The Ward

By Alejandro Gonzalez

Doctor Eckers had packed his meal and prepared to drive out to the park to meet with his ex-wife and his son in the park. About the time that he was ready to leave for it, Kelietya stopped him in the middle of the hallway, and she looked a bit surprised that he was leaving. She asked him where he was going, and he replied that he was going to visit his son on a picnic with his ex-wife.

"So, when you humans divorce, you actually decide who gets custody of the children?!" She asked, looking a bit shocked.

He cocked a half-smile. "What, you Saiyans don't have that?"

"Oh no," she replied. "We have divorce, but when it happens, we share the kids. There are no 'visiting times', there are no 'supervised visits', and you can simply drop in any time you want."

He grabbed his basket and headed for the door. "Sorry, but I can't talk right now."

He walked out the door and headed for the parking lot, a hundred different thoughts on his mind, almost all of them related to patients at the ward. Here was a man who was extremely focused on his work, leaving out almost every other aspect of his life. In fact, it was probably the primary reason as to why his divorce happened in the first place. He didn't believe it, but if you asked his ex-wife, who was a woman given to complaining, she'd give you a thirty minute lecture about how his "nut jobs"-as she referred to his patients-would take up all of his time. And she believed every word of what she said about that. About the time that he got in his car and started hit up, he was already two minutes late. He was certain to get yelled at when he got there.

Guess what? He actually didn't get yelled at. It seemed that their divorce was the only thing to calm his ex-wife down. Once he got there, he sat down, and dished out the food. He noticed something about his son that he never noticed before: the fact that his son was growing up.

"Hey dad?" Said his son. "How is your life, now that you and mom are separated?"

He thought a minute, and then gave a somewhat prepared response. "Well, not too bad, but I still wish that I'd gotten more time with you, while you lived with me."

His son was actually waiting for such a response, if you believed such a thing. His son then touched on an issue that was sure to get a somewhat lengthy response.

"Dad?" The son asked. "How's your work goin'?"

"Work's going fine," he replied. "I've got this patient now that thinks she's a Saiyan warrior."

His ex-wife laughed a bit. "What kind of warrior is that?"

Neither adult seemed to understand, but his son, seemed to perk up when he heard the word Saiyan.

"She said that she's a Saiyan?" He said, hearing that word.

Doctor Eckers turned to his son, a bit confused. "You've heard that one somewhere?"

"Of course dad!" He replied enthusiastically. "Saiyans are the species from Dragonball Z!"

Suddenly, Doctor Eckers remembered something. "Is that that Japanese anime that you watch?"

The kid nodded in agreement, and the dad thought that he could now pursue his treatment from another angle. First of all, he know thought that she'd picked up this "Saiyan" aspect from the cartoon, and would try to convince her. Second of all, he'd find out how she attached that fake tail, and try to prove her she's just a human. So, he picked up his cell phone to call his main assistant.

"Miss Thompson?" He said, talking to his aide. "Can you get Kelietya's tail x-rayed? I want to see how she attached it to her body."

His aide agreed, and he hung up. This would provide an excellent clue to how she went about convincing herself of what she thought herself to be. There was one small problem: his whole plan would be screwed up once he got the results of the x-ray, when he came back from the picnic in about three hours.

Coming back later that day, Nurse Thompson came into his office with the X-Ray results. She had a slightly dumbfounded look on her face.

"Doctor Eckers?" She said, getting his attention. "You'll find that these results are a bit weird. In fact, I had her x-rayed three times to make sure the x-ray wasn't messed up."

Looking at the x-ray, he was completely struck.

"Are you serious?!" He said. "Her tail is connected to her pelvic bone?! How can a human have a tail?"

She shook her head. "I don't think that they do," she said.

This was his third session with Kelietya, and he was going to find out some answers.

"So," he said, "tell me if you have a family on Vegeta."

She smiled. "Well, I'm not married, but then again, most female Saiyans don't like marriage, so we try to keep it simple."

"Many different cultures have different rules regarding marriage. What do Saiyans do?"

"I figured that you'd ask that," she replied. "Saiyans don't have many formal ceremonies. Marriages aren't recorded in record books. Saiyans are considered married as soon as the female becomes pregnant."

He raised his eyebrows. "That would be making it simple."

"But," she continued, "those that do have ceremonies have many less rules to go by. For example, you humans believe that the man is the groom and the woman is the bride. Not so in our case. Which ever is the stronger and more powerful of the two is the groom. The weaker is the bride. There are no 'honeymoons'. After marriage, the female and the male have to go out and kill something together."

"Quite simple."

"Indeed."

He handed her the bowl of fruit on his desk, and she wolfed down the whole bowl, not giving any regard to breathing in between bites. He'd hate to be in a Saiyan dining hall, especially a large group of them. Just then, she seemed to sit perfectly still in her seat. Not even looking, she snatched a fly out of midair. There was no way, by human standards, that she could've been that accurate.

"How did you do that?" He asked.

She rolled her eyes, typical exasperated style. "Saiyans have extremely acute senses. I could feel the fly disturbing the air."

Just then, he thought of something. "Excuse me, but I have something to ask of you."

She perked up in her seat. "What?"

"Well, my son will be visiting my house tomorrow, and I'd like for you to see him. Maybe you and him could get along."

She smiled. "I think I'd like that."

What was going to happen tomorrow would leave a lot of people confused and startled.