The Curiosity by Stephen Kiernan

Author:Stephen Kiernan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Thus my first visitor the following morning was Dr. Borden. He stood on a little stool beside the examination table, squeezing a pump that tightened a cuff on my upper arm. “I’m thinking it was a bunch of external factors,” he said.

“Quite possibly. The music was deafening, and the drink—”

He raised a finger to silence me. He listened through his stethoscope whilst releasing the squeeze of the cuff. I wondered what he was hearing. Sometime I ought to wear that listening device.

Dr. Borden pulled the earpieces down and wrote something on his clipboard. “You really are in fine shape, considering.”

“Glad am I to hear it,” I said, giving him a hearty voice. “But it puts me in mind of a question I’d like to ask of you.”

He stepped down from the stool and folded his arms. “Fire away.”

“Doctor, I submit that you and your medical team need not be measuring my health any longer.”

He tucked the stethoscope’s listening part in his pocket, hooking the other ends around his neck. “What do you mean?”

“My heart has shown no indication of stopping, nor my blood pressure of vanishing. Yet you persist with these assessments, and others which are invasive of my privacy. I am well. More so every day, and here we are”—I checked the numerical clock in the control room—“on day sixty-nine.”

Dr. Borden produced from his kit a metal cylinder with a conical black tip, and I turned so he could insert it in my right ear. “Please continue.”

“It cannot have escaped your notice, despite last night’s incident, that my appetite has returned.”

“I am aware of that, yes.” He moved to the other ear. “Go on.”

“My sleep habits are consistent. Daily activity levels. Levity of mood. Speed of reading and conversation.”

He put the device away and produced another one, similar but with an arm that had a light at the tip. He raised it to my right eye. “Come to your point.”

Hm. I had hoped for dialogue. I might have known better, having encountered his type among attorneys often enough. He moved the light to my left eye, then alternated between them.

“My point, Doctor, is that I am fully restored, and as you say, in fine condition. Might it not be time for me to regain some freedom from examination? Must my voiding continue to be weighed? Could we hazard giving this room a curtain, and me a modicum of privacy? Might we stop waking this man for blood pressure tests during the night?”

Dr. Borden sighed and stepped away. He leaned against the near wall and contemplated the floor. He tugged on the point of his beard. Finally he adjudged our conversation more important than his shoes, and lifted his face. “Do you remember when I spoke during the news conference?”

“I was not present for your remarks.”

“That’s right.” He snapped his fingers. “I’d forgotten. Well, that day I referred to the people who opposed our work as ‘ignorant.’ The word escaped in an unguarded moment, and revealed the height of our arrogance.

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