Theatre of Operations (M)

CHART # 00870124350	PRIMARY FACILITY Vestibriüm University Hospital	CODE	ATTENDING PHYSICIAN Kördann	TYPE n/a	AU C
DISPOSITION (STATUS) In progress	ARTICLE (JOURNAL REF) Notwithstanding Venice

The city that was not Chicago, nor any other city -- familiar now with that green domed monument (like the Jefferson Memorial) on its hazy skyline. Here again, I had been shot. Once through my left side under the arm, a clean entrance wound with a mangled exit. Soft tissue. But two more holes... One in front over my heart and another in back, removed just far enough from the first so that I could not be sure whether the holes did, in fact, connect. Meaning I could be walking around with two slugs still inside. Whatever the case, my left lung was pooling with blood, sporadically expectorated.

The woman at the coffee shop noticed my predicament. "You need a doctor," she observed, serving my espresso. "No," I insisted, "They'll notify the authorities. Never fails." She reached across the counter to lift my stained shirt and nodded thoughtfully, "Not Dr. Kördann. She'll take care of you." I gulped bitter coffee, which mingled distastefully with blood. "Dr. Cordian?"

She began sketching a crude, circular map on a napkin. "This city is strange to me," I admitted. "Pandemonium," she responded almost inaudibly, "in the glory of its modern incarnation." (Thus accounting for the indigenous haze.) "We're here," she implored, pointing to a scribbled glyph near the edge of her diagram, "And Dr. Kördann is here, near the core. Nine kilometers. A perilous walk, especially as darkness falls." She pursed her lips in consideration. "My bike's outside," she suggested, "If you're up to it."

Midway through my journey, I found myself, in tangled avenues. A woman walking a large cat stood beside me as I waited for a procession to pass. She looked carefully at the blood covering my shirt and nodded (almost approvingly). "Looks like rain," she declared. I glanced upwards... "No," she said, "Not that kind of rain. Your shirt..." I frowned. "You know," she continued, "Rain." She nodded again, as if having made a point. "Years ago, I was nominated for a Nobel Prize," the woman announced, "Well, me and my partner. After the project was over, I moved on, you know? Had to. But my partner was infuriated and accused me of using her stature for my own recognition. That really upset me. It would upset you, wouldn't it? Well, it upset me." (Odd, that an incognizant cavalcade should hold me in this limbo, subjected to the curious rambling of this self-proclaimed Nobel laureate.) "And then," the woman sighed, "she had the audacity to suggest that I never really loved her -- that our relationship was an adulterous sham." She shook her head in recollection, pursing her lips. "So I went fuckin' ballistic," she explained. "Took the back of her head and smashed her face with my knee, hard as I could. Broke her fuckin' nose. Heard it crack... Blood poured out like a faucet -- pools of it fuckin' all over the place. "Like rain, you know?" As if to punctuate her anecdote, one of the bullets shifted, and I coughed a large volume of blood onto the concrete. The woman studied the fluid. "Interesting," she observed, "how quickly it clots."

At the clinic, Nurse Atticus was checking for radiation leakage. Her Geiger counter resembled an exterminator's spraying apparatus; a long, thin probe wired to a stainless steel cask. "As a child in Leningrad, I learned to play the cello," she announced over the static of subatomic particles. I pressed fingers against the increasingly vile sustenance oozing from my thorax, "My wounds..." She glanced at me briefly, but her face registered little concern, "I've seen worse," she remarked, "Though they look well festered. You're sure they're not self-inflicted?" Then she laughed with a horrendous wheeze. "My foot... It was caught in the hydraulic mechanism," she explained, "See? Now it's gone from the knee down. They say it will never grow back, but I've been rubbing with linseed oil daily, just to be sure." I nodded uneasily... "Is the doctor here?" Nurse Atticus frowned, "She is, but... I can't admit you now." I coughed more blood, thicker than before, "Well, is it possible that I might be admitted in the future?" The Nurse responded with a sigh, "Yes, but not at present." I regarded the open hallway leading to what I presumed to be examination rooms. I detected the smell of ether, but heard no one. "If you're so inclined," she dared, "try venturing back there on your own. But take heed. There are nine rooms, and only in one will you find your doctor." I lowered my head, and noticed the abstruse array of spattered fluids I had left on the floor. So I dug some change from my pocket -- all I had left after paying for the coffee. "Seventy-three cents," she observed, "That won't help you here. But I'll take your money so that you won't feel you've left anything untried." Perturbed, I moved towards the rooms. Nurse Atticus hobbled to intercept me, but stopped short of interfering. "Go if you must," she wheezed, "But don't let her put you under." (...lest I awaken transformed, cowering as Nurse Atticus dispenses the Beige Death from her Geiger counter.)

Inside, I walked the corridor's length, passing each of the nine doors, then turned back, confused and disoriented. "I've been waiting," said Dr. Kördann, "Here." I sat on an exam table as she peered at my wounds from a few inches away, squinting intently as her fingers traced the swollen contours. I felt her breath against my chest... Then she stepped back a few feet as if to survey the damage from afar. Finally, she pulled a pair of glasses from her pocket. "Your guardian angel would seem remiss," she declared while inspecting the holes with enhanced faculties. "Saved your life, perhaps. But could certainly have taken more care to avoid that nerve cluster. Very dangerous." She picked up a stainless steel probe with a small hook on the end. "Ever see her?" she wondered, "Your guardian angel, that is?" I shook my head, "Maybe Pandemonium isn't her venue." Dr. Kördann nodded, "Pan demon," she mused, "Place of all demons." (...in various incarnations.)

