’m just a curious fella.” Charwin tried to smile, but they certainly hadn’t much practice using those facial muscles to smile, being as they spent much of their free time at funerals, or digging up graves.
“You know what they say about curiosity dontcha?” Dr. Jones smirked as he picked up the meat cleaver he bought from a retried butcher.
“Err…” Charwin gulped. Whatever it was, it was bad, wasn’t it? Was Dr. Jones expecting him to finish what people say about curiosity? “Yeah, you know, too much curiosity kills chatez.” Charwin realized he said a creature Dr. Jones would have never heard before so he quickly cleared his throat. “I mean cats.” It was the only animal on Earth that remotely sounded like Charwin’s slip up. “Curiosity kills cats.” Charwin said, nodding and hiding their pursed lips behind their collar.
“Heh.” Jones hit his knuckles on the table. “You certainly are an odd fellow. Curiosity killing cats, unbelievable. Now, off with you.” He waved his hands at Charwin. “As long as you don’t stop giving me research material, I guess I don’t care much what you do.”
“Understood.” Charwin ducked out of the room, taking a deep breath of the fresh, almost fishy smell, that comes after a rain. It was much better than the lingering smell of blood and bleach.
Word count: 472
