Читать книгу The Immune - Doc Lucky Meisenheimer - Страница 7

John Long slid over the water ’s surface off Grand Cayman. Even though the sun was setting, plenty of light penetrated the crystal clear water to illuminate the reef below. He glanced left at the trim female body in a white and silver swimsuit matching him stroke for stroke. A few strands of her brown hair loosened from beneath her yellow swim cap and swirled in the eddy currents behind her head.

He smiled with remembrance of the previous evening. He had proposed to Cassandra at The Wharf Restaurant. They were sitting at a table on the water ’s edge, throwing pieces of bread rolls to the tarpon that swam to the restaurant each evening. Their eyes remained fixed on the shimmering bodies of several five-foot fish swimming on top of each other. The surface of the water boiled as each tarpon tried to out-position the next for the tidbits cast from the restaurant patrons’ plates.

Cassandra reached for the last roll, but it was already in John’s hand.

“Let’s split it,” said John with a sly smile.

Her brown eyes sparkled as she smiled back. She took one end of the hard roll and pulled. As the bread separated, a glistening object fell from the roll and landed, spinning on her plate.

“Ohhh!” Cassandra gasped.

John looked at the ring, a heart-shaped cut diamond sandwiched between two deep red rubies, and said, “Thank God! I was beginning to think we’d fed the wrong roll to the tarpon. I imagined spending the rest of the weekend fishing.”

She gave him a soft punch in the arm, then a long kiss, which lasted all night and through two room services.

Today, they arose just in time for an early evening swim. Cassandra was the ideal woman for him. He’d dated many women and she, unlike others, understood the pressures on a physician, especially one with a busy internal medicine practice. Additionally, she loved to swim, which was his passion.

As he cut through the water with his now fiancé, his medical practice seemed a million miles away, but tomorrow he would return to reality. An hour and a half flight would force him to reenter the world of medical forms. With all of medicine’s issues, he couldn’t think of one improved by paperwork. Yet, the government’s answer to every problem was invariably another form. Then there were resolving staff issues, fighting denials by insurance companies, paying bills, and, of course, seeing the occasional patient should he get any free time. However, at this moment, John was at perfect peace.

He smiled as he passed over a large coral head covered with several black spiny sea urchins. The water was so shallow, he could easily see the colorful parrotfish swimming in and out. Occasionally, one would go vertical in the water to take a small bite of algae growing on the coral. John could hear a cacophony of clicks on the reef as hundreds of parrotfish repeated their feeding behavior.

John shouted to Cassandra, “Close your eyes and listen to the clicks.”

Suddenly, John was lifted several feet as a large wave passed beneath. As the crest of the wave went by, the subsequent trough dropped John toward the coral heads below. John instinctively put his hands out to brace himself for impact on the outcrop of coral. Cassandra, who was swimming to his left, dropped harmlessly beyond the edge. John’s right hand caught the edge of coral head, which stabilized his position but shifted his body uncomfortably close to the coral. He shoved to move himself into deeper water, but as he pushed, a sharp stabbing pain shot through his hand and radiated up the arm. Reflexively, he jerked his hand back. As he did, a sea urchin with long black spines dislodged from a fissure in the coral.

Embedded in his thenar eminence, the meaty muscle at the base of the thumb, was a broken black, urchin spine. A streak of blood appeared at the entry point of the spine and dissipated into the surrounding water. Cassandra was treading water next to him. She saw the grimace on his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“The wave trough dropped me down on the coral head. I got stuck by an urchin,” said John. He showed her his hand. One centimeter of the spine was sticking out from the skin.

“Ouch, that must hurt! We’d better go in,” said Cassandra.

“Wait, sometimes big waves come in sets. I don’t want to be over any coral heads if another passes.”

Within seconds, they were lifted again by another large wave, this time even bigger than the first.

“Where did these waves come from?” Cassandra questioned. “The cruise ships already left, and it’s too big for a wake anyway.” A moment later, a third wave lifted and dropped them down.

John, while studying his punctured hand, said, “It’s probably from some underwater landslide, seismic shift. Who knows.”

They treaded water for several minutes. Other big waves passed, but none comparable to the first three.

Finally, Cassandra said, “It’s almost dark. You’re bleeding, and we’re 200 meters from shore. I’d rather chance bumping into coral versus being bumped by large things that swim in the night.”

“Yeah, chumming the water with my blood is like ringing a dinner bell out here.”

After swimming back to their hotel, a swarthy Caymanian with blue eyes wearing a hotel staff shirt ran up.

“Are you people okay? Did you get caught in the big waves?”

“Yeah,” said John, “we’re fine. The swells passed under us. Was anyone injured?” John surveyed the disarray of lounge chairs on the beach. The waves carried some all the way to the back entrance of the lobby.

“No bad injuries,” said the attendant, “just scrapes and bumps. Most guests already left the beach for the evening.”

“Well, let me know if I can help in any way,” said John. “I’m a physician.”

Back in the hotel room, John managed to remove the spine with some difficulty. He sat down to watch the U.S. evening news as he wrapped a bandage around the injury.

An attractive blonde-haired reporter appeared on the screen. She was doing a remote report from the steps of the Capitol.

“Senator Bedford is the second senator from the state of Massachusetts to die from a heart attack this year. This brings the total to seven senate deaths this year. We have to go back to 1918 to find this many senators dying from natural causes in one year.”

John mused aloud, “This could have the potential of being good, except they keep replacing them.”

Ignoring John’s cynicism, Cassandra said, “Oh jeez, I’ve got to call my stepbrother, Chunky. I haven’t talked to him in three months. The last time we spoke, I told him things seemed to be getting serious. I want to let him know you popped the question and against my better judgment, I said yes.”

John laughed, then asked, “You haven’t talked to him in three months?”

“Yeah,” said Cassandra, “remember, I told you before, he heads up a research team who studies bottle nose dolphins. It’s hard to get a hold of him because he’s always on a boat or on some remote island. For all I know he could be floating off shore right now. You’d like him. I guess you’ll get to meet him at the wedding.”

She smiled widely at John. Her attention switched to the phone as she connected. “Chunky, it’s me! Guess what!” She walked into the other room, chattering happily.

John opened and closed his now bandaged hand and winced in pain.