IV
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Pale face of Dr.Jamal , the Pakistani professor of neurological surgery and frequent long pauses in his speech, did its best in terms of making the parents anxiously nervous. As pause lasted almost half a minute, overhead clock inside mosque shaped framework penetrated the silence with its gradually hearable ticking sound.
Is it so bad, doctor? – father asked begging for some positive response.
You see, transplantation of one third of donated temporal lobe and one seventh of cerebellum which mainly serves for body control, motor functions and all- was totally successfully but …
But?
There’s one but, in his matter. Because of age differences of organ donor and his recipient – your teenager son in this case- how me to put it mildly , imagine that you bought a new memory for your personal computer having old generation motherboard. As a surgeon we did our best for plugging new part into so called motherboard – thereby I try to depict the surgery and transplantation . These are all that we do as a medics. Now it is up to system to decide whether to process or not with new integrated memory, as we turn power on. His body has to form synapses – hook up and communication between existing neurons and implanted brain cells. So it’s almost the same with your son, Me with the help of globally respected, well-trained and sophisticated neurosurgeon team, conducted this surgery following your written consent as legal parents , operation was successful.
However its normal that patients fall into temporal comatose condition after surgery is finished, which is result of integration of transplants to a new – alien if you will – body. Now it’s up to God and your son be able to wake up from “dead space”. He must be strong and overcome let’s say visual and projective mind attacks of his donor, ‘cos if you asked me to describe it for your, I would say that his dream is nothing but realistic battleground of conflicting memories and characters.
He can lose mind battles but has to win the war for his survival, in order to wake up as your son – totally cured of dementia, not as 45 year old Latvian philanthropist who donated his brain before smashed in car accident.
How long it would take?
Only God knows exact day…You see, this is an unprecedented turning point in the history of transplantation. We don’t know for sure whether transplanted brain cells – neurons will reverse the damage caused by dementia. Although, I can dare say that, after similar surgeries on clones, it took nearly 2-3 days…Dr.Jamals face went totally red, and couldn’t complete his sentence
Clones? What clones?
I’m sorry but I must rush to second floor, surgery is waiting for me.
For illiterate mother of Tural the words uttered by Dr.Jamal, was nothing but bunch of encoded letter combinations, and because of her limited knowledge of modern terminology she confused the word “clone” with a“clown” and therefore couldn’t notice the fail made by surgeon himself. On the other hand, Tural’s father was horrified to hear his son be some kind of first human “lab rat” who underwent first multi-brain transplantation of its kind.
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It really was a school – a school that looked like had endured hundred years of solitude and survived nuclear fall-out with ragged asphalt paving commencing from the gates and continuing through left corner to the front door of this old brick-concrete building and running all the way around the school. How did I guess it was school?! There were bunch of primary students in black-blue uniform rushing to the main vast yard of school with their heavy backpacks and some of them trailing rolling briefcases after them. Other than small play field on the right, the main yard that was enclosed by the section of school building in the shape of Greek letter «П», had been infested with dozens, hundreds of children, standing in a rows, buzzing and vibrating like a bee. First it gave me expression of some kind of junior demonstration. But as I shaped my observations, it became apparent that, the crowd of same-dressed minors had been waiting for the management of school to start some event. Crowd went totally silent as blond midage woman with short-cut hairstyle and bull-dog facial expression and “telescopic” glasses, wearing long purple dress with white curly ribbon attached to her breast, emerged from the main entrance of the building. Yeah …she must be the badass principal and a tomboy too.
Out of somewhere emerged a kid half my height and in a wild sprint punched my face with his angry fist. It couldn’t be possible boy age of 10-12 hit me in the face while aiming for my stomach. Besides it was totally “terminator” blow as that made me dizzy and hurt badly. What da f… Next thing I saw, he was atop of me , right fist ready to deliver next blow but temporary compromising his mouth before hitting. At that time I almost weighed 85 kilo, though couldn’t push 35-40 kilo skinny boy off. What a “black and unrealistic day”- I thought, still shocked to fact being kicked by minor.
Why did you tell the teacher that I stole your stamps, you f…khead?-he said yet threatening with his fist. – Damn it! He spoke some kind of Slavic language , but I clearly understood what he was saying word-by-word. Hmm…since when I do understand Polish?
I don’t know what you’re talking about asshole… -My God I fluently answered this boy in Polish too… Other boys who enclosed us to enjoy the fight went giggling as the heard how I called him asshole.
I heard some adult voice before being punched second time, this time from the close range right in the middle of my nose. I felt a thunder hit me right from the head to lower limbs and vice versa.
It is not Polish, its Latvian bro. – whispered some skinny man in his 30s or 40s with numb face complexion wearing a ridiculous hunter hat and on brownish, dirty coat sitting on his knees right next to my left side. He gave me his hand and helped me to get up with a slim touch, so pale like an old vegetarian suffering from malnutrition. He looked very pity.
I thanked him but didn’t asked who he was, and what was going on with those little angry and ultimately strong people, with agile steps rushed to the front gate to escape this utopia. But gate didn’t let me out, holding the latchet I couldn’t move its initial door for an inch.
You can’t escape this level unless…- he was again right behind me as I turned to ask what he meant.
Level what level…is that some kind a prank….-I went totally mad, screaming out all anger collected inside me within one shitty day. – Dad!, - I shouted as I stared at the sky… Is that part of your horrible scam again. To be honest, I’m completely shocked right now, I’m not even happy to be cured off sundowning, ‘cos I know that all day-night interchange was fake stupid idea of yours,,,as Jafar or whatever he was, said- just a matter of one click of a button, wasn’t it?
It was so annoying and irritating to see this bummy pale mane smiling to watch me amused and smiling like an idiot. With one blink of an eye, smiling face vanished and he kicked my groins out of blue without any motive. I pressed my burning balls to somehow relieve the pain.
First, you’ll do whatever I say if you want to survive. Second you do still suffer from dementia, and your father never played any scam on you…. Your being kidnapped and your bodyguard get killed was nothing but game of your unbridled dream and subconscious imagination. However the fact that you father annually spends millions of dollars for your everyday trips is true. And third I didn’t hit your noodle. What you saw and experienced, including my presence and all you see surrounding you are unreal. You and me – we are walking on the fragile bridge between past and future in a dead space, inside your subconscious mind . To ensure safe passage, you must fix certain mistakes I have done in the past…This school is the past
Wait a minute…Who are you and how do you know all about my father and my fake bodyguard..
I am you and you are me – he smiled
Man , don’t do this it sounds so creepy…I’m serious…I’m not in a mood. You be serious as well…
One split of a second, this time he gave massive slap in the right ear.
You better listen and listen carefully...Your life is at stake here you moron....Ok...for dummies like you, i shall explain it nice an easy. You’re are currently at Jeddah National Hospital in Saudi Arabia. You have undergone partial brain transplantation surgery and now spending hours in a coma. To put it mildly, they have attached part of my brain to certain diseased parts of your brain, for you to get rid of your illness. I’m your brain donor from Latvia and I’m currently dead. My presence in your “journey through dead space” is just the result of conflicting synapses of alien and domestic brain cells- neurons…
Thats enough for me for one day... I didn’t doubt what he said.Eventhough, put me in a deep flash delirium.