Excerpt from The Bagod Hermann left the institute without agreeing to become a client. He told Hampton that he would need a few days to think it over. The director gave him a Mona Lisa smile and said, “Take all the time you wish, Mr. Hermann. We’ll be here for you whenever you wish to commit. Also, you can back out at any time with a full refund right up until the time that we put you under. We understand that this is absolutely the most crucial decision you’ll ever make. You’re taking a long-shot gamble that you will survive. Let me be brutally honest with you. So far, although all our clients are still alive, not one has been cured of the disease that brought him or her here.” Hermann agreed. He felt like someone contemplating suicide. And, in truth, wasn’t that what he was really doing, opting for an easy death in the cryogenic chamber rather than facing the pain and degradation that his disease would finally heap upon him. Almost as soon as Hermann returned home from the institute, his worst symptoms reappeared. He was barely able to dial 911 before he passed out. He was taken to the local hospital by ambulance. He was stabilized and sent home two days later. He gazed at his emaciated face in the mirror and knew that he had little time left. He called the Last Hope Institute and told them that he would be in the next day. On the six-o’clock news, there was a story about a disease panicking the city of Istanbul. It was rumored that it was a biological weapon spread by a terrorist who had himself died of the disease. So far, no antibiotic had any affect on the disease. Normally, something like that would cause him concern. But, since he’d made up his mind to leave the present earth, he shrugged it off as though it was something occurring in a movie or a dream. In fact, he began to regard the normal everyday world as dreamlike and not quite real. The only realities were his cancer, his imminent death and his decision to have himself cryogenic stored in a locker like some piece of meat to be used at a later date. What a world, thought Hermann. I should be glad to be leaving it. He wondered what it would be like fifty years in the future, should he be in “The Vault,” as Hampton had called it, that long. * * * The medics at the institute finished their examination of him by late afternoon two days later. It was as a thorough going over as he’d ever experienced. Before the exams, the people at the institute had him sign several wavers and disclaimers absolving them of all responsibility whatever happened. By early evening, he was resting when a nurse and a doctor entered his room followed by Doctor Hampton. “How are you doing, Joe?” Hampton asked. So he gets informal before he turns me into a popsicle, Hermann thought. “Fine doc. I’ve become so accustomed to probing and prodding by the medical profession the last couple of years that I’m beginning to enjoy it.” “I’m glad that you can joke about it. Attitude is everything. You know why I’m here. This is your last chance to back out. Are you certain that you want us to go through with the procedure?” “Absolutely. I’m going to die soon anyway, probably in a painful and undignified manner. I might as well go in way that gives me a slim hope and is relatively pain free.” “Good. Do you have any last requests? This is like an execution you know. Would you like to say any words to a spiritual advisor before we put you under?” Hermann shook his head. “No. No last requests. No regrets. Nothing. I’m an atheist; I’m my own spiritual advisor.” Hampton patted him on the shoulder. “I guess it’s good bye then. Perhaps we’ll meet in the afterlife.” “Afterlife. You’re a card, doc. Good bye to you. Good luck with this enterprise. And I really mean that. I’m counting on it in fact.” After Hampton left, the nurse attached an IV to his arm that would administer the anesthetic, and the doctor told him to count backwards from one hundred while he held a stethoscope to his chest. Hermann took one last look at the world. I’ll probably never wake up, he thought. Good bye, old world. A tear ran down his cheek as he counted. The room became fuzzier and fuzzier and blackness took over as he slipped into unconsciousness. * * * When he awoke, his head was full of cobwebs. He had trouble remembering what had happened to him. At first he thought he was back in the local hospital after receiving more chemotherapy. Although it was an effort to raise himself to a sitting position, he gazed around. Then he recalled that he had gone to the Institute of Last Hope. Has something gone wrong, he thought. Why haven’t they frozen me? Finally it occurred to him that perhaps they had, and he’d been awakened because a cancer cure had been found. His heart leaped with joy at the possibility. Nonetheless, the room he was in, although it was obviously a place of medicine, did not look like any hospital room he’d ever been in before. Well, things change. I wonder what year this is? A female doctor or nurse rushed in. She checked his pulse as she prattled at him in an unfamiliar foreign language. “Hold it, Sweety. Do you speak English?” She stopped talking and made motions to indicate that someone would be coming who spoke his language. She pressed on his chest for him to lay back and relax and left the room. A little later two other women entered. They were in their middle years and dressed strangely. One seemed doctor-like and carried a stethoscope. She listened to his heart and said something to the other woman in the same foreign language as that spoken by the nurse. The woman who was not a doctor finally said, “Thou art in hospital. Doctor Sheema would like to know how thee feel.” In addition to using thees and thous, she spoke with such a thick accent that Hermann had a hard time understanding her. “I’m okay, I guess. Will she be able to cure my cancer?” “Thou art already cured. But thou must remain in hospital until strength return.” She made a muscle to illustrate her point. Inwardly Hermann cheered mightily. He was going to live. The fifty thousand had been money well spent. “I understand. Tell me, what country is this?” “Country? I doth not understand that word. Allow me to consult my dictionary.” She pulled out a cell phone and asked it something in her native tongue. “Ah. I think I understand.” She shrugged her shoulders. “No, the hospital be not in the country. It be in a town.” Wow, Hermann thought, for a translator, this woman does not know English well at all. “Excuse me, but could you tell me what you do for a living?” The woman’s face lit up. Apparently she enjoyed talking about her work. “I, Silvy, be a teacher of dead languages. Ancient American be my specialty.” “Ancient American?” My God, how many years have gone by while I was in that frozen sleep? “What year is this?” “Nine hundred and nine.” That didn’t make sense. The calendar that he was familiar with must’ve been changed. “How long was I in a frozen sleep?” “I not know. Div and Dav, the women who found thee, know. They wilt visit thee in two days.” She held up two fingers. Doctor Sheema said something, and Silvy said, “I must leave now. Doctor Sheema says that thee need rest.” Hermann thought that a bit funny. He’d being sleeping God knows how many years. Nonetheless, he did feel tired.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 13:08:46 +0000