DAY 1
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I could never forget that green autumn morning, not even if I wanted to.
You never forget the day you die.
Music filled my ears as I gazed out through the window at the City by the Bay; the City of Parks and Pines; the City of Fog and Dreams.
The City of God.
Elpeck.
My morning began like any other workday: I dropped my kids off at school before heading to the daily grind—though on this particular morning, I’d managed to end up at work an hour ahead of schedule. And though some people might have gone a little stir crazy with that kind of down-time, for me, though, it was exactly what I needed to do some composing before the start of my shift.
Who says a doctor can’t write music?
Work, of course, was at West Elpeck Medical Center, or WeElMed—rhymes with “well-said”.
Relaxing my grip, I pulled away from the mouthpiece and set my clarinet down in its case to rest beside me on the couch. My fingers spidered across the liquid crystal touch-screen of the table-top’s built-in console, inputting notes into the composition app. I slid the notes around the staff lines until they were right where I wanted them.
Writing a clarinet sonata isn’t a walk in the park. It’s more like torture, only you’re doing it to yourself.
Sitting up, I pinched the screen to zoom out and survey my handiwork. Currently, I’d given the piano accompaniment slow, broken chords in a half-imitative counterpoint to the clarinet line.
Or should I go back to the chorale idiom?
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d re-undone a change to the opening of the slow movement. It was going to be a kind of elegy, if I ever finished it. I had the unluck of losing people before their time. Music was one way of coping and commemorating.
The waffling? Well… that was just part of my process. (That was my current rationalization, at any rate.) We become our processes, I think. The plucky smile, the wavy brown hair, the perpetual stubble—too short to be thick; the gaudy lucky yellow bowtie, dotted with red; it screamed ‘pedantic guy who probably didn’t have the greatest self-esteem’. As I liked to tell my wife, I’d been a pedant for far too long to give up on it now. Sunk costs, and all that.
I couldn’t proceed until I felt I’d gotten it right—that I’d found what I’d been searching for, and knew what I wanted. I didn’t want to live with the thought of making any more mistakes. Even when I’d made up my mind, I’d still beat myself up over it. Beating myself up after the fact was the most distinguished of my many methods of self-destruction.
Incidentally, this was one of the quirkier perks that came with being a neuropsychiatrist. Most people were trapped within their neuroses to one degree or another. Being a neuropsychiatrist meant you got to know all the technical details going on in the background. If life was like being a mouse in a mousetrap, I was one of the mice that at least appreciated the subtle craftsmanship of the design of the mousetrap squeezing the life out of my body.
I sighed.
It was too early to be bitter, even if nobody but myself would catch wind of it. The unfaltering smile I wore during working hours was as much for my sake as it was for my patients’. I used smiles the way fairies used pixie dust: if I believed in it strongly enough, then, maybe—just maybe—it might become the truth.
The music helped with that.
I picked up my clarinet and counted down the beat.
And a one, and a two, and a three…
My music was a rhapsody forever wandering in search of the perfect melody. I knew I’d find it one day, however long that took. Some things were just worth the time.
I stood in front of the window as I played.
It was a glorious day to behold.
Elpeck was a place in the sun. It was a place to look up to, and I had since I was young. The way its sleek spires rose to meet the day was a mystery as potent as the Light of Unction at Mass. The skyscrapers welcomed that light through vaults and domes of glass in metal frames.
The Sun’s Holy Light.
My city was a wonder of earth and sea, and steel and sky. Its skyline glittered like the Bay's silvery waves. Earth met the sea in our wharfs and harbors, and the whole world came to visit. Cruise liners moored in the Marina colored the sky with their windswept flags. Above, gulls frolicked in the breeze. Higher still, elegant mag-lev Expressways sliced through the air, borne along by stocky red trellises that sunk in to where the sea met the sky. Animated advertisements flashed on the Expressways’ glass arcades, arched over streams of hovercars that zoomed on by. Monorail lines raced beside the mag-lev, orbiting through the city and dashing through the urban maze. They passed onward to the peninsula’s distant, cypressed hills, where they vanished, like a whisper, into the sleeping fog.
The fog would probably be up by lunch.
My playing came to a halt when an addictive little jingle decided to cut me off. I turned back to the table and glanced at the console.
It was Tira, one of our trusted receptionists. And she was calling me.
With one hand, I set my clarinet back in its case, while tapping the console screen with the other, answering the videophone call.
Tira’s familiar face popped into view.
“The green is new,” I said.
Blushing, she patted the green highlights of her stick-crossed hair bun. Her fingernails were painted to match.
