The Morning After the Night Before: A Medical Hangover

 The Morning After the Night Before: A Medical Hangover

The fluorescent lights of St. Vincent's General had never been so cruel. They hummed with the sadistic glee of a toddler with a magnifying glass, and Dr. Alistair Finch was the ant.

He stood at the scrub sink, his surgical mask doing nothing to hide the grey pallor of his face or the tremble in his hands. Beside him, Dr. Benny O'Connell was attempting to tie his surgical gown with the coordination of a newborn giraffe.

"I can still taste the shiraz," Benny whispered, his voice a hoarse croak. "And the regret."

"You deserve it," Alistair muttered, scrubbing his hands with more aggression than necessary. "You and your plumber theory. I dreamt about U-bends. I dreamt about a lorikeet fixing a leaky pipe while Lady Gaga did the splits on a cockatoo. It was deeply unsettling."

Before Benny could respond, the theatre doors swung open and Nurse Gladys entered, pushing a trolley of instruments with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had never made a poor life choice. She surveyed the two surgeons with the cold, clinical detachment of a pathologist examining a particularly disappointing specimen.

"You both look like something a plumber would find in a blocked drain," she observed. "And yes, I heard about your little debate. The whole night shift heard about your little debate. You were quite loud. Something about Catherine Zeta-Jones having a metabolism powered by Welsh spite?"

Alistair winced. "It seemed scientifically sound at the time."

Gladys snorted. "Scientifically sound. Right. Well, while you two were philosophising about celebrities and cockatoos, I was doing actual research."

Benny's bloodshot eyes widened. "Research?"

"I called my sister," Gladys said, adjusting her cap with martial precision. "She's a plumber. Been one for thirty years. And let me tell you something about your precious plumber weight loss theory, Dr. O'Connell."

Benny swallowed nervously. "Yes?"

"My sister, Brenda, has been bending over sinks since 1994. She's had two knee replacements, a spinal fusion, and she can predict rain three days out from the ache in her lumbar region. And you know what she weighs?"

The two doctors shook their heads, mesmerised by the impending verdict.

"Exactly what she weighed in 1994," Gladys declared. "Because after a day of contorting herself under kitchen cabinets, she goes home and eats an entire family-sized lasagne. The bending doesn't make you lose weight. It makes you hungry. It makes you angry. It makes you want to punch a wall and then eat a meat pie. Your plumber theory is rubbish."

Benny looked devastated. Alistair, despite his throbbing headache, allowed himself a small, vindictive smile.

"However," Gladys continued, holding up a finger, "your celebrity theory isn't much better, Dr. Finch."

Alistair's smile faltered. "It isn't?"

"Lady Gaga, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rihanna — sure, they lose weight. But they have chefs, trainers, and a team of people whose entire job is to make sure they don't eat a single carb. That's not weight loss; that's hostage negotiation. And the moment they stop? The moment they eat one normal meal? Boom. The weight comes back like a lorikeet to a bird feeder. It's not sustainable. It's a theatrical performance of thinness."

Alistair deflated. "So neither theory holds?"

Gladys began laying out the surgical instruments with a calm that was frankly terrifying. "Oh, I didn't say that. I said your theories were rubbish. But there is a winner in this absurd debate of yours."

Benny and Alistair exchanged a confused glance.

"The birds," Gladys said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The Australian birds. Lorikeets, cockatoos, rosellas, king parrots. They lose weight faster than anyone."

Benny frowned. "But you just said—"

"I said your plumbers don't lose weight. I said celebrities do it but unsustainably. But birds? Birds are the true champions. Think about it. A cockatoo can go from a fluffy, chunky ball of attitude to a sleek, aerodynamic terror in the space of a single moult. They burn energy just by being. They fly. They scream. They destroy furniture. They have the metabolism of a jet engine and the emotional stability of a toddler on methamphetamine. A lorikeet can lose ten percent of its body weight just by getting angry at a mirror."

Alistair blinked. "That's... actually quite compelling."

"Of course it is," Gladys said. "Because it's true. And here's the thing you two idiots missed: birds don't try to lose weight. They don't diet. They don't hire trainers. They don't bend over pipes for thirty years. They just exist in a state of perpetual, chaotic motion. They're the only creatures on earth that can eat their body weight in nectar and still look like they've been doing CrossFit."

Benny looked at Alistair. Alistair looked at Benny. Somewhere in the distance, a patient monitor beeped in a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like a cockatoo's screech.

"So," Benny said slowly, "the birds win?"

"The birds win," Gladys confirmed. "And if either of you mentions plumbers or celebrities in my theatre again, I will personally ensure you both get assigned to the proctology ward for a month. Now scrub in. We have an appendix to remove, and I don't want either of you hallucinating about Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits in a birdcage."

As they pushed through the theatre doors, Benny leaned close to Alistair and whispered, "She's got a point about the cockatoos, you know. I saw one once that had lost so much weight it looked like a feathered skeleton. It was terrifying."

Alistair nodded grimly. "I'll never look at a bird feeder the same way again."

And somewhere in the hospital garden, a lorikeet perched on a branch, screeched at the sunrise, and burned four hundred calories in a single, furious tantrum.