Nothing’s Going to Happen

By Raye Hendrix

The procedure, Dr. K promised, would work. Nell asked if it would make her happy. Dr. K said it would make it so she couldn’t be sad, which was kind of the same thing.

“That’s not the same thing at all,” Nell said.

“Close enough,” said Dr. K.

Nell wasn’t sure if Dr. K was the right person to ask about happiness. His office was a small white box in a big white building. Everything in his office was a shade of beige. His desk: dark beige. The chairs: slightly less dark beige. The carpet, picture frames, bookshelves with books turned spine-inward to show the beige pages: various beiges. Even the little light that filtered in through the office window—which opened to a view of another building’s white wall—was somehow beige; even the plant beside the window had withered to a beige only slightly lighter than the beige pot it sat in.

Still, Nell supposed Dr. K must be right. He was, after all, older than God and at least twice as educated, if the diplomas on his wall were any indication. As far as Nell knew, God never went to college. She’d gone to college, but only once. She studied the psychology of death. She wasn’t sure how much more educated than God that made her, but as far as Nell knew, God didn’t die, so she figured that had to count for something.

“What’s your favorite color?” Nell asked Dr. K.

“I’ve never thought about it,” he said.

“Oh,” Nell said. She wondered how someone got to be however old Dr. K was without ever thinking about that. She studied his face. Nell thought he looked like a corpse, like at any moment his white hair would simply evaporate and his jaw would fall open in a big dusty O and never close again unless someone closed it for him. As she stared, Dr. K’s face began to morph into the face of that guy in The Scream by Edvard Munch. Nell imagined Dr. K as The Scream guy lying in a beige casket with beige upholstery, surrounded by his sad beige family, whose faces all also looked like the face of that guy in The Scream.

“Do you have a family?”

“What?” Nell asked. She thought Dr. K was reading her mind.

“Do you have children?”

“I don’t want children.”

“What about your husband?” asked Dr. K.

“I don’t have a husband.”

“I see,” he said. He wrote something on a beige notepad. “Do you want a husband?”

“I think I might like to get married,” Nell said. “If I met the right person.”

“If you met the right man?” Dr. K prodded.

“The right person,” Nell said again.

Dr. K wrote something else on his notepad. “The procedure should fix that,” he said. “And prepare you to be a good mother someday.”

Nell didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.

“Well then,” Dr. K said, rising from his beige chair. “Come with me.”

Nell wasn’t sure she wanted the procedure anymore if it was going to do what Dr. K said it would, but she figured she’d come all this way, and it would be impolite to waste Dr. K’s time, so she might as well see what the procedure room was like. Dr. K led Nell down a long white hallway with no windows. They were walking straight but it felt like going down. It felt wrong, like being in a swimming pool with no water. Nell felt the urge to hold her breath.

“I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” Nell said. Her voice sounded funny because she was trying to hold her breath.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Dr. K said.

“I don’t want it to change me like that,” Nell said.

“Nonsense,” Dr. K said. He stopped at a heavy white door. The hallway looked like it kept going forever in both directions. “Here we are.”

Dr. K pushed open the door. The room was small, but not as small as Dr. K’s office, and brightly lit. There was a long beige chair in the middle of the room beside a shiny metal cart holding shiny metal things in neat little rows.

“I don’t think I want to do this,” Nell repeated.

“Nonsense,” Dr. K repeated too.

He touched Nell’s back to usher her inside. The door clanged closed behind them. Dr. K’s touch made Nell’s skin turn to gooseflesh, but she didn’t mention it—that would be impolite. For a whole minute after the door closed its weight echoed against the harsh, sterile room. It made the hairs on the back of Nell’s neck stand up. The sound made her want to run. She remembered something she learned while studying the psychology of death: there are sounds in this world that trigger primordial fear responses deep in the brain for self-preservation—to scare us away from approaching death. Nell thought of tornado alarms and air raid sirens. The door didn’t sound like that, but she thought scientists should add it to the list.

