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Once I bought the dog, there was no turning back. Even a get-well beanie-baby bloodhound from the hospital gift shop becomes an imperative for me: he must now be delivered to the woman who shared Mom’s hospital room, even though Mom’s back home healthy and I’m just here for paperwork. The dog cajoles me that his faultless sniffer can track a few tumor cells per billion, so I follow him to six and a right off the elevator, and sure enough, outside Gloria’s door, her husband is collapsed in a chair weeping, and my shabby gesture feels like flowers to her funeral. Dearly beloved, I’ll say, Gloria—if I have her name right—the oldest of seven siblings, never felt the need to bear children because, she told my Mom, she had raised her brothers and sisters. Wasn’t she special. Over several dreary afternoons, while Mom (Bed One) chatted with callers about their bouquets, Gloria (Bed Two) raged to me against her brain, brain surgeons, hospital indignities, and about her “kids,” who were too put out to visit her this lifetime, and about her job at the diner and the waitresses who wished her well and who had sent the punny card with the little dog who said: Heal! Back to today. The trail has led the dog and me to Gloria’s door. Her husband, weepy but chipper, tells me: Go on in. Take ten minutes for me. She’s alert and expectant. And when I see she sees it’s only me, I wish I were all six of them bursting in with trivial gossip and thoughtless positivity, but I and the little dog who knows better than anyone else what’s going on inside her head will have to do. She hugs us like a mother to my own sweet mother’s son.
Original Copyright © February 25, 2007
Revised Copyright © March 03, 2026
He wasn’t doing enough, for the world, and he knew it. It was killing him. Getting through another day was hard, for this man, knowing how little he was doing, for the world. It’s not like he wasn’t doing plenty. He was doing plenty, but however masterfully he did the indispensable work for which he was appreciated and renowned, and believe me there was plenty of that, there were others, he knew, who did it better, for less (in most cases much less) with fewer expectations, in places he wouldn’t practice, for patients who needed it more and who might even say thank you instead of suing you afterwards for crooked stitches. He hated those pussies, but he felt he needed to be more like them. He’d been enjoying having wealth while publicly despising it and acting suicidal about being so pampered by life (and again ridiculously overpaid) amidst such suffering, in the world. It was an appealing character, but it couldn’t, I’m looking for an analogy: the character couldn’t take root in his behavior, I guess. Anyway, it was hard to pull off “Woe is me I got another pay increase through arbitration; they basically forced it on me,” for a man who declined to donate to charities until he could scrupulously study their financials. After his reboot, he deflected all talk of money, saying he had accumulated wealth inadvertently by making more than he spent and not losing any. All the world required was that he be timely, do no harm, remove the proper organs and leave neat stitches, but he did more, for the world, but never enough. I should have told you. He deprived himself and resented it. It turned him into a bore. “Good deeds not done rob the world,” he said, and died.
Copyright © January 15, 2026
Very Short Novels 
This Novel is a close relative of The Question from more than 25 years ago. I've edited it substantially and…