Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

Hesitation grew in her mind, fear expanded in her middle, the further she went; but when she finally paused, it was not to turn back. It was because she had arrived. The Father was near. She shivered at what felt like a branch brush against her ankle, another thing caress her hip.

Patricia lifted her head from the water, let her feet fall below her, and gulped the lake air. The moonlight was dim, and not much good even to her night-accustomed eyes. She could make out the sky, its canopy of stars—and she could tell the line where the sky met the mountaintops. She could feel the water moving about her, the Old Man’s will working on it.

She drew a shaking breath, and closed her eyes and pursed her lips. She did not so much recite the call as she allowed it to pass through her.

And as she did, the fear slaked away. For in her halting whistles, the simple message she conveyed, was a kind of peace. It felt like forgiveness. She was in the Old Man’s hands, telling Him a message from His own child, the prodigal—a message that He was happy or at least anxious to hear. She looked at the sky, at the dark mountain, and even as the line between the two grew jagged, spires like tree trunks emerging from the lake around her and blocking off the stars, as more branches, more vines seemed to wrap her middle, she thought only of Love.

When the water fell away from her sides and she felt herself lifting over the lake, her naked flesh shivering beneath the ancient gaze in the now-encompassing shadow, she thought: There is no need to take that Love.

I give it. And there is plenty.

7 - The Hippocratic Oath

“Tell me about Mister Juke,” were not the very first words Andrew Waggoner spoke after the morphine haze passed. Those were French, almost certainly profane, and in their particulars a complete mystery to the nurses who tended the doctor as he returned to himself. But if “Tell me about Mister Juke” were not his first words, they were the first ones suitable for polite company; the first ones that got any kind of answer.

Andrew was dozing in the mid-morning when the door opened and Dr. Nils Bergstrom stepped through, alone. Dr. Bergstrom was an exceedingly thin man, and recently so. When Andrew had arrived in the autumn, Bergstrom carried his weight around his belly, and his blond-frosting-to-white mutton-chop sideburns drew attention to thick jowls. He’d undergone some sort of a regime over the winter—although what, Andrew couldn’t say, for he always seemed to be eating—and now the sideburns hung like drapes. He stole close to Andrew’s bedside and bent down toward his face.

Andrew opened his eyes.

“Tell me about Mister Juke,” he said.

Dr. Bergstrom did nothing more than blink, twice, to indicate his surprise. He stood straight, crossed his arms and smiled.

“You don’t want to know how you are doing first?”

Andrew looked down at his legs, lifted each one a few inches and flexed the fingers of both his hands. One of those hands was at the end of an arm splinted to above the elbow, and moving it hurt like a knife-twist.

“Looks like I’m all here,” he said. “It’s pretty sore.”

“I can give you another shot, if you like.”

“Morphine? No thank you.” Andrew knew what morphine did for men, and he knew what it did to them. On balance, he disliked it. “Thank you for offering.” He sighed.

Dr. Bergstrom harrumphed. “You are welcome, Doctor. Now—as to your health: although you did not think to ask, I will tell you.”

“Thank you again.”

“You have injuries of the ligaments in your left hip and knee. Bruising and strain is what it amounts to, but I do not recommend you attempt to walk on it for at least a few days—preferably longer. Doing so will change your mind on morphine.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

Dr. Bergstrom gave him a stern look. “I am concerned about your kidneys and bowel so will be watching your emissions in that regard. You have taken a blow to your skull which is not as bad as it might have been; you have avoided serious concussion. But the coincident cuts necessitated a good deal of stitch-work. As is the case with your lower extremities, it is only a matter of time and you should be as fine as you were before the… attack. The more serious injury is there.” He indicated Andrew’s right arm—the arm with the splint.

“The bone was broken near the elbow. And that,” he said, “will prove a problem. You will not be able to perform surgery for some months. And I cannot say how well you will rehabilitate.”

Andrew let that sink in. He knew enough how easily bones could set wrong, to know that Dr. Bergstrom was if anything understating the troubles he might face.

“That could bar me from the surgery,” he said quietly. “For good. That’s what you’re saying.”

Bergstrom shrugged. “Or it could heal well. Your hands are undamaged, and that is good. As to how your arm progresses: that is up to you. You and God.”