January 1998
An ordinary every day silence mastered the room; it was a silence moulded on the white walls, lengthened on the table, hidden under the bed. The space breathed white and quiet.He lay down his limbs carefully, like his cat used to do at home (it had white fur spots, too), then he neatened his pillow, his blanket, he pushed the edge of the bedsheet under the mattress, comparing their whitenesses. He stared at his pyjama's sleeve. Blasphemy! In the empire of this room, breathing in a white air, as white as the silence necessary for his soul, these pyjamas displayed a ...
...yellow ("I wonder why the yolk is just yellow?" Stupid question, he admitted). He crammed the lump of bread into the yolks of his fried eggs with a fork. He liked to roll it over, feeling the saliva flow into his mouth before the bite.
"You eat too much," the doctor said. "You know, the fat, the cholesterol. They lay down on arteries and veins. Man is as old as his arteries".
He caught the lump of bread with his fork, then raised it above the plate. The yellow yolk drained from the bread like the fat molecules hanging on his arteries, layer upon layer decreasing their diameter. "Damn it, I've always been a glutton."
He chewed reluctantly, watching the yellow spot on his plate; he felt the army of the fat particles marching through his body, leaving happily the belly's lard in order to be laid down on his blood vessels. He stood up and moved away from the table, trying to escape from his obsessions, lit a cigarette and became enveloped in the smoke...
...blue was the apparatus that was ticking in his right side; he could hear its irregular peeping in the rhythm of his heart, he also could feel how numb his left hand was, no ache in his heart, no chest pain, nothing but his numb hand and the rope pressing his neck, he couldn't see it yet he could still feel it, he couldn't breathe because of it.
"Heparin", the doctor yelled; the assistant held out a blue syringe that punctured his skin easily, touching the vessel, he felt the irritation as the liquid was pumped into his body... the doctor's hand, the doctor's smock which was also blue... the blue walls of the ambulance, the flashing blue light (why blue?) and his left hand's pain, the nausea coming from his stomach, everything...
...white, her skirt moulded over her hips, and her blouse tight on her body.
Whenever he sees nurse Eve, he leaves those memories he loves so much in this room because the nurse, yes, he likes her silver curls, green eyes and thin legs. His eyes always follow her until the last moment when she shuts the door, smiling playfully with a bowlips uncovering a row of pearls. She is as white as the whole hospital is, the floors, the window's case, the sink, all are white.
Nurse Eve wears now and then a small, oval brooch, shining mysteriously in shades of...
...yellow, the armchair's plush is yellow and nothing to be done about it, he feels like tearing it and throwing it in a corner, far away from his sight, the fat's yellow ("A man is as old as his arteries"), of the cholesterol metal plates binding the vessels of his heart ("Smoking, old man, will kill you, too"), making the blood thread thinner, preventing the oxygen from reaching the muscles of the heart and that means...
He felt a strong twinge in his chest, the air hardly reached his lungs, he felt choked, the fingers of his left hand became insensible, he felt pins and needles, tiredness, a sensation of exhaustion, he slid down a children's slide.
"It's clear", the doctor in a blue smock said in the ambulance, looking at the EKG, "coronary arrest, what do you expect, but he'll survive, don't worry, we shall reach the hospital soon."
SILENCE REST WHITE
He got out of the bed cautiously, with minimum effort, then he put his dressing gown over his pyjamas, his yellow pyjamas, the same white slippers on the white floor, looked out through the half-open door as if he wanted to escape, but he didn't had know where... His footsteps idly carried him on the way he had walked so many times: the long narrow corridor, where two wheelchairs could hardly pass, to that door at the far end of the corridor, every time the doctor waiting for him with a smile:
"How are you? Fine, aren't you?" and then, each time, "Concentrate, when the red light is on, relax and try to slowly stop your heartbeats", the red of the light, of the blood, the blood that flows towards death, quietness, red, the heart beating slower, the pulse rate modifying on the screen, the damn doctor teasing him:
"Concentrate!".