"Nurse Kafka thought my wounds looked self-inflicted," I admitted. But Dr. Kördann smiled. "If that's the case," she observed, "it was a very negligent effort." She raised her chin and tilted her head to one side, revealing a mass of knotted scar tissue beneath her jaw. "Went clean through. Exited back here." She touched the back of her head. "Blew my skull wide open. The bone fragments were too small to be wired back together, so I've got a steel plate now. Both my eyes ruptured from the pressure -- almost lost the retinas." I noticed the pronounced asymmetry of her face, and the unusual splotches of pigment in her left iris. "You were lucky." But Dr. Kördann shook her head. "The iron rod that lobotomized Mr. Phineas P. Gage is still on display at Harvard in the Warren Museum. Made quite an impression. But what I failed to realize is that the odds of surviving a lightning strike are far better than the odds of being struck in the first place," she told me. "A grave disparity overshadows. And in the end, these landmark neurological case studies are little more than macabre curiosities. No one ever comes through intact."

With a twisting motion, she eased her tool into one of my wounds... "Hmmm." ...then inadvertently grazed a nerve. "Sorry," she offered in response to my spasm, "I guess I wasn't paying attention. Could you hold this?" I gingerly took hold of the instrument, afraid of aggravating those unsheathed bundles. "Just one second..." She sat down at the counter, where she began scribbling notes in a worn, leather-bound journal. Seven minutes later, she turned back towards me. "Oh," she said, "You can pull that out now." I grimaced while easing the rod from my body.

"You need surgery," Dr. Kördann revealed, "No fun for you. Mind if I do it?" I paused, recalling Nurse Atticus' admonition. "You're hesitant," observed Dr. Kördann. "Skeptical, as I would be. But let me show you something." She retrieved the journal and thumbed through her collection of diagrams to find a blank page. "Now watch." Biting her lip, she wrote a few lines, then handed me the booklet. (...to flounder in the eternal murk -- a moat of icy waters infested by corrupt serpents, stocked to protect the id.) "You see?" she tapped the page with her index finger. "I wrote that. You saw me yourself. That's my handwriting. Hardly the disturbed scrawl you might expect of a surgeon." Indeed, hers was the cursive of an artist. Meticulous and beautiful. "Your aesthetics were never in doubt," I assured her. "But the moat..." She removed her glasses and looked to the floor. "Yes, well... It's necessary," she revealed. "After Harvard, when I was nominated... I mean, when my partner... Well, M-Deity Syndrome is nearly always fatal. My soul was dying." And I suddenly realized her desecration was intentional. "You performed the surgery on yourself." She pressed her eyes shut, releasing a tear on the left side. "A risk," she conceded stoically. "But sometimes healthy tissue must be sacrificed... If the patient is to survive." She put her glasses back on, wiping her cheek dry in the process. "The id regenerates, but only insofar as the scars will allow. A sterile environment retards growth further. I implemented the cicatrix. As indicated." She forced a smile, "So it's you who are fortunate... To have such mortal wounds." She pursed her lips. "Invited or not, you're at Death's door. Familiar territory to us both. But I won't stop you... Unless you ask." I shrugged, "Please." She nodded approvingly, "I'll need a couple of fresh scalpels, maybe some ether. I'll be right back."

So, after she left the room, I took the opportunity to glance further at her notebook. ("...and whence those erstwhile passions engendered their bedraggled demons. Ay me and mine. 'Tis none less lascivious, nor savory...")

She returned with a handful of implements and a large glass jar. "Attempting a procedure like this is a bit unnerving. Chances of success are not good," admitted Dr. Kördann. "But I appreciate the challenge. Quite a rush. Too few doctors recognize that the elegance is in the process itself -- not the outcome. Like Pollock's Autumnal Rhythm..." she smiled while preparing her tools. "Years ago, I tried to describe a formal methodology for the creation of art," she reminisced, "but I couldn't prove the existence of art. My partner -- my associate -- insisted that art is axiomatic and rejected my very definition. You don't suppose that's true, do you?" She looked at me with a troubled expression, as if suspecting for the first time that her conviction might be in error, then picked up a vial with a class M radiation emblem, "No," she declared in response to her own question, "The science is sound. But that woman... Her stance upset me. It would upset you, wouldn't it?" She sighed with bitter exasperation, "Well, no matter. What's done is done."

She put her glasses back on and wheeled the tray of surgical implements to my side. "An unfortunate abstraction you've got going here," she reiterated, "A chaos indicative of demonic collaboration; or perhaps belligerence, if that distinction is possible." She carefully injected a cotton ball with volatile fluid, then hesitated... "Four slugs," she mused, "and only three holes. You've been here before." And I suddenly noticed how familiar she looked. In this city that was not Chicago, nor any other city.