Doctor Desmond

I've spent all my life in this place. It was a village on the sidelines, typically a farmer one, but not based on one or two multigenerational families. We even had a shop and a blacksmith, a children's nursery, a small bar, as well as a person dealing with our diseases, as long as they did not require a hospital – Miss Gobbins. I deliberately don't call her a doctor, but I don't know (although most of her treatments were based on herbs) – she was a registered nurse who spent a lot of her professional life in a large hospital in Pigeon Forge. She came from here and came back here to take care of her infirm mother and our sorrows.

Old Henry had a house off the beaten track from the road leading to our village, slightly uphill, hidden behind a row of trees of a feral orchard. He was not liked in the village, and his own children scattered around the world, whether because of his lousy character or looking for a career other than a farmer growing corn every year. Suffice it to say that when he left, apart from the pastor from the neighboring larger village (where the cemetery was), maybe a few people bid him farewell.

You can see the expedition of this nine-mile horse-drawn cart was more tedious than the satisfaction that the brief moment of covering a coffin of that dude with the mud could be seen with your own eyes.

I can't remember when exactly, but certainly a few years later when my children were no longer constantly messy kids at the shelf for milk canisters on the way to Henry's old house appeared his rusty bicycle, as well as the inscription - arrow on a wooden plate nailed to a tree - " Desmond Tisawarga - Doctor". The name was unrelated to the previous tenant and sounded very exotic. It aroused our curiosity, which we satisfied with an observation from Miss Gobbins property, as her fence bordered with Henry's house, and high, not cut grass and wooden, quite dense rungs of the fence guaranteed privacy.
He was an older, short and stout man with a mustache, dressed mostly in white. Actually, after a few days of observation, we had the impression that he wasn't changing at all. He walked in a medical smock, or in something very similar to a white robe. However, we were a tad too far away to judge it exactly.

Miss Gobbins spoke to Dr. Desmond first. She gave us information on Sunday Mass to bring us a new host on Henry's estate. It turned out to be a modest doctor from a big city, wanting to take a break from his hustle and bustle. The doctor bought the property back. He did not support his practice with a pile of diplomas and thanks but intended to prove his skills with practice. Gobbins received not as much information about his previous work, but clearly, the plaque was hung because the physician wanted to help the locals as of his free time. He quickly reached an agreement with our nurse and the next week she invited the patients not to herself, but to the sympathetic, as she said, Dr. Desmond. Over time, the distrust was overcome, and even the most hardened supporters of framed city councils' diplomas started to trust our doctor, seeing how effective his treatments were.

It would seem that the village was not so populated, but in a short time, the doctor began to have a lot of patients. The more they knew about the fact that his treatments were effective, the easier they remembered about ailments and honestly talked about their healing. Enough was enough to listen to make sure Desmond didn't find his diploma in the barn. He treated effectively only if he was at home. In fact, his occasional, random absences were more of a headache than our diseases - because these were managed perfectly. In a few years of practice, maybe a dozen patients were sent to hospital in Pigeon Forge, and he treated and cured everything else until full recovery. Nobody died.

We guessed that he had to ride a bike, the old lady bike on which Henry rode. Rusty, stood under a large tree, at the turn of the property. When the bike was gone – it was vain to seek help. This meant that the doctor drove him to a neighboring town, or even further. The latter assumption was since he did not conduct any practice there, nor was he seen there, or even occasionally noticed, despite his characteristic appearance. He was never at Saturday's market, where the commodity exchange flourished and where to get to know and buy fashion novelties from the big world.