Dr. Snake

One day in my Creative Writing class under Paran, we were discussing a poem of sorts, I forgot the title. Okay, I’m so entitled to not remember that because it’s been a long time (read: over a year) since this one day I’m talking about. I think it’s about a girl who’s not cool about her relationship with her father, who was a doctor. This girl was complaining about how her father was never home, never showed her as much affection as her mother did, that sort of girly stuff. We were having a good time sharing our opinions, laughing at the girl’s melodramatic ranting, and eating chips on the last row of seats, until we came to one paragraph that made our instructor raise a very good question.

“Snake tied around his neck, hmmm. Why do you think the author used snake here? What do you think is the meaning of all this?”

“Sir, maybe their talking about the stethoscope, you know. It sure looks like a snake.” One of the guys in class answered.

“Yeah, good point.” It was most of the class.

“Okay, but why not something else? Why snake?”

“Because you can’t use bird on his neck.”

The class burst into laughter. I didn’t.

“I guess the snake here we’re talking about kind of represents something. Although I must admit that stethoscope idea of his is a good point. Are you familiar with the emblem of medical people? You know, that winged staff thing with a snake coiled around it? Yeah, that somehow tells us he is indeed a doctor. See, it was never written that he was a doctor. The author just showed us stuff to point that out.”

The class clapped. I didn’t.

“Oh, and one more thing. Since it was pointed out, so pointed out that her father was a doctor, that snake also tells us the nature of his job. Sir, lemme ask you, what would you do if there was a snake around your neck?”

The instructor thought for a moment.

“Uh, forget it. It’s a rhetorical question. If there was a snake around your neck, you couldn’t do anything. Well, not anything physical. All you could do is accept the fact that then you’re dead meat. You’re not given any choice. Why? Because you wouldn’t have a snake around your neck if it hadn’t coiled around your entire body yet. What, you expect the snake to jump? So that’s exactly what being a doctor is like. When duty calls, you’re given no choice but to attend to it.”

The class clapped. The instructor smiled. I felt good.