"Fine, I'm concentrating"; red, the way I passed so many times to that examination room with a strange plate on its door:
"Concentrate!" he always said this, especially when trying to develop his reflex for green, the most difficult one, the leaves' green, the grass green,
"Accelerate your heartbeats", cried the doctor desperately, "Concen..."
"Leave me alone, doctor, I know what I am supposed to do". The doctor was scared then, but the number of his heartbeats increased, the figures grew on the screen, the doctor smiled: "Fine, you see you can do it" and patted him on his neck, as you pat a horse after a difficult race. The long corridor, nurse Eve passing by him in a hurry, with a hidden smile. He knocked at the door lightly three times and entered. The doctor smiled as usual:
"How are you? Fine, aren't you?"
"Yes, this is the last session."
"Your test results are very good." the doctor said, looking at some notes in his hand "You are leaving tomorrow", and suddenly raised up his eyes, staring at him.
"He wants to see how I shall react, but I won't give him the opportunity" and answered indifferently, "You know better". He didn't set, as usual, the sensors on his chest. The doctor fixed a watch on his wrist, a watch with two small lights (red-green), and he told him, without reminding him that damn word:
"Concentrate"
"I will switch on the red light" and the red light suddenly came on, the watch started working, showed him the red pulse, the colour of the blood running in his veins, the Roman purple, his pulse which is rapidly decreasing from a reflex cultivated during the time spent with the doctor
Concentrate and the heartbeats became less frequent.
Concentrate -the doctor smiled pleasantly. "And now the green light", he said, of course the green of the fresh grass, the green of the exploding life, of the faster beating heart , the heart that is really beating faster, and the doctor who smiles happily, forgetting to pat him as a horse is patted after a difficult race. The doctor only catches his wrist covering the watch and telling him:
"It's yours now, take care of it. That's what he wished to hear, it was his way of Concentrate to say "Good bye and I won't see you again!" He stood up suddenly from the chair, like an automaton, went to the cloakroom as an automaton, dressed up slowly, like an automaton does, kissed nurse Eve, taking the case notes from her left hand, kissed her again, profiting from the fact that automatons can't be accused of love. An automaton that easily changes its heartbeats by colours, yes, people's heart beats are getting faster and faster, near their beloved one, but he is only a simple automaton near nurse Eve.
He left the hospital with his soul discoloured, the temple of white, doctor's, Eve's, he left behind the ball of antiseptic days when he lived at the lowest level in his life. A dull convalescence waiting for the returning.
And now coming down the hospital's stairs, he found a world of diluted colours in the evening's twilight, retouched by the painter who didn't intend to bother the looker-on.
"A happy event", he told himself, thinking about the colour's explosion on a summer's day. Such sudden change is not good. The same grey alleys, the way home, watching the tarmac, passing by the same unknown people, the same cars with idly revved engines, the same loneliness impregnated his clothes. The building painted with the same ordinary brown, the door creaking when you open it, the woman on the ground floor, greeting people with the same husky voice. "I'm glad to see you are fine".
He answered her back monosyllabically and hurried to hide himself in the greasy elevator which would take him to the third floor. He entered the flat in a hurry, without looking at the door of the neighbour who lived opposite and used to peep through eyehole whenever he heard a suspect movement. He leant against the wall, feeling exhausted. He had had a most exciting day, a top of the latest week's activities. He needed rest. On the table in the dining room lay a huge bunch of red roses, his favourite flowers. It couldn't have been anyone else but his sister who had brought them. She loved roses, she had the key of his flat. He took the note from its still wet petals and looked for his glasses.
He was attracted by the bright appearance of the roses. Such a sanguine red he had never seen, the purple red of the Roman's purple, the red of the blood that flows to death, of the apparatus lights, mean words, Concentrate, the doctor in a fury: "Why don't you decrease your heartbeats?" the red light slower and slower, some flowers, roses, his heart contracting less and less, his breath reduced, suffocation, the rope pressing his neck and Eve smiling to him languidly.
