I’d been to see my regular doctor. He recommended a dermatologist who, in turn, recommended a neurologist. But none of them was able to identify the rash on my shoulders that was incessantly itching. It was driving me crazy.

As fate would have it, I was in a bar one night, telling the bartender about my mystery rash. The bartender leaned in close and said to me, “I know this doctor. He’s amazing and I love him.” He then wrote the guy’s name and number on a napkin. “This is my gift to you, pal,” he said.

The next day I called the number and the doctor said he could see me, but not until midnight. I thought that was kind of odd, but I was desperate. I took down his address and arrranged to be there at the stroke of witching hour.

The address he gave me turned out to be an old, Victorian home at the edge of town. I walked up the steps and stood on the porch of the spooky looking house, but decided I had little to lose. So I rang the bell.

A tall, strange looking man with wild hair and a somewhat sardonic grin greeted me and invited me in. I followed him into a parlor and he instructed me to remove my shirt, which I did. “Hmm,” he said when he saw my rash. He poked at my skin.

“Ooh,” I said. He pinched my skin. “Eee,” I said. Then he took a sharp instrument and pricked me with it a few times. “Ooh, ah, ah,” I screamed.

“Walla walla, bing bang!” he shouted. “I know just what to do!”

He left the room for a minute and came back with a salve that he rubbed on my shoulders. The itching instantly stopped. My rash immediately disappeared. “This is a miracle,” I said. “What kind of doctor are you, anyway?” I asked.

He grinned. “You really don’t want to know.

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Written for Teresa’s Daily Writing Challenge, where the challenge is to “take a trip to the Witch Doctor — or be inspired by the following three words: love, gift, fate.