cardiologist
When I arrived at the cardiologist place I checked in at the front desk. I was instructed to sit in the waiting area. After a short time, a woman with a long ponytail, wearing a surgical mask, burgundy scrubs, and white comfortable shoes appeared from a doorway. She glanced at a clipboard, and read my name out loud.
I acknowledged with a half wave, got up and followed her through a doorway, then down a corridor. She stood outside of a brightly lit small room, and motioned for me to enter first. She followed me in and closed the door.
Wall shelves with supplies. A poster about the importance of heart health. Standard examination table with a step beside it on the floor. Two office chairs. An EKG monitor on a small wheeled stand. A computer in the corner.
She instructed me to hang up my coat, and that I could leave my backpack in one of the chairs, and to take off my shirt. I did those things behind her while she was at the computer typing and clicking things on the screen.
I stood there behind her while she did the things at the computer. It wasn't a very long time. Like 20 or 30 seconds. It was (apparently) long enough for me to have the thought, did she really tell me to take off my shirt? I had an urge to ask her, “did you really want me to take off my shirt?” It seemed like too weird of a question, so I didn’t ask it.
The entire scene repeated in my mind. From the moment of me walking in the room until me just standing there behind her. Shirtless. In the new imagined version she only told me to hang up my jacket and put my backpack in the chair. Maybe I misunderstood what she said next, and it only sounded like, “take off your shirt”. Or she didn't even say anything remotely like that at all. I imagined that I had just walked in, took off my jacket, put my backpack in the chair, and then I took off my shirt for no reason. I was suddenly afraid of what would happen when she turned around.
Like, dude, wtf, why is your shirt off? Face palm. Or she would run from the room vomit exploding spontaneously into her mask and all over her arm when she tried to get the mask off in time. Or start laughing until she cried. Maybe a couple security guys would mysteriously show up and wrestle me to the floor while she stood there slowly shaking her head with her arms crossed.
She turned around. Nothing weird happened.
After a series of questions and an EKG test, I met with the cardiologist. He said everything is fine.