Butt and Bhatti

Teddy has brought a Mauser to his declaration of love. He has brought a story about the moon as well but he is not sure where to start. The story is romantic in an old-fashioned kind of way; the Mauser has three bullets in it. He is hoping that the Mauser and the story about the moon will somehow come together to produce the kind of love song that makes old acquaintances run away together.

Before resorting to gunpoint poetry, Teddy Butt tries the traditional route to romancing a medical professional; he pretends to be sick and then, like a truly hopeless lover, starts believing that he is sick, recognizes all the little symptoms – sudden fevers, heart palpitations, lingering migraine, even mild depression. He cries while watching a documentary about a snow leopard stranded on a melting glacier.

He lurks around the Outpatients Department on a Sunday afternoon, when Sister Alice Bhatti is alone. She pretends to be busy counting syringes, boiling needles, polishing grimy surfaces, and only turns round when he coughs politely, like you are supposed to do when entering a respectable household so that women have the time to cover themselves. Sister Alice Bhatti doesn’t understand this polite-cough protocol and stares at him as if telling him, See? This is what smoking does to your lungs.