“Thanks. My augur told me green was going to be all the rage this month. And you know, trends wait for no one. Though,” she tilted her head to the side, “he also said he saw an owl, so I’m expecting a communication breakdown in the near future… which means David is probably going to break up with me. Ugh…” Tira sighed, only to bring her fist to her mouth to cover a rather hoarse cough.
“Are you alright?” I asked. “You might want to get that looked at. I can probably get you an appointment with a general practitioner in the next few days. I’ve accumulated more than a few favors.”
Waving her hand, Tira cleared her throat and took a deep breath, making a sputtering engine of her lips. “I’m fine,” she said, “been feeling a little off all morning; it’s probably just my annual winter bronchitis trying to get its work done before the holidays. One stop at the pharmacy on my way out the door, and I’ll have all the drugs I need. Sneeze-Ease - Deluxe Strength, here I come. And,” Tira coughed again, "as for your favors, Dr. Howle? I wouldn’t waste them. You’ll never know when they’ll come in handy.”
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I nodded. “Speaking of favors, let me give you my personal—non-professional—recommendation that if you’ve got bronchitis on the way, you should try some Wick’s Rubbo-Vape. That stuff works wonders.”
Tira fluttered her fingernail extensions. “Eh, my sister says it’s not good for my pores.”
I rolled my eyes. “Anyhow, what’s the occasion for the call? You could have just called me on my console.”
The novella-sized device—my personal PortaCon—rested comfortably in the lower-left pocket of my white physician’s coat. Its weight counterbalanced that of the hospital-owned PortaCon in my lower-right pocket.
PortaCon: the console you can carry!
“I’d call you on your clarinet if I could, Dr. Howle.” Tira smiled. “You’re more likely to have that on you at this hour than you are your console. Other than that, the console in Staff Lounge 3 is the way to go.”
That was true: I did have a tendency to leave my personal console at home.
I thought I heard someone talking off-screen, though I couldn’t quite make out the words.
“Have you heard about those new smart guitars?” Tira asked. “They get wireless. You should get one of those. Then no one would ever have any trouble getting a hold of you. I bet they have a clarinet version, and if they don’t, they probably will before the week is out.”
“I don’t suppose you called me just to advertise the latest doodad.” I shook my head and chuckled. “What’s the situation?” I glanced at the digital clock in the console’s upper corner. “Technically, I’m not yet on duty.”
“Yes, yes yes,” Tira nodded profusely, “yeah… I know.”
Off-screen I heard the mutterings of a familiar voice.
“Please… it’s urgent.”
Tira looked off to the side. “I’m talking to him right now.”
“Is that…?”
“Yes—yeah…” Tira turned back to the screen. “It’s Mrs. Elbock. She arrived a little while ago, and is in a real tizzy. She absolutely insists on seein’ you. Right. This. Second.”
I leaned in. “Is something the matter?”
Off-screen, I heard Mrs. Elbock’s voice: “Genneth? Is that you?”
“Yes, Merritt, I’m right here.”
There was a sound of something shuffling, and then Merritt’s voice got louder.
“I need to—”
“—Please, Ma’am,” someone grumbled, “keep away from the console.”
“Get her a room as quickly as you can.” I gestured toward my pocket. “Text me the details.”
“Right, Dr. Howle. Will do.”
The console screen went back as the call ended. In a moment, I was returned to my composition-in-progress. I pressed Save, quit, and logged off my account on the server. The data would be updated on the cloud, leaving me plenty of time to continue wrangling with chord progressions after I got home. Here, ‘plenty of time’ almost certainly meant me spending my last half-hour before bed sitting in the dark at our dining room, hunched over the brilliant light coming off from my console-screen like I was some kind of nebbish, computer-addled gremlin.
I put my clarinet away in its case and deposited it in the locker-room next door. Tira texted me the room number a moment later.
C158.
Surprisingly close.
I made it there in a matter of minutes. However, entering the room would require a more delicate hand. Over the course of a millennium and more of disrepair, a crusade, another crusade, divine revelation, half-renovation, whole-scale revolution, assassination, reformation, and architects, West Elpeck Medical Center had metastasized into a charming nightmare of hodgepodged time. As far as the doctors and patients were concerned, most of what they knew and saw was from the last two-hundred fifty years or so (the administrative building, the sub-sub-sub basements, and the like notwithstanding). Unfortunately for Merritt, C Ward was at the distal end of that range.
I opened the door with care.
Like everything else in the older parts of the hospital complex—the old new, not the old-old—the doors to the patients’ rooms had been put on the waitlist for refurbishment and had stayed there since long before I was even born. The doors made it very clear that they did not approve of this state of affairs by groaning in shuddering protest whenever any significant force was exerted on them. Most patients didn’t mind the noise too much—but, then again, most patients weren’t synesthetes like Merritt.