“You don’t want to be sad forever, do you?” Dr. K asked.

“No,” Nell said, “but I don’t want everything to change.”

“You feel that way now, but you’ll change your mind,” he said.

Nell shook her head. “I don’t think I will.”

“You will,” he said. Dr. K held out his hand. “You can trust me.”

Nell thought of the long white hallway. The idea of running down it terrified her; she wasn’t sure how long it took them to get here, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever make it to the end, no matter which way she went. Nell looked around and realized there were no other doors but the one they’d come in, and even that one had disappeared into the wall.

“Is this the only way out?” she asked.

“This is the only way you won’t be sad,” Dr. K said.

“So I’ll be happy?”

Dr. K shrugged. “Most women say they don’t feel anything at all.”

Nell looked around for the door again, but there was only the room, the chair, the metal tools. She thought about taking the sharpest one and slitting Dr. K’s throat, but didn’t, since that would be impolite. Nell let Dr. K lead her to the chair.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s perfectly safe.” Nell lay back. Dr. K said, “You’ll be so much better off.”

“I’m not sure I want this,” Nell said, but Dr. K fastened beige belts around her ankles and wrists.

“Most women say that,” he said.

“Then I’m not sure I’m a woman,” Nell said.

“Nonsense,” said Dr. K. He looped another belt around Nell’s forehead and she remembered Jesus and his crown of thorns; something Nietzsche once said. Of course God could die, she thought. He already has.

“I’d like you to stop,” Nell said.

“Most women say that,” he said.

Dr. K pushed something hard into Nell’s mouth. She tried to speak, but her jaw was wedged open into an O. She imagined she probably looked a lot like The Scream guy too, and she began to cry.

“Don’t worry,” Dr. K said. He brandished a sharp, metal tool. “Most women say the pain is minor, and worth the results.”

Nell gurgled around the thing in her mouth.

“There’s nothing to fear,” Dr. K said. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

Dr. K positioned the tool near Nell’s eye. It gleamed like a horrible tooth. One last time, Nell tried to speak, not with words but with movement. She thrashed in the chair as hard as she could. She closed her eyes so tightly she saw colors bloom in the dark. She made a noise like an air raid siren with her lungs. But all Dr. K heard Nell say was “ ,” so he began the procedure. Nell felt a lot of pain, but all she could see or hear or think was “ .”

***

Nell woke in a room full of shapeless beige men. All their faces looked like the face from The Scream.

“Do you want to pick a husband?” one of them asked.

“Almost all of us are good,” said another.

“You’ll make a wonderful mother,” said a third.

“ ,” Nell said. She looked down to find she was wearing a long white dress. She didn’t know what she’d been wearing before; she wasn’t really sure when before was, anyway.

One of the men touched Nell. “I’ll be your husband,” he said. “I’m one of the good ones.”

“ ,” Nell said. She began to cry.

“Don’t cry,” the man said. “You’re going to make beautiful babies.”

“ ?” Nell asked. She cried harder. She wasn’t sure why.

“It’s alright,” the man said. “This is what you were born to do.” His voice was gentle. He sounded kind. He said he was one of the good ones. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he said.

“ ,” Nell said.

She wanted to believe him

—

About Author

Raye Hendrix is a writer from Alabama. Her debut poetry collection, What Good Is Heaven, is forthcoming from Texas Review Press in their Southern Poetry Breakthrough Series (2024). Also the author of two poetry chapbooks, Raye is the winner of the Keene Prize for Literature (2019) and the Patricia Aakhus Award (Southern Indiana Review, 2018). Their poems appear in American Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, Birmingham Poetry Review, 32 Poems, Poet Lore, and others. Raye is a PhD candidate at the University of Oregon and an editor at Press Pause Press and DIS/CONNECT: A Disability Literature Column (Anomalous Press). For more, visit rayehendrix.com.\

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