Jonathan Taylor: Meyer-Hofmann AG

“They know what they are doing. The doctors here are very good.” Monika did her best to sound convincing. Shrugging her off, Lisa moved back to the window, calling her husband’s name.

“Michael, please! Michael!”

His bed was now moving, a group of doctors and nurses manipulating it between them. Like a swarm of busy green ants, they disappeared beyond the sight of a weeping wife and into the surgery.

It had felt like a fall from a height, the air had left his lungs for a second, and his stomach strained to keep its contents down. But Michael was not falling through air; he was collapsing into himself. Desperate to find something he could identify with, he found only a swamp of putrid memories and the stink of Hofmann’s life all around him.

Where are you, Michael? Are you still here? Hofmann laughed. You are lost, it’s over; you have to submit. My destiny and the destiny of all mankind is at stake. You are just a pawn. Give up and let it go. You have lost!

The sound of Hofmann’s voice was getting weaker, moving farther away. Michael could hardly remember his name, and looking around, he saw nothing but inky blackness. The black hole in his memory was sucking the images, thoughts, and sounds from his mind. All he held dear, replaced by a void of dark space. Bereft of dialogue, sound, and touch, he felt his surroundings narrow around him. Trapped in an invisible funnel that pulled him into nonexistence. He was free falling, unable to influence his speed or direction. Only a pinprick of light below him gave him any sense of his final destination, before he once again heard Hofmann’s faint voice.

Goodbye, Jarvis.

Michael had never been a religious man, but he found himself praying, sure he was lost to the world. His last prayer was for Lisa.

Please, God, keep her safe; protect her from him.

The bullet had penetrated Michael’s left chest cavity, between the third and fourth ribs. A light ricochet from the third rib had sent fragments of bone out like darts into his body’s soft tissues, piercing his lungs and heart. The bullet had then continued clear through the left lung, before again ricocheting back off the sixth rib and coming to rest against the seventh and eighth vertebrae of his thoracic spine. Chest injuries end in death in less than ten percent of cases, and the doctors were not overly concerned when he first arrived in A&E. They went through the motions, ventilating him before checking the extent of the damage to his internal organs with a simple radiograph. Three to four hundred millilitres of blood had collected in his left lung, but it was the bullet that caused the most concern. None of the doctors’ present trusted themselves to remove it, and all had agreed to wait for the consultant. They had conducted a tube thoracotomy to suck away any blood and fluid from the chest cavity. Staples had been applied to close the two larger lacerations of the lung caused by the bullet, and Michael had been stitched up and returned to Intensive Care, to wait for his next operation.

Lisa had been at his bedside ever since he arrived back. Sat on a small steel chair next to his bed, she was holding his hand, as if she could somehow keep him with her, if she just held him tight enough.

“Please, darling, you can do it! Come on, fight it, fight him. Don’t let him win.”

Professor Klaus Remboldt had arrived without fanfare. He was wearing a turquoise hospital gown and trousers, along with a long white lab coat and shoes, the standard stethoscope draped around his neck. More doctors in light blue versions of hospital couture milled about behind him. He had a kind smile and a wise, wrinkled face. Lisa struggled to her feet to greet him and offered him her hand.

“Hello, my name is Professor Remboldt. I will be operating on your husband today.” His voice was calm and strong, putting Lisa a little at ease.

“Hello, nice to meet you. He will be okay, won’t he?” she implored.

“Yes, I am sure he will. There is just a small complication with the position of the bullet. It is very close to his spinal column, but I have carried out similar surgery in the past. If you would like to fill out a few forms, I will get to work.”

“Yes, yes, but what are the dangers?”

“In cases like this, the patient has a very good chance of making a complete recovery. But the bullet may have damaged some important nerves, which run through and out of the spinal column. We won’t know the full extent of the injury until we have operated.” He smiled at her, and Lisa tried to put on a brave face. Taking the clipboard from his hand, she looked down at the paperwork and started to read. Interrupted by the high-pitched alarm from the equipment behind her, she watched as Michael’s heart monitor flat-lined.

“Oh my God, oh my God. What’s happening?” Lisa sprang back away from the bed, dropping the clipboard with a clatter. As she moved away from the bed, the others in the room moved towards it.

“AED.” The professor’s voice was calm, as another of the doctors pulled a small trolley from the wall, which held the ‘automated external defibrillator’.

“Clear!” Within less than a minute of his heart stopping, the first blast of electricity surged through it, forcing it back to life.

Michael was now somewhere new. The lights had come on, and he could see an opaque membrane surrounding him. He was suspended within it and still moving gently down the smooth tunnel. Looking around, it was just one of many in a forest of membranes, suspended vertically and horizontally in a milky vapour that hung in the sky like a cloud. The tunnels intersected with their neighbours at different heights along their lengths, forming branches that either stopped or moved directly through their counterparts. Looking up and down his tunnel, he could make out hundreds of connections along its length, above and below him. The membranes fluoresced and pulsed as light moved along their bodies. Michael took a moment to watch as some invisible conductor orchestrated the light show for him. The nearest junction to his column was only a short distance below him, and he became inquisitive to know where it might lead. As he did, he found himself slowing down to a stop at the tube’s the entrance. He could smell her, not her perfume, but that subtle smell she left behind on her clothes. The scent of his wife surrounded and enveloped him, and he was flooded by images, sounds, feelings, and memories of her. It was like a connection to her soul, and he let her wash over him.

“Where am I?” He had not expected a response, and he wasn’t disappointed.

Turning around and around in his silky prison, he imagined this must be how an unborn infant felt in the womb. Safe, warm, happy, and content.

But where is Hofmann? Hofmann! Silence.

Where are you, Hofmann? Nothing.

Somehow, Michael knew that Hofmann could not answer him here. That he had crossed a boundary that Hofmann could not cross. Only then did he realise that he was most certainly still himself. Michael, intact and safe. This epiphany came with a massive sense of relief, as he realised that Hofmann could never gain complete control over him. He had feared that Hofmann would consume him, rape his soul and toss it away like so many others. Now he knew that was impossible, and a new strength filled him.

HOFMANN!

Light rushed away from him in all directions, leaving his column and moving out into its branches, searching for its quarry. Moments later, he was moving up the shaft towards a distant junction and his prey. As he now expected, Hofmann’s junction went straight through his column. It stank of the man and his past. Hofmann’s memories were back, but Michael knew now he had a choice, and as the voice returned, it was on Michael’s terms.