“Dr. Howle!”
As I finished the delicate process of quietly closing the door behind me, I looked over my shoulder to see Mrs. Elbock sitting on the low-lying examination bed at the center of the room. Though the room was sparsely furnished—its most notable feature being the aggressively detailed antique green and white wallpaper—the morning sun shining through the plain rectangular windows opposite the door gave it an open and airy feel. The console haphazardly installed on the wall by the door stuck out like a sore modern thumb. It displayed Mrs. Elbock’s patient file—medical history, charts, and the like—and made all of it accessible at the touch of a finger.
“Hello Merritt.”
Hoping to brighten the mood, I smiled, but Mrs. Elbock’s grave expression and sunken eyes made me feel ashamed for even trying. It was startling enough to keep me from immediately noticing she wasn’t wearing her make-up. Despite that, her attire was as flawless as ever: tight brown skirt, white gloves, and a green coat, hemmed with soft imitation ocelot fur. She kept her wavy, strawberry-blonde hair tied back in a short, tidy ponytail.
“Dr. Howle, cry the Lassedites…” She clutched her hands to her chest. “I knew you’d come.”
Mrs. Merritt Elbock had been a fixture of my life ever since I’d purchased the house four months shy of sixteen years ago; she and her husband Storn were our across-the-street neighbors. I’d been her attending neurologist and psychiatrist ever since that fateful day when she got paid a visit by the mother of all migraine headaches. It was so intense, it scrambled her senses. Ever since, luminous vibrations pulsed in her vision whenever she heard any sufficiently loud noise.
Clasping her black beret in one hand, Merritt tugged at the fingers of her left hand, as if she was trying to slip off her glove. Stress made her fidget like that.
Whatever had caused that first migraine, it was stubborn and refused to let Merritt live in peace. She still suffered from periodic attacks. In my opinion, it was most likely a result of chronic compression of the basilar artery. Her pain was written into her bones. Aura invariably preceded migraines of Merritt’s type; spots and flashes in the field of vision; numbness or tingling in the hands, face, or head. Symptoms like that would be difficult for anyone to deal with, but Merritt’s sensitive disposition made it especially hard for her. It had gotten to the point where I needed to teach her husband some strategies to help keep her from launching into a full-blown panic attack whenever the aura came a-knocking. There was a cruel irony here: in her fear of the oncoming migraine, the stress she put herself through only made the headache that much worse when it finally hit her.
Poor woman.
“So… what’s going on, Merritt?” I rolled over a stool and sat down beside her. “What’s gotten you so agitated?”
“Can’t…?” Her posture stiffened. She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t already tell?”
“Tell what?”
Her eyes locked onto the chart that hung on the wall. It was an old-fashioned, lushly illustrated depiction of the human brain, the extent of the nervous system, and the structure of a neuron. When she finally spoke, she did so softly and in an even tone. Troublingly, she made a concerted effort to avoid making any eye contact with me.
“I left the house shortly after sunrise. Someone in the neighborhood might have recognized me if I’d left in the middle of the day. They’d try to talk me out of it, I know they would, and I’m afraid they’d succeed.” She looked down at her hands, crossed in her lap. “I would do it myself, Genneth, but… I’m worried it wouldn’t take.” She leaned forward slightly, and whispered. “And it’s not something you want to do halfway.”
She gazed at me warily.
Something was seriously wrong. I’d never seen Merritt like this. She wasn’t the kind of person to be swayed by paranoia or conspiracy theories. I had to proceed with caution. The immediate goal had to be getting her to explain what was going on while keeping her as calm and comfortable as possible. Otherwise, the situation might take a rapid turn for the worse.
“Does your husband know that you are here?” I asked.
“No, no, Storn doesn’t know.” Merritt shook her head and inhaled sharply. Slowly, she let it out in sputtering breaths that made her shudder. “I couldn’t let him see me like this. I walked out of the house as soon as he drove off to work. He left at the crack of dawn, just like he always does. He’ll be worried sick when he comes home.” She covered her mouth. Her voice cracked with a sob. “I didn’t even leave a note, Genneth.”
“Why not?”
Merritt lowered her head in dejection. It hung so limply between her shoulders, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it fell off and toppled to the floor.
“I couldn’t bear to,” she said, quietly.
I delivered my next words with as even of a keel and as much compassion as I could muster.
“Merritt… whatever it is, you can tell me.”
Suddenly, locking eyes with me, she reached out and grabbed my hands.
“Yes. I know.” Her head drooped. “That’s why I came.”
“Merritt…?”
Her breath was ragged. My heart raced.
There was an agonizing pause.
“I’m dead, Genneth.”