Axiomatic (20 page)

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* * * *

SEEING

I gaze down at the dusty top surface of the bank of lights suspended from the ceiling of the operating theatre. There’s a neatly hand-lettered sticker on the grey-painted metal — slightly yellowing, the writing a little faded, peeling at one corner. It reads:

IN CASE OF OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE

PHONE 137 4597

I’m puzzled: I’ve never come across a local number starting with a one — and when I look again, it’s clear that the digit in question is actually a seven. I was mistaken about the ‘dust’, too; it’s nothing but a play of light on the slightly uneven surface of the paint.
Dust
in a sterile, air-filtered room like this — what was I thinking?

I shift my attention to my body, draped in green save for a tiny square aperture above my right temple, where the macrosurgeon’s probe is following the bullet’s entry wound into my skull. The spindly robot has the operating table to itself, although a couple of gowned-and-masked humans are present, off to one side, watching what I take to be X-ray views of the probe approaching its target; from my vantage point, the screen is foreshortened, the images hard to decipher. Injected microsurgeons must already have staunched the bleeding, repaired hundreds of blood vessels, broken up any dangerous clots. The bullet itself, though, is too physically tough and chemically inert to be fragmented and removed, like a kidney stone, by a swarm of tiny robots; there’s no alternative to reaching in and plucking it out. I used to read up on this type of operation — and lie awake afterwards, wondering when my time would finally come. I often pictured this very moment — and I’d swear, now, that when I imagined it, it looked
exactly
like this, down to the last detail. But I can’t tell if that’s just run-of-the-mill
déjà vu,
or if my obsessively rehearsed visualisation is fuelling this present hallucination.

I begin to wonder, calmly, about the implications of my exotic point of view. Out-of-body experiences are supposed to suggest proximity to death . . . but then, all the thousands of people who’ve reported them survived to tell the tale, didn’t they? With no way of balancing that against the unknown number who must have died, it’s absurd to treat the situation as signifying anything at all about my chances of life or death. The effect is certainly linked to severe physical trauma, but it’s only the ludicrous notion that the

‘soul’ has parted from the body — and is perilously close to floating off down a tunnel of light into the afterlife — that associates the experience with
death.

Memories leading up to the attack start coming back to me, hazily. Arriving to speak at Zeitgeist Entertainment’s AGM. (Physically present for the first time in years — bad move. Just because I sold off HyperConference Systems, why did I have to eschew the technology?) That lunatic Murchison making a scene outside the Hilton, screaming something about me —
me! —
stiffing him on his miniseries contract. (As if I’d even read it, let alone personally drafted every clause. Why couldn’t he have gone and mowed down the legal department, instead?) The motorised window of the bulletproof Rolls gliding upwards to shut out his ranting, the mirrored glass moving silently, reassuringly —and then jamming . . .

I was wrong about one thing: I always thought the bullet would come from some anal-retentive cinephile, outraged by one of Zeitgeist’s ‘Sequels to the Celluloid Classics’. The software avatars we use as directors are always constructed with meticulous care, by psychologists and film historians committed to re-creating the true persona of the original
auteur
. . . but some purists are never happy, and there were death threats for more than a year after
Hannah and Her Sisters II, in 3-D.
What I failed to anticipate was a man who’d just signed a seven-figure deal for the rights to his life story — out on bail only because of Zeitgeist’s generous advance — trying to blow me away over a discounted residual rate for satellite transmissions dubbed into the Inuit language.

I notice that the unlikely sticker on top of the lights has vanished. What does
that
presage? If my delusion is breaking down, am I deteriorating, or recovering? Is an unstable hallucination healthier than a consistent one? Is reality about to come crashing in? What
should
I be seeing, right now? Pure darkness, if I really am under all that green swaddling, eyes closed, anaesthetised. I try to ‘close my eyes’ — but the concept just doesn’t translate. I do my best to lose consciousness (if that’s the right word for what I’m experiencing); I try to relax, as if aiming for sleep — but then a faint whir from the surgeon’s probe as it reverses direction rivets my attention.

