Doctor Arnold Meade couldn’t deal with all the injured and dead kids being ripped apart in Gaza. They were all over his time line every minute of every day.  Lately he had taken to soothing his anguish with booze. He had struggled with alcohol before somewhat, but things had escalated. He couldn’t believe alcohol had got such a grip of him. He didn’t even like that taste of it.

It started at the end of the year.

At first he said: ‘It’s Christmas.’ The day after Christmas was also a good occasion. New Year’s Eve was another. So was New Year’s day. The first week of the New Year he registered as one week of welcoming 2024.

Then Friday nights became a very good reason to kick back with a few beers. Saturdays were nicer with rum and coke. Coke zero to responsibly limit the amount of calories he was consuming. Doctor Meade is a good physician, he knows what articifial sweeteners do to your gut microbiome and to your insuline response. Still, it was his way of being buzzed non-stop and doing some damage control.

Sundays were not a bad occasion either. Monday mornings were fine, because they drove off the hangover of Sunday. And he wasn’t an alcoholic, because most Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays he stayed sober. Relatively sober.

One night he got extremely drunk and booked a holiday for one of his students at the hospital. At the hospital he not only worked as a pediatrician, but also trained students. One of his favorites was a young lady, 20 years his junior, called Viktoria. They had some sort of platonic connection and loved spending time together. Every day they had lunch together. Occassionally they went to the cinema or the theatre. There was never any physical contact and mainly because of the age difference Doctor Meade never made a move. She never showed any signs of having feelings for him. Viktoria had a boyfriend. Things seemed to be going fine between them.

Doctor Meade, who felt extremely lonely, rarely did anything fun and spent all his holidays training medical staff in places like Senegal or Mozambique, recharged his batteries in her company. He had the impression their talks had the same beneficial effect on her.

She often mentioned how much she would love to see Machu Picchu in Peru. In his wasted state he bought flight tickets for both of them. He booked a great hotel and booked a tour of Machu Picchu for them. It set him back thousands of dollars. He let Veronika know and she was overjoyed and instantly agreed to go. He did not ask her how she was going to explain this to her boyfriend. Based on her enthusiastic reaction there was no problem there.

As the moment of their departure drew near Doctor Meade started regretting what he had done. He shouldn’t be travelling with a much younger student who had a boyfriend. He also felt very guilty about having to tell a hospital in Malawi that he wouldn’t be coming this summer. He thought about all the kids his work there could help eventually. Deep down he also had to admit that there was a romantic aspect to his idea of going on holiday with Viktoria. Yes, partly he felt like he was doing this to make a person he greatly admired happy, but a small part of him he was grooming her to become his girlfriend and the whole thing felt fishy.

Doctor Meade wasn’t rich, so the thousands of dollars he had spent on booking the holiday were quite a sting. He tried to get a refund, but the formula he had picked, didn’t allow for that.

Doctor Meade felt he couldn’t go through with this trip. He told Viktoria that he was urgently needed in Malawi and that he deeply regretted having to cancel. She was very understanding, she was very dissapointed, but she understood his work was more important.

The lost money was on his mind for days, until he came up with a little mental trick.

He quit drinking and saw the thousands of dollars he had lost as paying for rehab.

Every time he felt like a drink he told himself: no, you paid all that money to never drink again. He’s so embarassed by his own behavior he will never drink again.

Instead of going to Malawi he tried to get into Gaza, but that didn’t work out. He was denied entrance.

So that summer Doctor Meade dedicated himself more than ever to training future doctors in Malawi.

He calculated that the money he paid to stay sober was actually a bargain.

Even two years of sobriety would even out the money he had lost on the morally questionable holiday project.

He’s also committed himself to being a good friend and ethically impeccable mentor to Viktoria. He feels like she can greatly benefit from his attention as long as he never tries to get into her pants.

Doctor Meade is not a happy man, but he has regained his self-respect.