Trebble: Three Hundred Words
A/N: While working on the next chapter for TABCF this popped out. It had to go somewhere!
The Lonely Clinic In the Sands
They had always said he was mad for opening a clinic in the middle of the desert.
"Who in their right mind would come all the way out here?" they said. "You're wasting your time,."
Well he liked the solitude of the desert. That, and he was a doctor who hated crowds so it made sense. Besides, it was strategically located to receive the travellers crossing the desert who would no doubt have collapsed of sun-stroke or dehydration by then. That was good enough for him.
Still to be a real clinic you'd need real patients. And just as luck would have it, no one seemed intent on crossing the desert in the four-year drought. So he had no patients.
"Told you so," said his smug colleagues. The doctor ignored them. He'd show them. Just wait.
Weeks passed, but his little clinic remained empty. The rebel army approached him once, seeking a medic to bolster their ranks. He told them to sod off.
His clinic had been built from funds granted to him by King Cobra himself.
But as the days dragged on and news of the rebellion and war broke out, he began to wonder if he really hadn't made a mistake.
On the eve of the war, he buckled and began packing supplies. He'd go to Alurbarna to offer his services the next day.
"Sorry," he said to the lonely clinic as he locked the door. The doctor felt a twinge of sadness. The little clinic just looked so lonely, so unfulfilled. "You never got a chance to prove yourself."
As if on cue, a man in white suddenly fell out of the sky and crashed right into the roof (mercifully thatched, not stone) of the clinic.
The doctor blinked once.
And then he unlocked the door again.