I watch — physically unable to avert my unphysical gaze — as the gleaming silver needle of the probe slowly retracts. It seems to take forever, and I rack my brain for a judgement as to whether this is a piece of masochistic dream-theatricality, or a touch of authenticity, but I can’t decide.

Finally — and I
know it
a moment before it happens (but then, I’ve felt that way all along) — the tip of the needle emerges, bonded outrageously by nothing more esoteric than a speck of high-strength
glue
(or so I once read) to the dull, slightly crumpled bullet.

I see the green cloth covering my chest rise and fall in an emphatic sigh of relief. I doubt the plausibility of this from an anaesthetised man on a breathing machine — then suddenly, overwhelmingly weary of trying to imagine the world at all, I allow it to disintegrate into psychedelic static, then darkness.

* * * *

A familiar, but unplaceable, voice says, ‘This one’s from Serial Killers For Social Responsibility. “Deeply shocked ... a tragedy for the industry . . . praying for Mr Lowe’s swift recovery.” Then they go on to disavow any knowledge of Randolph Murchison; they say that whatever he might or might not have done to hitchhikers in the past, celebrity assassination attempts involve an entirely separate pathology, and any irresponsible comments which blur the issue by confusing the two will result in a class action—’

I open my eyes and say, ‘Can someone please tell me why there’s a mirror on the ceiling over my bed?

Is this a hospital, or a fucking bordello?’

The room falls silent. I squint up at the glass with a fixed gaze, unable to make out its borders, waiting for an explanation for this bizarre piece of decor. Then one possibility dawns on me:
Am I paralysed? Is
this the only way to show me my surroundings?
I fight down a sense of panic: even if it’s true, it need not be permanent. Nerves can be regrown, whatever’s damaged can be repaired. I’ve
survived,
that’s what counts — the rest is just a matter of rehabilitation.
And isn’t this what I always expected? A
bullet in the brain? A brush with death? Rebirth in a state of helplessness?

In the mirror, I can see four people gathered around the bed — and I recognise them easily enough, in spite of the awkward view: James Long, my personal assistant, whose voice woke me. Andrea Stuart, Zeitgeist’s senior vice-president. My estranged wife, Jessica —
I
knew she’d come.
And my son, Alex

— he must have dropped everything, and caught the first flight out of Moscow.

And on the bed, almost buried under a tangle of tubes and cables, linked to a dozen monitors and pumps, an ashen, bandaged, gaunt figure which I suppose must be me.

James glances up at the ceiling, looks down again, then says gently, ‘Mr Lowe, there is no mirror. Shall I tell the doctors you’re awake?’

I scowl, try to move my head, fail. ‘Are you blind? I’m staring
right at it.
And if I’m not plugged into enough machinery to tell whoever’s monitoring it all that I’m awake—’

James gives an embarrassed cough, a code he uses in meetings when I start to wander too far from the facts. I try again to turn to look him in the eye, and this time—

This time, I succeed. Or at least,
I
see the figure on the bed turn its head
—

—and my whole sense of my surroundings
inverts,
like an all-encompassing optical illusion exposed. Floor becomes ceiling and ceiling floor — without anything moving a millimetre. I feel like bellowing at the top of my lungs, but only manage a startled grunt . . . and after a second or two, it’s hard to imagine that I’d ever been fooled, the reality is so obvious.

There is no mirror. I’m watching all this from the ceiling, the way I watched the bullet being extracted.
I’m still up here. I haven’t come down.

I close my eyes — and the room
fades out,
taking two or three seconds to vanish completely.

I open my eyes. The view returns, unchanged.

I say, ‘Am I dreaming? Are my eyes really open? Jessica? Tell me what’s going on. Is my face bandaged? Am I blind?’

James says, ‘Your wife isn’t here, Mr Lowe. We haven’t been able to reach her yet.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘Your face isn’t bandaged—’

I laugh indignantly. ‘What are you talking about? Who’s that standing next to you?’

‘Nobody’s standing next to me. Ms Stuart and I are the only people with you, right now.’

