Malinger: A Short Story
Stella hated tears. Especially in the consulting room. At the tail end of a long winter, being exposed to sniffs and snivels and associated forms of mucoid expectoration was unavoidable; she kept her distance and carried on. Lacrimal fluid was another matter; the male variety in particular. Female tears could usually be stanched by a plentiful supply of tissues and maintaining deep eye contact for longer than she really had time for. Male tears were rarer, trickier, and she wasn’t sure what was worse: the soundless ooze of an old boy’s epiphora, or the strangulated sobs of a fortysomething, able-bodied male, like the one who stared past her with such intensity that she turned to see what had transfixed him. There was nothing to see but the overlapping slats of a beige venetian blind.
