Читать книгу Wake-Up Call - Joaquin De Torres - Страница 11

“Oh, my God!” I breathed as my heart resumed beating. “Look at that!” I couldn’t help but feel both amazed and horrified by the sight of Patricia Miren, frozen in time with Encephalitis Lethargica and Catatonia. . .moving! But it wasn’t a “breakthrough” movement where her hand shifted, or her head turned a few degrees in one direction; no, it was a normal movement; an extension of her body like any healthy person would perform. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing here!”

The Night Cam captured Patricia, who was curled in her normal fetal position on her left side, extend her legs down, pivot and roll onto her right side. Next to the bed, Ivana had left the drawing pad and box of pencils on a feeding table. Patricia reached over to the table and rolled towards her so that it was positioned directly over the bed. With the materials now in front of her, she sat upright, opened to the first white page and began scribbling on it with a pencil in her right hand.

I watched silently in awe as the video moved into some 20 minutes of footage. She had filled the blank page with images, large and small, using pencil after pencil, until their tips could produce no more marks. The camera couldn’t capture any of the images clearly; all we could see were dark marks on the paper. When all the pencils were finally rendered useless, she put them back into the box, placed the pad back to its original position and pushed the table away to its place. She then assumed her original frozen position until morning when Ivana and an attendee came in to change the IV and change the sheets.

Ivana stopped the video.

“That was just three days ago,” she said.

“My God, that was amazing,” I breathed. “May I see the drawings?” She took a larger folder from within her desk and retrieved the sheet of drawing paper, placing it in front of me. I didn’t know what I was looking at, but it looked very normal and familiar. A page full of stick figures that looked like people; a multitude of stick trees; so many, in fact, that it looked like Patricia was trying to draw a forest. The stick people looked like their arms were in the air. Above the people and trees were obviously stars, the point-to-point stars that children first learn how to draw, but multitudes of them. Then in several spots, clearly separated from the main drawing were other markings.

“This looks like,” I hesitated and swallowed, “math!” Ivana nodded in agreement.

“That’s why I called Zelda.” Zelda moved closer in next to me.

“Believe it or not, they are basic formulas and equations for Quantum Mechanics,” she commented.

“Are we talking Einstein stuff?” I asked.

“Exactly.” She took the drawing and pointed to each of the equations. “Look at this.” My eyes gazed upon the labyrinth of numbers, letters and lines that were so expansive that some of it was written right off the page. “Do you know what all this is?”

I shook my head. “This is part of an equation developed by Werner Karl Heisenberg, known by many of us as the Father of Quantum Physics.” She quickly pointed to another portion of the page, her hands shaking. “And this! It’s barely readable but these are basic Quantum Mechanics equations dealing with momentum, energy, space vectors, and wave functions.”

I didn’t know what the hell Zelda was talking about concerning the math. What I was struggling with was how could a person frozen in a comatose existence for years, suddenly wake up momentarily and write all this down.

“And Javier, look at this.” Zelda’s voice continued to strain with mounting excitement and nervousness. “Do you know what this is?” I could see that an incredulous, almost wild-like expression glazed off her eyes, making them bigger than before. I looked at the equation string which was cleaner and less jumbled, yet no more understandable than the previous two.

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“These are some of the essential components of Higgs particles!” My face and silence only registered my abject ignorance of what she was saying. She looked at me as if my lack of knowledge was somehow life-threatening. “Particle Physics? The God Particle? The symmetry and composition of mass in the universe? Anything?” I shrugged and smirked defenselessly which seemed to annoy her. “Okay!” she continued querulously. “How about these?” I looked and shook my head, completely baffled, and getting annoyed myself at her insistence.

“These are equations from Schrödinger’s theory of Step Potential.” She pointed to another set. “These concern kinetic energy.” She canted the paper to the left. “Look at this one between the people and the stars.” Her finger circled a long equation. “This deals with a quantum harmonic oscillator. It’s classic.” She suddenly pounded her fist on the table, startling me and Ivana. “And it’s fucking accurate! Now, how the fuck-” Zelda held her hands up in resignation, took a deep breath, and shook her head to calm herself down. This was her field. She was completely comfortable with all these strange shapes, numbers and symbols. But when she looked back at Ivana and I, she saw only blank, stupid stares. She struggled a smile and lowered her tone.

“Look, according to her file Patricia dropped out of high school when she was 16.” Her fingertips drummed on one of the equations. “This is the stuff I taught at MIT and UCLA. These equations are perfectly written, considering her hands are, or were, severely atrophied and rigid.” She took a breath, still disbelieving in this enigma. “There’s no way she can know these, much less write them down with such accuracy like a sixth-year Physics grad student.” Ivana looked at me, both of us in sync with the same thought.

“Photographic memory?” I proffered. But Zelda was shaking her head as if she expected this suggestion. She pointed again.

“Look at these sets between these two stars.” Her finger tips tracing a square around the equation.