Andrea clears her throat, and says, ‘That’s right, Philip. Please, try to calm down. You’ve just had major surgery — you’re going to be fine, but you have to take it easy.’ How did she get
there
—
near the foot of the bed? The figure below turns to look at her, sweeping his gaze across the intervening space, and —

as easily as the implausible
one
changed into a
seven,
as easily as the whole ludicrous sticker ceased to exist — my wife and son are banished from my vision of the room.

I say, ‘I’m going mad.’ That’s not true, though: I’m dazed, and distinctly queasy, but a long way from coming unhinged. I notice that my voice — very reasonably — seems to come out of my one-and-only mouth, the mouth of the figure below me — as opposed to the point in empty space where my mouth would be, were I literally, bodily, hovering near the ceiling.
I felt
my larynx vibrate, my lips and tongue move,
down there . . .
and yet the sense that
I
am above, looking down, remains as convincing as ever. It’s as if. . . my entire body has become as peripheral as a foot or a fingertip — connected and controlled, still a part of me, but certainly not encompassing the centre of my being. I move my tongue in my mouth, touch the tip to the point of my left incisor, swallow some saliva; the sensations are all intelligible, consistent, familiar. But I don’t find myself rushing down to ‘occupy’ the place where these things are happening — any more than I’ve ever felt my sense of self pouring into my big toe, upon curling it against the sole of my shoe.

James says, ‘I’ll fetch the doctors.’ I hunt for any trace of inconsistency in the direction of
his
voice . . . but I’m not up to the task of dissecting the memory of his speech into relative intensities in my left and right ears, and then confronting myself with the paradox that anyone truly up here, facing down, would hear it all differently. All I know is that the words
seem
to have emerged from his lips, in the customary manner.

Andrea clears her throat again, and says, ‘Philip? Do you mind if I make a call? Tokyo opens in less than an hour, and when they hear that you’ve been shot—’

I cut her off. ‘Don’t call — go there, in person. Take the next suborbital — you know that always impresses the market. Look, I’m glad you were here when I woke’ — glad
your
presence, at least, turned out to be more than wishful thinking — ‘but the biggest favour you can do for me now is to make damned sure that Zeitgeist comes through this unscathed.’ I try to make eye contact as I say this, but I can’t tell whether I succeed or not. It’s twenty years since we were lovers, but she’s still my closest friend. I’m not even sure why I’m so desperate to get rid of her — but I can’t help feeling
exposed
up here ... as if she might suddenly glance up and
see me —
see some part of me that my flesh always concealed.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m positive. James can baby-sit me, that’s what he’s paid for. And if I know you’re looking after Zeitgeist, I won’t have to lie here sweating about it; I’ll know it’s all under control.’

In fact, as soon as she’s gone, the idea of worrying about anything as remote and inconsequential as my company’s share price begins to seem utterly bizarre. I turn my head so that the figure on the bed looks straight up at ‘me’ once more. I slide my hand across my chest, and most of the cables and tubes that were ‘covering me’ disappear, leaving behind nothing but a slightly wrinkled sheet. I laugh weakly — an odd sight. It looks like a memory of the last time I laughed into a mirror.

James returns, followed by four generic white-coated figures — whose number shrinks to two, a young man and a middle-aged woman, when I turn my head towards them.

The woman says, ‘Mr Lowe, I’m Dr Tyler, your neurologist. How are you feeling?’

‘How am I feeling? I feel like I’m up on the ceiling.’

‘You’re still giddy from the anaesthetic?’

‘No!’
I very nearly shout:
Can’t you look at me when I’m speaking to you?
But I calm myself, and say evenly, ‘I’m not “giddy” — I’m
hallucinating.
I see everything as if I’m up on the ceiling, looking down. Do you understand me? I’m watching my own lips move as I say these words. I’m staring down at the top of your head. I’m having an out-of-body experience — rght now, right in front of you.’
Or right
above you.
‘It started in the operating theatre. I saw the robot take out the bullet. I
know,
it was just a delusion, a kind of lucid dream — I didn’t really see anything . . . but it’s still happening. I’m awake, and it’s still happening.
I can’t come down.’

Dr Tyler says firmly, ‘The surgeon didn’t remove the bullet. It was never embedded; it only grazed your skull. The impact caused a fracture, and forced some bone fragments into the underlying tissue — but the damaged region is very small.’