I open my eyes with difficulty to find white walls and medical equipment, the sound of the machines beside me (beep beep beep), the strong smell of disinfectant penetrates my nose mixed with the distinctive smell of talcum powder for patients with bedsores. I resent, but I am not strong enough to resent, I am weak and tired. I get up to look at my reflection in the glass.
There you are, Adam, with your green eyes surrounded by that dark halo, lying on a hospital bed despite all the precautions; healthy food, daily exercise... and what is this? Is this a new wrinkle on your neck? Another point in favor of old age! Thank God for the beard that covers these wrinkles.
I hate wrinkles; I see them as a countdown to the end of everything and anything.
But despite all these wrinkles, dark circles, and signs of mortality, I still find myself enjoying the vigor of youth, with a slim body and sharp features. God, how I love looking in the mirror!
How many girls have been fascinated by this oblong face! With these green eyes that were crossed with a brown-olive brush to form a mixture of the two colors! The pointed chin and the dimples on the right side of my face only, of course I only learned this from my wife, and it was too late to exploit this commodity. Idiot, Idiot, Idiot... I am a real fool, they brought me here unconscious and carried on shoulders, and here I am flirting with myself like girls!
I was taken from that thought by a young doctor who was glancing at me from behind the glass with a fleeting glance, then he continued his conversation with one of the nurses, closed a file in his hand, and then reluctantly came to me.
He started treating the devices next to me as if he didn't see me, then I heard his voice saying:
" What a noise! You really are a celebrity."
The young doctor said as he pointed to the TV in front of him and the scene of me falling in front of everyone. At the bottom of the screen was written, "Premium CEO falls unconscious in front of everyone."
He was wearing a neat coat, underneath which peeked a luxurious concrete suit.
Really? I didn't know there was a doctor who had time to care about fashion these days. Wait, is that the French Saban perfume he smells of?
Hell, I'm a big pharma owner, yet I wear this cologne sparingly and on special occasions, while he pours the expensive liquid on his work clothes. But wait? That vintage Rolex dangling from his left was a jarring contrast to the scene.
The young man looked at me with his thin glasses and jet black hair arranged in a square, white face that suggested he was a "well-mannered man."
Welcome back .
He said it with a yellow smile that I was about to understand.
I shook my head, the pain hitting me so hard I gritted my teeth, but he got up from his seat and prepared a syringe, and continued saying:
" I won't lie to you, there's a battalion of journalists outside who were barely prevented from breaking down the hospital doors to talk to you." Sir, if I were wearing a hat I'd raise it to you in reverence; a devilish idea that never occurred to Hitler himself, since from that moment on prescriptions for the new drug have been pouring in on you. You made them own the drug and thus you owned them, but let me express my concern about those who will prescribe the medicine unnecessarily, whether it's needed or not. Oh, well, I forgot, that's the point, isn't it? The Egyptian Wizard, now I know why they call you that."
He settled down beside me, put his hands in the pockets of his medical coat, and continued,
" But what I fear most is that one day a rabbit will hang from one of your sleeves and your true nature will be exposed."
When he says "The Egyptian Magician," he means me. This was the nickname that stuck to me after he gave it to the German surgeon Josh Clement at an international conference, and it has been circulated in the press ever since, after my company set records in a short time.
I opened my mouth to force the words out despite the headache that enveloped me:
" Let me guess, you're just jealous of the idea, aren't you? I'm sure you're not an internist."
He laughed a loud laugh, then stared at me with black eyes peeking out from under his glasses and the remnants of a smile on his face:
" You're right on one part; I really do resent and detest the idea, not out of jealousy, but I find it a cheap way to legalize bribery. As for the other part, which concerns my specialty, I'm afraid you're right on the other hand, my specialty is oncology."
The last word hit my ears like a hand grenade that took some time to explode in my mind; what is an oncologist doing in my room?!
My throat went dry and my heart started to flutter as I watched him stick the needle into my IV. "What is this?" I asked.
He replied
- "A pain reliever for headaches."
I interrupted him with difficulty:
- "I mean why tumors? What brought you to my room? Where is Dr. Imad?"
I started shouting nervously while repeating my question. He tried to calm me down, but I didn't calm down. I tried to get up, but he prevented me from leaving my bed.
- Dr. Adam, calm down please, he has transferred your case to Dr. "Imad".
- Transfer me?! What do you mean by transfer me?!
Minutes later, Dr. Imad was sitting next to the young doctor. He patted my shoulder and said:
- Adam, thank God you're safe.
I screamed:
- What's going on? Tell me frankly, Emad. I want an explanation, please.