He fell on the floor. His watch was ticking desperately, it whistled hopelessly, trying to attract his attention. He watched the figure giving his pulse rate: Five. FIVE! And the green, saving light, the green of the grass, of the leaves, of the irrepressible, boiling life.
"Accelerate!" the doctor shouted long ago, the green light, the heart beating more rapidly, the figure increasing, green, twenty, forty, sixty, green, it's all right. He stood up, leaning on the table with both of his hands, after he had lain on the floor for a long time, too exhausted to make the slightest movement. Looking elsewhere, he grasped the roses from the vase, feeling the living pain, several thorns, having pierced his fingers. He ran to the kitchen, still clutching the flowers, firm stalks with his blood spotted hand, blood which refused to watch him. The waste-paper basket opened widely, its lid, kindly showing its mouth to the living roses, red roses, flowers, red...
He tightly pressed together his eyelids, trying to forget the red co... and everything that colour meant, he wanted to forget even the word. He washed his hands, watching an unshaved face that started to smile to him falsely, then cleaned his palm with alcohol till his wounds stopped bothering him. His legs knew but a single way and he lay on the bed, moaning from the pain and pleasure, trying to dream of a world without colours which mastered life. The bell rang stubbornly for a long time... He turned the bedside table lamp on, he locked at the watch:2:21-P53 The small lights were off.
"Coming!" He opened the door, still confused. A man in a uniform greeted him touching his cap.
"I am from the Public Health Front". He showed his identity card.
"Do you know the time?!"
"Yes, sir, and I apologise for waking you up, but the situation can't be postponed."
"What situation?" the confused man asked showing his surprise.
"Something unusual happened in your block of flats, sir. All the people who live on the first seven floors have just died of heart attacks. You appear to be the only survivor, sir..."
"Me?..."
"How did you feel last night? Let's say about 9 p.m. Did you feel dizzy or like you couldn't breathe anymore?"
"Well..."
"Can you tell me how you felt last night?"
"No, I mean, yes, there were some cold shivers..."
"Cold shivers?" He simply couldn't explain, red was immaterial to him, nobody told him: "Concentrate!", that damn doctor didn't know him. He only came from outside to ascertain the cause of death by, ...hm..., heart attack, and had a briefcase, he was without guilt, and the briefcase...
"Green" he said.
"Green?" the man in uniform asked. Yes, the green of the briefcase, of the leaves, lights on the apparatus, dozens of families killed by him, he was without guilt, a colour, the doctor, telepathy maybe, green again, the quickening heartbeats. He moved his look from the briefcase rapidly, staring al the ceiling's yellow. His breathing was normal, it was all right, only yellow. He made an effort to look down. There, the stranger writhed in agony. His eyes were bulging, his face was red and he continued to press his own neck. His pulse started to get slightly faster, little by little, as it had formerly stopped his neighbours heartbeats, dozen of them, a quick death, with shivers and doctors cursing, but he is without guilt, telepathy and the reflex, red-green. The young man lay motionless.
"Is this one going to die, too? Is it better?" No one will ever find out, he will go far away and they won't know why. Yet they will be searching for him, if not for murder, at least for science's sake, they will hunt him down, a cornered automaton.
It would be better to save him. At least to try. The same score. But he will never become a dissected frog. It was easy. His heartbeats started to get slightly faster, stealing the energy and the rhythm of the other one, little by little, a kind of green-red light, green for him and red for... till the other's heartbeats normally, but his, once having started, hardly could be stopped, for the green of the grass, of the leaves and the white of the bedsheet, the door smelling of bleach, Concentrate, Eve and her smile, her still hand towards him, like once, blue.
"Heart attack!" shouted the doctor... The young man opened his eyes. His energies were growing. He stood up, trying to recall his memories, the reason he lay there. The intruder lay down, that man, the only survivor, smiling over death. He knew it, he felt it, his dilated pupils showed him, his unusual blue eyes. Useless, he bent over the young man, a reflex. He had the satisfaction of a fulfilled duty.
"Hey, mister?"
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