The fuck was this lunatic going? I said,
“To read.”
I think that’s true.
He said,
“Good choice. Blinding you would be a trifle messy so just bear with us a minute.”
My right hand, manacled, was gripped, pinned down, my fingers forcibly spread. I heard,
“Stanley knife, please.”
The sound of one hand clapping.
I came to in a hospital bed. For some bizarre reason, an old proverb in my befuddled mind,
“Only dead fish swim with the stream.”
Shaking this off, I tried to get a handle on where I was. Then the previous events came slithering back and my whole body went into a mini spasm. I tried to sit up. Stewart was perched in an armchair, moved fast, said,
“Best to lie still, buddy.”
Buddy?
He ever call me that before?
Fuck, meant I was in serious bad shape. I took some deep breaths, trying to fend off the tidal wave of panic about to engulf me.
I asked,
“Could I have some water?”
He gently put some ice cubes in my mouth and nirvana, they tasted so fine. I lay back, refusing to look at my right hand. Between the glorious coldness of the ice, I asked,
“How’d I get here?”
He moved back to his chair, never taking his eyes off me, said,
“They had your mobile phone, found my number, said-”
He hesitated.
I pushed,
“Spit it out, Stewart.”
He swallowed.
Maybe he could use an ice cube?
Said,
“They said, we’ve left the garbage outside your door.”
I suppose they could have recycled me.
He continued,
“Ridge has been staying with me. You’ve been missing for nearly a week.”
I asked,
“How are Chelsea doing?”
He looked so ill at ease, no Zen gig helping, it seemed, so I cut to the chase, asked,
“How bad?”
I didn’t mean my football team.
He inhaled deeply, then,
“They took two fingers from your right hand. They’d, ah, cauterized the… remains, otherwise you’d have bled to death.”
A chill ran down my spine but I had to know, asked,
“Did they leave the digits, the severed ones?”
Oh, Christ, the freaking desperate hope that they did and that the surgeons did their magic and reattached them. Stewart looked stricken. I said,
“I guess that’s a no.”
It was.
He said,
“Ridge is working round the clock, trying to find a lead.”
My mind, maybe in an effort to save whatever tattered remnants remained, muttered,
“The moving finger, having writ, moves on.”
I nearly laughed.
Hysteria?