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“These deal with neutron scattering, phonons, linear chains and harmonics. These are completely separate disciplines than what was written earlier.”

“But if she does have a deeply recessed photographic memory, she could have simply looked at photos of these equations in some discarded physics book, and they’d be stored,” Ivana countered. Zelda bit her lip and shook her head again.

“But where and why would she even look at them?” I could see Zelda’s skepticism and her conflict. While a photographic memory explanation could be accepted, albeit with hard scrutiny by Ivana and I, it just didn’t flow with Zelda’s scientific experience. And the more I thought about it, the more I began to take her side. As we analyzed the drawings and took stock in our theories in silence, I finally came to the realization that, like Doogie’s amazing ability to name stars just by looking at them, there was no way in hell that Patricia Miren understood or knew of Quantum Mechanics. Just like there was no way in hell that Doogie knew about Astronomy. I looked into Zelda’s large eyes, seemingly pleading for reason, and I nodded.

“You’re right, Zelda. I believe you.” She smiled slightly and laid her head momentarily on my shoulder. We both looked at Ivana whose expression was neither relieved nor convinced.

“There’s more,” she said flatly. “Zelda, I didn’t show you this part because I wanted both of you to view it together with absolute objectivity.” Both Zelda and I righted ourselves in our seats, suddenly uncomfortable and anxious.

“After that first night, I had cameras installed throughout the room to film all day and all night. I have hours of footage, but I consolidated them into this segment.”

She started the video clips after clicking on a specific folder. They were even more amazing and more unbelievable than the first one she showed. Throughout the day and into the night Patricia began to move and draw at will. Even with Ivana sitting there observing, Patricia worked as if no one were there, and with no apparent Lethargica impeding her. She used pencil after pencil, sheet after sheet-drawing, writing and marking. Ivana periodically replenished the pencils with fresh ones while Patricia waited in a frozen pose; when a new pad was needed, Patricia again assumed her statue-like position. Once Ivana replaced it, the movement would resume.

In another set of clips, Ivana tried to spoon feed her while she drew. Patricia opened her mouth and took in the food without looking away from her work. It was the first time in years that this had taken place and it was recorded on all four newly installed cameras. I heard Ivana crying softly, and both Zelda and I reached out to hold her hand. Patricia’s face had clearly changed; in fact, it changed several times before our very eyes. It was no longer twisted in a grimace, but placid. Her eyes were always closed as she drew, never once opening, but she looked serene in her waking sleep. As I looked up at the time counter and date, I realized that Ivana had stayed at her side all day and night.

By the third night, last night, the coordination between both women was utterly beautiful. Ivana was not only feeding Patricia pencils and paper, but feeding her solid foods and drink. The young woman’s body no longer reverted to her frozen poses, but remained relaxed and in more comfortable poses while waiting for Ivana. At one point, and this is what sent gooseflesh rifling up my arms, Patricia stopped drawing and turned her head to Ivana with her eyes still closed. There was no movement for several moments. But when Ivana brought her hand to Patricia’s face and caressed her cheek, the young woman opened her eyes and smiled slightly. I brought both of my hands up and cleared my eyes of tears, and when I glanced at both women with me, I saw them wiping tears from their eyes, as well. Ivana then stopped the video.

“I think we need a break,” she said smiling weakly. She got up and went to her office kitchen area where a refrigerator stood. She brought back a tray with glasses and cartons of fruit juice and placed it on the table. Both Zelda and I looked at each other and back to her, almost in unison we asked:

“Do you have anything stronger?” We all laughed immediately. Ivana then went back to the fridge and brought back two flasks, both containing clear liquid.

“This bottle has Šlivovica. It’s Bosnian clear whiskey made from plums. I also have chilled vodka.” Zelda and I looked at each other again.

“Give us the Bosnian whiskey!” we both demanded enthusiastically. Ivana laughed as she filled all our glasses and raised them in the air.

“To Ivana, a guaranteed Nobel Prize winner!” exulted Zelda.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Ivana countered. “But I’ve got plenty of material for a good case study!”

“And a book!” I chimed in. We clinked glasses and drained them. Zelda’s face puckered hard at the fruity, burning bitterness of the Bosnian libation; I just opened my mouth soundlessly in shock as the drink seemed to shoot straight into my brain. Ivana laughed again and refilled the glasses. Zelda stifled a cough, but held a thumbs up.

“Shit, that’s strong! I love it!”

“Me, too!” I muffled as I took my second glass. Ivana’s animated expression receded back to her professional yet placid face as she put her drink aside and proffered another folder.

“Just wait until you see what Patricia drew during those hours.” She handed a few pages to both Zelda and I. She then took a large magnifying glass out of her desk drawer and gave it to Zelda. The drawings were of huge dark shapes that seemed cut off at the paper’s edge.

“Before I show you the rest of the drawings, I want you to look at the large dark areas with the magnifying glass.” Zelda held it down to the almost solid black images. I saw her mouth open. She spun the pages, and looked again from different angles.

