Then I sat in the pre-op waiting area, but the wait wasn’t long. Dr. Seward emerged from between swinging doors adjacent to a nurse’s station. He was already gowned and capped, and it made him appear small. He promised my parents they would take good care of me. He asked me how I was feeling. I said, “Okay.” He said, “I’ll see you inside.” In my head I repeated and tweaked the phrase like a mantra: I’ll see you inside. I’ll see your insides. And yes, I was afraid and nervous, but also, this was thrilling. I was going to emerge from the surgery physically transformed. Maybe not quite a butterfly poking through a chrysalis, but my kyphotic, cowering body would be radically altered/reconstructed by this time tomorrow. It might not be enough (it would never be enough), but I hoped it might be.

A nurse led me and my parents through those swinging doors into the brightest hallway, then into a large room partitioned by white curtains. I climbed onto a hospital bed; the top half raised so I could sit up. The nurse inserted a needle/port into my left hand, which hurt like hell, burning as it truffled through my skin. The IV saline solution rushed in cold. Mom squeezed my other hand as I hissed out air. She said, “You’re doing great,” wide-eyed with a How did we get here? look.

I wondered if anyone else besides family members would spare a thought for me on this day. The reality was, only one other person knew about the surgery. That night in my house with Mercy seemed so impossible and far away, and I wished I’d called her, and I also vowed to never call her again.

A team of nurses swarmed, unlocking the bed’s wheels and attaching an oximeter to my finger along with various other contraptions tethered to beeping monitors. The anesthesiologist said, “Okay, Art. We’re ready for you. You’re going to do awesome.” For as often as the sentiment was expressed, what was I going to have to do? I assumed the act of spinal surgery was passive on my part.

She inserted a syringe of the knockout drug into a port on the IV bag. She said, “Your parents will be here with you until you go to sleep, okay? Once I press the plunger it’ll happen fast. Ready?”

“How long until I’m unconscious?”

“You’ll be out before you count to five.”

“One.”

* * *

Most of us like to think we’re wired with a factory-installed inner clock. It doesn’t keep the time of day necessarily; it more accurately measures time elapsed. We believe this despite a Kraken of evidence to the contrary. Our head clocks are often the Salvador Dalí melting kind. Which, ironically, is closer to the truth of time.