Submitted for the July 2025 prompt: Aliens Among Us

Doc Jones woke that morning feeling optimistic. He’d set up his practice just in time to take advantage of the new government-mandated checkups, and he was sure his advertising had succeeded. Logging in to check his clinic’s opening-day appointments confirmed it: his docket was full. This would be a great start to his practice and his research.

 

A few minutes before 9 A.M., he unlocked the door to his clinic. He beamed at the brand-new waiting room, looking just as he had visualized it and just as it had appeared in the online ads. Walls and ceiling were the bright red of oxygenated blood, to remind patients they were there to support their health. Thick shag carpeting in fluorescent green, to impart a comfortable suggestion of nature. Chairs set up facing each other two by two, with no magazines anywhere, to encourage socialization and chit-chat.

He’d pulled out all the stops to attract patients. He knew he’d done well when the office setup crew had shown up. They’d been so impressed that they’d been at a loss for words.

 

He marched into the exam room to prep for the morning’s work while his patients streamed in behind him to fill the waiting room.

 

What Doc Jones hadn’t anticipated was that all his patients would invoke the new consent laws accompanying the mandated checkups.

 

The downhill slide started with his first patient of the morning.

 

“No, you can’t check my tonsils, that’s too personal.”

 

It didn’t get better from there.

 

“No X-ray, I have a phobia.”

 

“No stethoscope, I’m ticklish.”

 

“No blood sample, I faint at the sight of needles.”

 

All his patients were lying to him. But he knew why. He could smell why.

 

He kept himself under control and finished the first batch of checkups. It was when he sat down to complete the forms his patients needed that his frustration boiled over. He stood up and opened the door to the waiting room. He inhaled deeply, nodded to himself, then yelled at his startled patients.

 

“Just as I thought… none of you are human! You’re all aliens! I came to Earth to get away from my routine and study an uncontacted species. How can I do that if the planet is overrun with other hidden…” He stopped speaking, realizing his error.

 

His first patient of the morning spoke. “So… you’re an alien too?”

 

He sighed and nodded.

 

The patient reached up and peeled off her face. The reptilian head underneath was covered with red blotches. “I’m allergic to my mask. Can you prescribe a cream?”

 

That opened the floodgates.

 

“My swim bladder isn’t inflating like it used to. Is there a pill for that?”

 

“My syrinx is killing me, Doc. You gotta help me!”

 

“Does this look properly encysted?”

 

Doc Jones would have wept, but his species lacked tear ducts.