“Incredible!” She gave me the magnifying glass. I peered through it and saw that the solid black shapes were not solid at all, but symbols drawn so densely that they looked solid from a distance. I looked at Zelda, and she was nodding to me. The symbols were more, infinitely more Quantum Mechanics equations but written in a size that one would could not possibly see with the naked eye. She rotated the paper so I could view all the tiny writings of mathematical symbols.

“Jesus!” I gasped. Ivana gave us another sheet and we viewed it through the lens, but this time there were no equations making up the solid mass, but stick people. Another sheet showed the black mass filled only with stick trees.

“This one is very interesting.” Ivana pulled out another one in which the mass was full of round discs.

“What does this all mean?” Zelda asked. “Because outside of the mathematics formulas, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at.”

“There’s a big picture,” Ivana stated as she removed all the previous folders that were on her desk and replaced them with all the sheets of drawings she had in no apparent order. “I figured out a pattern. I just don’t know what it is. Stand up, you two. Stand with me.” The three of us stood back a few paces from the table. I grinned as Zelda instantly found the pattern.

“They’re letters!” she exclaimed. She stepped up and connected the sheets together in the order she felt made the best sense. When she stepped back again, I was the one whose mouth dropped open. “What does that mean?” Zelda asked. Ivana looked at me as I drew closer.

Across the table, all the shapes laid out together spelled out the word:

ARE YOU THE COMMANDER!? I blinked hard as the memory of my dream flushed through me instantly.

“Doogie!” I exhaled. Suddenly, Ivana’s desk phone rang. She moved around the desk and touched the speaker button.

“Dr. Livancic?”

“Hello, Ivana. This is Ellen. I think you and Dr. Flores should come down here to the puzzle room.”

“Is there an emergency?”

“No, no emergency. Just come.”

We all walked at a brisk pace down to Pentecostes’ therapy area. We met her at the reception counter which seemed abandoned by the nurses and attendants that were previously there. Even the security guards were gone.

“Where is everybody?” Ivana asked as we arrived. Ellen was smiling and pointed down the hall where we had taken Doogie. As we made our way down that hallway, passing all the various therapy activity rooms, we noticed a throng of people outside the puzzle room.

“Is Doogie still in there?”

“Yes, he is!” Ellen giggled. “Okay, you guys! Back to your stations!” she ordered with a big cheerfully. The people looking into the room turned around smiling and shaking their heads. We looked into the windows. Doogie was sitting in one of the chairs inspecting his work.

“Oh my!” Ivana gasped. We entered the large room and put our backs to the window glass to take in the scene. We could not step too far into the room as the floor was almost completely carpeted with completed puzzles. Doogie had completed every puzzle, all that were available, and laid them out on the floor like a massive tapestry. On another table, all the Rubik’s cubes had been completed, each side a solid color. In the center of the room, the thousands of random pieces of LEGOs were assembled into a perfect replica of all three great pyramids of Giza; the tallest pyramid–Khufu-standing almost four feet tall! And finally laying on other tables were two poster-zed art pages upon which were sketches. One page had a forest scene at night, depicting the stars viewed from the ground; the other page was of a large disc with rays of light emanating from within; some kind of activated inner circuitry.

My eyes and focus fell upon the second drawing immediately. I knew the disc well. It came straight out of my dream. But I had no clue about the forest scene.

“How long have we been gone?” breathed Zelda.

“About an hour and a half,” answered Ivana numbly.

“I need another drink!” I heard myself say.

“Who is this little man?” Ellen mused. “He’s amazing!” I couldn’t fault Ellen for her amusement. She thought it was awesomely wonderful; but to the rest of us, somehow we couldn’t help thinking that this all might be dangerous.

“I’m going to leave you guys to analyze this now,” Ellen said. “I’ve got to take care of some patient appointments.” We thanked her and she left us.

“Zelda, after lunch I want you to conduct the test on Doogie that we discussed,” said Ivana.

“Test?” I asked.

“Based on what you’ve told me about Doogie and how he performed in the park, plus what we’ve seen here, I want to see how connected our two patients are. Obviously, the disc seems to be a common denominator.” I nodded in agreement. “We already seem to know what Patricia has within herself; it’s time to find out what Doogie knows, besides his puzzle-solving and LEGO-building abilities.”

“We also need to know if there are others,” Zelda added. This silenced both Ivana and myself. So engrossed with our patients, we neglected to ask ourselves if there could be a larger pattern. “Perhaps you should contact some of your colleagues to ask if their patients have had similar awakenings.” Ivana nodded her head.

“I will, but before that I’d like to have a common frame of case reference. Test Doogie and then I’ll call them.”

“What are you going to test him on?” I asked Zelda. She turned to me.

“You said Doogie knows stars and planets? I worked at NASA for six years, upgrading the Hubble telescope. I was required to chart stars, pulsars and black holes, as well as monitor the Sun’s solar flare activity. We’ll see exactly what Doogie knows.”