Fiction - Hektoen International

In Aristotle’s footsteps

January 31, 2022

Henri Colt Laguna Beach, California, United States Photo by Gianluca Cinnante on Unsplash. Squatting on a cement slab, the old doctor watched sea urchins bristle their spines in clear Aegean waters. His short brown tunic covered shoulders broad as an oxen’s chest. He flexed his tanned, muscular forearms and clenched his fists, then rolled […]

The doctor behind the labcoat

November 4, 2021

Varun Raj Passi Bangalore, India “Sanjeev’s Phantasms” by Chetna VM. Sanjeev knew he was not asleep, and the very fact that he was conscious enough to know this made him worry. The relentless clicking of the wall-clock above his bedstead amplified his anxiety. He knew that the more clicks he registered now, the less […]

Aunty Felicia

August 18, 2021

Boma Somiari Port Harcourt, Nigeria Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels I can’t stand blood. So my goal was to stay as far as I could from hospitals and all they come with. But then change came to me when Aunty Felicia came to my village with a missionary organization that chose medicine and […]

Business as usual

July 9, 2021

David Blitzer New York, New York, United States Inauguración del Hospital Municipal de Chiconcuac. 2016. Photo by Presidencia de la República Mexicana. Via Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Clarissa Myers arrived at the hospital at the usual time on Monday morning. She walked past her assistant, strode into her office, and sat at her desk, […]

A return to The Plague

June 7, 2021

Bonnie Salomon Chicago, Illinois, United States Cover of 1991 edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. For the past fifteen months, I have been reading and returning to Albert Camus’ 1947 novel, The Plague. Chronicling a fictional plague epidemic in Oran, Algeria, the narrator Dr. Rieux tells the saga of a city’s horrific struggle. […]

Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses

January 13, 2021

Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Harriet Tubman 1822 – 1913 Slave, abolitionist, activist. Suggested to have had visions and dreams as manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Via the Library of Congress. Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, […]

The deer trail

December 30, 2020

Henri Colt Laguna Beach, California, United States Photo by Kevin Mueller on Unsplash “Ezra, get up! It’s a beautiful morning, and you’re sixteen today!” I playfully shook my son’s shoulder. “It’s six o’clock, Dad, what are you doing?” He buried his head under his pillow and slid under the covers. “We’re going hiking, remember?” […]

The tortoise and the hare: a pandemic perspective

August 24, 2020

Pranita Rao Pune, India The Tortoise and the Hare. Illustration From The Æsop for Children, by Æsop, illustrated by Milo Winter. Project Gutenberg. “Are you ready to lose again?” smirked the hare, looking down at the tortoise who was warming up for their weekly running challenge. The tortoise spent his days training body and mind to win races against the […]

An unseen border

February 24, 2020

T.Y. Euliano Gainesville, Florida, United States Eyes of the Master. Photo by Steve Robicsek, MD/PhD. 11/6/2004. Permission granted by the artist. “Please let me have the chest pain in 3,” I said. “I can’t take any more whiny kids today.” Clare raised an eyebrow. “You can have the next trauma.” “Two traumas,” she said. […]

Blood and bandages

February 4, 2020

Patricia A. Unsworth Bolton, England, United Kingdom Photograph by the author. The notorious Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, is possibly the first thought that comes to mind at the mention of barber surgeons, but how far from reality was this character of Victorian fiction? Perhaps not so far removed as one […]