Light stabs at my pupils. I can smell Dr. Saul’s breath. It smells fresh and warm, and his body radiates the same warmth. I envy him for being able simply to get up and walk away. I can see him, as if through a reverse telescope, a hundred yards above me, his face the size of a pin.

I call out, “Where’s Eddie? What’s wrong with Madelyn?”

“We must work in a guilt-free space, Mr. Skinner. We doctors, I mean. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about our mistakes. Fuck that. The older I get, the more of my mistakes I’m able to visit, either here in the unit or out in the graveyard. No brain surgeon is free of guilt. Are you there, Mr. Skinner? Can you hear me?”

Yes I can, but why can’t this idiot hear me? Dr. Saul’s faraway face vanishes. The world beyond the barrier starts to shift and begins to swirl and eddy, like drifting smoke. Through the smoke I can make out my father’s outline, sitting on a bed in the background. I recognize his striped sweater, his jeans, and his bare feet.

Am I dying? He shakes his head and says, “I’m just waiting.” Those who love us wait for us. “Henri, did you know that I let go of you, not the other way around?”

I don’t believe him.

Being in a coma is like being buried alive, and nobody knows that I’m here. Here! What happens if they never hear me? If they think I’ve died? If they bury me alive? I can’t go on, I don’t want to go on.

DAY FORTY-FOUR

Henri

A hand brushes against mine, then something seems to try to escape from the room. It is quick and as light as spray, and for a while it flits about between the beds and past the machines. It keeps banging against the windows, growing more and more impatient, like a moth desperate to escape.

Soon afterward there’s a rumpus. Doctors and nurses gather around a bed, which is now empty of the essential. You’re too late, I could tell them. The husk lies there, but the core has gone.