BEST FOOT BACKWARD - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Best Foot Backward.

“What you have to realise, my girl, is that your foot is really there. – The fact that I can’t see it and that you feel the need to wear a platform attached to your ankle is quite immaterial. Your real problem is psychological. Once conquer your obvious but groundless resentment of the surgeon who operated on it and the foot will return, good as new. You need to be open-minded about these matters, you know. We’re learning more and more about the invisibility of physical parts following lack of trust on the patient’s part. It used to be thought, for instance, that if a foot were there it would obviously be visible, but now we realise that this is far too simplistic a view. The mind works in strange ways. We are learning more and more all the time. – Why, only the other day I was reading about this. I could lend you the book. - It would help you a lot.”

“Look, Professor, this is silly. – My foot has been missing for over two years now. I used to fall down constantly without it until someone with a mind uncluttered with psychological hogwash made me the platform. That has enabled me to avoid many of the falls so that I feel somewhat better and can get about a bit and discuss the matter and pursue it.”

“Ah, yes – discussion – that’s right. You need to talk over your imaginary grievance with a psychiatrist – a sympathetic one, of course.”

“No. I have ventilated the issue enough with my friends. I do need to talk with you about the best type of artificial foot to use, since making artificial feet is your speciality.”

“Well I’ve given you ten minutes already. I really do feel that it’s twenty or thirty sessions of an hour or so with a psychiatrist that you need. It’s a lady psychiatrist I have in mind. Alternatively you might prefer to have your leg amputated. That would stop this obsession about a missing foot.”

“Look: I have a list here of other people who have missing feet, hands, etc. after being operated on by that surgeon. None of us is resentful. Many are outraged – including me. But the addition of the pseudo-psychological claptrap to the severe physical problems makes some people too ill to summon the energy to do anything but suffer. And one artificial limb maker rang me anonymously to say that many of the victims have died following particularly bad falls caused by missing feet.

“We only want you to ensure that all of us get the most suitable prosthesis possible and that the matter of the accidentally severed limbs be properly investigated so that others are saved from this distress in the future. We thought that in so physical a matter there could be no mistake but we were wrong. There seems no limit to the credulity of artificial limb makers – or rather, to the lengths to which they will go in covering up negligence.”

“I really cannot listen to talk like this. It is very upsetting for me. I must recommend immediate referral to a psychiatric ward. Totally away from the misguided friends who encourage your delusions, and out of touch of the similarly deluded wretches you mention, you may very easily recover your senses after a few years – by which time it will be too late for you to sue and that surgeon will have retired anyway!”

Margaret Wilde © 2007