He smiled back, that medical smile that was of no use here:
"Calm down, please. You've been unconscious for eight whole hours. We ran several tests to make sure and she's on her way out."
I shouted again:
- Why tumors? Tell me? It's my right that you tell me.
He looked at the ground, then sighed in a way that made me even more anxious, then he replied:
- There are doubts that support the brain tumor theory, but let's not jump to any speculation before we see the results of the scan and MRI.
I lost him since he said: brain tumor. I froze like a statue, my eyes petrified, my body cells stopped dividing, I didn't notice them staring at each other in a dilemma of lack of words, and I didn't feel anything after that, I didn't feel the young doctor's symbols trying to pull me out of my reverie with some phrases that I didn't even hear; my body declared a state of emergency, including my ears, and they wouldn't obey until I understood what was happening.
They got up and left the place quietly, I turned to see the scene of my fall on the TV and I was thinking about the product that was lighting up in the background of the screen, millions had seen the product now without any effort, advertisements that could cost me millions that I got for free thanks to my illness.
You are a scoundrel, Adam! Look at what you are and what you are thinking? Actually, these were thoughts I imposed on my mind to distract it from its big concern.. There must be something wrong, my tests will come out clean, and I will sue those clowns, and I will demand the execution of this ugly young doctor.
The waiting was eating away at my insides, I called the nurse to help me to the bathroom, my bladder was going to explode after all this anxiety, add to it the gallons of IV fluids being poured into my veins.
The nurse reluctantly came and carried me gently while I leaned on her soft shoulder and entered my room to find both Imad and Ramez standing in the hallway, discussing in whispers, with some papers in their hands. They had not noticed my presence yet. I approached them slowly to eavesdrop, and my ears picked up some phrases, of which I could only interpret a few words: positive, and hypothalamus.
My heart dropped to the white tiles and fled the hospital.
No, it doesn't happen, not me, it happens to everyone, not me.
My eyes darted around , the fat nurse carrying me, the passersby in their transparent white clothes, the medical pants that reveal their buttocks, the television replaying the scene of my fall over and over again, millions of people dying, but not me, thousands of news stories about the dead every day, but the most important news in them remains the news of my death.
I felt very weak, so I approached them like the walking dead, I looked at them as if I was demanding an appeal, but their looks were eloquent, telling without saying that I had cancer and there was no hope of recovery.
I don't know how I left the hospital, I don't know how I drove my car, I don't know how I settled into my bed staring at the attic.
*****
We have become more branched than we should be, like drops of water escaping in thin channels, or like a mouse thrown on its back in the dark, damp corridor, tired of optimism and exhausted every time a glimmer of light appears: is this the end of the tunnel or the beginning of another? Tired of branching out, tired of obeying orders.
And so we are, born on a certain day and at a certain hour, and everyone tells us that tomorrow we have a life to live, but as soon as our hands leave the ground and we stand on our feet, we realize that we are living another life that has been prepared in advance, we are squeezed into a fragile, transparent layer on the borders of the line of years that are snatched from us against our will. I know people who lived and died without living, without starting. There are those who lived a life of denial and continued to struggle until the beasts consumed their being, leaving them a shadow on a wall, and there are those who surrendered, letting themselves be trampled on until they became dust, until nothing remained of them but a tombstone, a tombstone that says: "Here is a person who lived and did not live? And died and did not care."
Now, I am in bed and I cannot rest. I have failed miserably. I have wasted my life in vain until it reached its expiration date. As Nietzsche said: "I received my life years ago and have not lived it yet." I have kept it and not used it until it has rotted. I have buried the treasure and hidden it and left no tombstone and it has been lost to me. Oh my God, I have failed miserably. I will not sleep, I will not sleep, for Buddha once said: "Sleep is a little death." Well, Buddha, the great death, the eternal death, is enough for me. I, Buddha, during my youth, had this idea in my mind, that I alone am the real one in this world and all around me are just empty images or interactive illusory molds to give my life an atmosphere of reality. But in reality, if I go beyond what I see or feel, I will find emptiness. The earth was created only for me to tread upon, the sky was created only for me to find something to gaze at when I raise my head up, everything is built on and built for me, but all these others are for one purpose only, which is to create my own world.
Now, here I am going to die and life will go on.
Oh, how foolish I am! I have ignored the fact that millions of people have lived before me and millions more will live after me. Right now they are eating and drinking, sleeping and having children, celebrating, buying houses and planning their weddings and no one cares about another person dying of cancer.
But damn everything !
From now on, I will keep my eyes open even if it means having to rip out my eyelids with a knife.
I will squeeze enough out of life.. I will not sleep.. I will not sleep.. I will not.. I will not.. sleep.. sleep.
****