The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories by Rod Serling

full of bottles. There were pills, lotions, antibiotics, nasal sprays, throat sprays, ear drops, nose drops, three boxes of Kleenex and a book titled, How To Be Happy Though Bedridden . He stared dourly up at the ceiling then cocked an irritated eye toward the bedroom door, beyond which he could hear his wife’s footsteps walking from kitchen to living room.
    Ethel his wife was healthy. Oh God, she was healthy! Like a horse was Ethel. Never even had a cold. But he, Walter Bedeker, went from crisis to crisis, ailment to ailment, agonizing pain to agonizing pain.
    Walter Bedeker was forty-four years old. He was afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, drafts and everything else. He had one interest in life, and that was Walter Bedeker; one preoccupation, the life and well-being of Walter Bedeker; one abiding concern about society; if Walter Bedeker should die, how would it survive without him. In short, he was a gnome-faced little man who clutched at disease the way most people hunger for security.
    Ethel entered his room for the fifth time that hour to even out his blankets, fluff up his pillow. He looked at her jaundice-eyed and didn’t say anything except to groan slightly when she helped him put his head back down on the pillow.
    “Head still ache, darling?” Ethel asked him.
    “Ache, Ethel, is not the word for it,” he told her through a taut mouth. “Ache is a mild inconvenience. What I have is an agony. What I have is a living torture!”
Ethel made a brave attempt at a sympathetic smile. Walter never talked of his ailments in anything less than superlatives and this was his fifth stay-in-bed that month. The door chimes rang and she was unable to keep the look of relief from crossing her features. Walter recognized it instantly.
    “Can’t stand being in the room with me, can you,” he said to her. “Sick people bore you, don’t they?” He turned away to look at the wall to his right. “That is the tragedy of illness,” he said to the wall. “The fleeting compassion of your so-called loved ones!”
    “Oh, Walter—” Ethel began, and then stopped. She shrugged resignedly and went to answer the front door.
    The doctor was waiting there with his black bag and he followed Ethel into the bedroom.
    “Well, how are you feeling today, Mr.Bedeker?” he asked. The doctor was tired and his feet hurt. He hated house calls unless they were emergencies and Walter Bedeker’s beckonings were never emergencies. He had difficulty keeping the tiredness out of his voice.
    “How do I look?” Bedeker barked at him.
    The doctor smiled at him and said, “Rather well, as a matter of fact.”
    Bedeker’s face screwed up like a persimmon and mimicked him fiercely. “Rather well, as a matter of fact, huh? Well I can assure you, doctor, I’m not rather well. I’m not in the least bit well. I’m a very sick man. Which you’ll soon discover once you examine me. But I want you to tell me the worst. I don’t want any cushioning. I’m not a coward, doctor.”
    “I’m sure you aren’t. Hold your arm out, Mr. Bedeker. I’d like to take your pressure first.”
    Bedeker thrust out a remarkably well muscled arm for a man his age and the doctor wrapped the pressure cloth around it.
    Ten minutes later he was putting most of his impedimenta back in the bag while Bedeker stared at him glumly.
    “Well, doctor?”
    The doctor closed the bag and turned to Bedeker without speaking.
    “I asked you a question, doctor. How bad is it?”
    “It isn’t bad at all.” the doctor said. “As a matter of fact, it’s quite good. You have no temperature. Pressure normal. Respiration normal. Heart action normal. No infection. Throat clear. Nasal passages clear. Ears clear.”
    “What about the pains in my back and side? what about four sleepless nights in a row? What about that ?” Bedeker shouted triumphantly.
    The doctor shook his head. “What about that? ‘That,’ Mr. Bedeker, is psychosomatic!”
    Bedeker’s