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As told by Dr. Hoot, Chief of Medicine
Dr. Hoot, chief of medicine, will see you now. Please do not touch the patients.
Dr. Hoot is a Eurasian eagle owl and the chief of medicine at the busiest animal hospital anywhere. His patients include a lovesick parakeet, a peacock who will not stop showing off, two swans who must never share a room, a cat and a rat who refuse to be separated, and a panda who would like everyone to stay over there.
Round by round, chart by chart, Dr. Hoot makes his diagnoses with great seriousness and very little success.
Twenty-one photographs of birds and animals by Robert Goldston, Sr., including the eagle owl himself.
Every photograph in this book is real, taken by Robert Goldston, Sr. on his travels. The stories are fiction, written as a gift to the photographs; the italic line under each story title tells you what the photograph actually shows.
Prologue
My name is Dr. Hoot. I am a Eurasian eagle owl, one of the largest owls in the world, and I am the chief of medicine at the busiest animal hospital on the planet. I have orange eyes, a medical degree and no patience. Two of those I was born with.
Our hospital has no walls to speak of. Its wards are gardens, aviaries, ponds, beaches and treetops, and they stretch about halfway around the world. Patients fly in, swim in, waddle in and occasionally fall in. Hardly any of them are actually sick. Every one of them is convinced they are dying, in love or famous, and some insist on all three.
I carry a clipboard. On it is a chart for every patient, and at the bottom of every chart is a box marked DISCHARGED. In my whole career I have never filled in that box. Patients come to my hospital. They do not leave.
This is the story of one long season on the wards. It begins on the busiest opening day we have ever had, and it ends, against all medical odds, with a signature in that box.
Three spreads from the book: the photograph on one page, its story on the other.
No. 5No. 5
A Eurasian eagle owl with bright orange eyes and wings half spread, staring at the camera.
Let me deal with the scream first. My receptionist screams at everything. That afternoon she was screaming at a man with a camera, who had wandered in without an appointment and was pointing his lens directly at me.
I spread my wings. This is not a threat. It is simply what a Eurasian eagle owl does when he wishes to look bigger, and we are already among the biggest owls in the world. With my wings out I am roughly the size of a filing cabinet with opinions.
“What, bro?” I said. “You got a problem?” The man did not have a problem. He had a camera. He pressed the button.
So this is me. Look at the eyes. They are orange, the color of a warning light, and they are fixed in their sockets, which is why I turn my whole head instead. The tufts on top are not ears. They are feathers. My real ears are hidden at the sides of my face.
… the story continues in the book.
No. 15No. 15
A black-and-white cat and a pale rat resting together on a blue blanket.
Dr. Hoot has seen many things. Dr. Hoot has never seen this. I am writing that in the third person because I needed to step outside myself for a moment to cope.
In the outpatient lounge, on a blue blanket, sat a black-and-white cat named Mittens. Pressed against her side, eyes half closed, was a pale rat named Pip. They had come in together for a check-up and were sharing one blanket, one cushion and, as far as I could tell, one nap.
I am an owl. I know what owls think about rats. I know what cats think about rats. I looked at Mittens. Mittens looked back at me with calm green eyes, and I understood that if I said a single word about it, I would regret it.
“Is there a problem?” asked Pip. “No problem,” I said. “Clinical curiosity.” “We grew up together,” said Mittens. “He keeps my paws warm.” “She keeps the owls away,” said Pip.
… the story continues in the book.
No. 19No. 19
A giant panda sitting in the fork of a tree, looking down toward the camera.
There was one ward I had never been allowed to enter, and in the last week of the season I received an invitation. Well, half of one.
The panda ward is a grove of trees at the edge of the hospital. Its patient was a giant panda named Bao, admitted for exhaustion. Pandas live mostly on bamboo, which is not very nourishing, so they must eat a great deal of it and rest a great deal in between. Bao took the resting part seriously.
She was sitting in the fork of a tree, her back against the trunk and one hind foot up on the branch, like someone who had found the perfect armchair and would defend it with her life. The man with the camera had found her first. He stood at the bottom of the tree, raising his lens.
Bao looked down at him. She did not growl. She did not move. She held his gaze with her black eye patches and her round, perfectly calm face. “You,” she said. “Stay there.”
… the story continues in the book.
48 pages, 21 photographs, one storyteller. Digital PDF for $2.95.
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As told by the Needle
A brass needle that never points north, and the great machines it leads to.
