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When Everything Else Fails · Original Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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Embarrassment
The lock clicked and the door cracked open.

‘Please, come in!’ said a warm voice coming from behind it.

She stood up, took a step or two, stopped. She quickly checked her countenance in the wall mirror of the waiting room. Satisfied, she walked to the door, pushed it wide open and stepped into the doctor’s office.

‘Please, make yourself comfortable’, the man said, gesturing towards a large buff couch set opposite the door across the office, while he ambled back to this desk.

Silently, she proceeded to the couch and sat down on its edge, palms pressed against her laps. She glanced at him. He was rather squat, with a big beard that ate up all the lower part of his face. Bushy brows emphasised the small size of his eyes, which looked like two dark buttons sewn astride his nose. She suddenly realised he was looking at her, too. An acute, penetrating gaze that made her feel uneasy. She lowered her own to dodge his scrutiny.

‘I—‘ She hesitated. It was not easy to spit out. ‘It’s not for me that I’m coming to you’, she finally managed to blurt out.

‘I know,’ he said. Turning aside, he fetched a leather covered notebook from a drawer. He opened it, took the quill out of the inkwell and scribbled a few words. ‘You want to talk to me about your son, don’t you?’

Head still lowered, she nodded.

‘And what is the matter with him?’ the doctor asked.

She cleared her throat. ‘He is —’ She paused, looking for words. ‘I suppose you could say “extra-shy”. He can’t properly speak to people he doesn’t know, or even stand the gaze of strangers without cringing. When someone comes to visit us, he runs into his room and locks himself up until—‘

‘Uh-uh, I see,’ the doctor interrupted. ‘Quite an incapacitating hang-up, I would say. And you are justifiably concerned about his future life, I suppose? Especially his ability to find a suitable girl to marry.’

The women chortled. ‘I must admit we don’t even look that far. What we are primarily concerned with in the first place is his ability to find a suitable job.’

‘What does he study?’

The woman fetched a handkerchief in a pocket of her gown and began to worry at it. ‘Arts’, she whispered.

‘Would you by chance be ashamed of it?’ the doctor asked.

The woman looked up and rolled her eyes. ‘Arts!’ she repeated. ‘Who can seriously think about earning a living painting or carving? Art is what layabouts bring up because they can’t own up to being lazy. Art is a smokescreen for idleness, or at best a leisure for the wealthy!’ She sighed and shrugged.

The doctor coughed. ‘Art is one of man’s most remarkable activity,’ he remarked. ‘The pinnacle of human creativity.’

The woman chortled again. ‘When practised by real artists, I agree with you.’

‘Does that mean you think your son is not?’

‘Look, even if he were, which I think he is not, he is totally unable to prove it. Last year, he applied for a course at the Arts academy, that is father was ready to fund. But of course, he failed the entry exam miserably. Mind you, not because he’s clumsy with a brush, no. Just because he was unable to properly answer the question the jury asked him…’

The doctor put the quill back into the inkwell, scraped his chair back and stood up. ‘It’s probably going to be a tough case, but there’s nothing that can’t be cured, or at least mitigated’, he said.

The woman stood up in turn. ‘You’re positive you can do something? Convince him to abandon his ridiculous puppy love for art and turn towards a true occupation, such as accountancy or law?’

The doctor chortled. ‘I can’t promise you I shall transform him into a charismatic politician, but at least I can help him overcome his hang-ups.’

‘Thank you, Doktor Freud,’ the women said, reaching out and smiling.

The doctor extended a massive hand. ‘You’re welcome, Frau Hitler.’
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#1 · 1
· · >>Monokeras
Ah, historical fiction. Some editing issues, but nothing that hampers readability. For me, it was a little hard at the beginning to understand which character was which, in terms of who's in the office and who's paying a visit. Mostly because of the door being locked, it had me in mind of a patient who's already in an examination room and waiting for the doctor.

It's also one of those stories that exists on the twist alone, as it's not making any other point. Were this a longer story, that could be problematic, but for something this short, nobody can really say they're wasting their time reading, and it was a pretty stark twist.
#2 ·
· · >>Pascoite
Uh, a feghoot.

I agree with >>Pascoite that, like all feghoots, it exists only for the purpose of the twist. I do command the idea that Sigmund Freud and the young Hitler could have met. When the latter was 20, the former was about 55, so it is plausible, given that both were in the same town at the same moment.

I wish such an interview had really come to pass. Maybe the twentieth century would've been spared much of its atrocities…

Anyway, everything being well considered, there is little leeway to expand the story further. It’s not too short nor too long.

Fair entry.

P.S: Also, even if Pascoite apparently missed it, the irony of having Adolph Hitler cured by a Jewish practitioner is not lost on me.
#3 ·
· · >>Monokeras
>>Monokeras
I think you might have crossed my review of this for the one about "Lathyrus Odoratus Gnarly Journey." This one does have a twist at the end, but it's not a joke or pun, so it's not really a feghoot. In that other one, it just had the feel to me of leading up to a pun ending, but if it had one, I didn't get it.
#4 ·
· · >>Pascoite
>>Pascoite
I thought one could use 'feghoot' for any story whose purpose is to more or less cunningly lead the unsuspecting reader into a final twist.
Am I wrong?
#5 ·
· · >>Monokeras >>Monokeras
>>Monokeras
A feghoot necessarily has a humorous ending, often a pun or a play on a familiar phrase. They can sucker you into thinking it's a serious story then spring the joke on you unexpectedly, but they do have to be funny.
#6 ·
·
>>Pascoite
Okay, thank you Pasco.
By the way, don’t feel obliged to answer me deep in the wee hours!
It’s nice to know you’re still around in these times of dearth.
I hope you’re doing well
#7 ·
· · >>Pascoite
>>Pascoite
Pasco, could you please tell me what are the editing issues you saw? Thanks.
#8 ·
· · >>Monokeras
>>Monokeras
"palms pressed against her laps"
"Lap" is used as a singular term, unless you mean multiple people, and you normally only talk about things being in or on a lap, so "into" is probably the better choice of preposition. (I know learning which prepositions go with which situations is one of the trickier parts of using a non-native language.)

Normally, the comma that transitions from dialogue to speech tag goes inside the quotation marks. I know there are some countries that do it differently, so I guess it's up to you whether you want to use what you're used to or what most of your readers will see as correct, but you have some one way and some the other, so at least be consistent.

When you have speech that gets cut off, the dashes have sometimes flipped your closing quotes backward. You can trick smart quotes into getting them right by typing the quote first, then gong back and inserting the dash (though it seems smart quotes for things like GDocs have gotten smarter over the years and don't malfunction after dashes anymore).

You used plural "women" twice where you need singular "woman."

"one of man's most remarkable activity"
"One of" suggests that what follows should be plural, but you have singular "activity."

Typo in "that is father was ready to fund."

A couple places, you repeat a word close together, but that's more a stylistic than editing thing. Similarly, you describe Freud as extending a "massive hand" to her, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would have massive hands. If you happen to know, I'll bow to your knowledge, but he wasn't a large man. None of the pictures I've seen of him make him look heavy, and sources put him at about average height, 5'7" to 5'8".
#9 ·
·
>>Pascoite

Sorry for being so long to answer. Duly noted for 'lap'. The rest is more, like, carelessness because I wrote too quickly, but hopefully nothing I can’t fix.

I don’t have any idea how Freud looked. I just extrapolated here, so yes, please don’t expect too much factual accuracy.

Thanks a lot Pasco. Your input means a lot to me.