Absolute Zero Cool (14 page)

There are mountain ranges newer than evil, Cassie. All we have going for us is that we can cry and laugh about it all over again; but only when we can only laugh can we say we have truly evolved.

Cassie, the shark has been around for 400 million years. The shark has survived four mass extinctions that claimed at least 80 percent of the planet’s life forms. The shark is virtually impervious to infections, cancers and circulatory diseases. They heal rapidly from debilitating injuries and hunt even as they heal. There are continents newer than sharks. Some sharks practice a form of intrauterine cannibalism.

Top that, Spartans.

Cassie, my love, Hitler and Stalin will come again. Hitler will preach Darwin and the Fourth Reich will outlive the sharks.

Cassie, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

•

‘Remind me,’ he says. ‘Did we say we were dumping the Cassie novel or not?’

‘I think you said you didn’t like it as a novel, but you wanted to use the material another way.’

‘Hmmmm,’ he says. He gnaws a chunk from his brioche. ‘Is it working for you? As novel extracts, I mean.’

‘I don’t know. Sometimes, yeah. Although generally speaking, that kind of interruption does my head in. John Gardner – you know him? He had Ray Carver for one of his pupils, so he obviously knew his shit.’

‘Carver, yeah. He’s a good one.’

‘Gardner reckoned the novel should be a vivid, continuous dream. So maybe we should think about pulling the Cassie novel entirely.’

‘Seems a waste,’ he says.

‘Only if we dump it. But we could always recycle.’

‘Fitting it in somewhere else?’

‘No. As a whole new novel. The follow-up.’

One eyebrow arches. ‘You think?’

‘Why not? If this one’s a hit, they’ll be asking for anything else we’ve got.’

‘You think it’ll be a hit?’

‘Probably not, but who knows? Anyway, there’s no harm in having something ready to go.’

‘True for you,’ he says.

•

Today is another Red Letter day. Today I am given A Special Mission. Today I am requested to remove all flowers from wards, private rooms and corridors, and anywhere else where said blooms might prove fatal to patients.

‘How come?’ I say. ‘What’s wrong with flowers?’

‘They take up too much space,’ the matron says. ‘And they’re always being knocked over. The nurses spend too much time cleaning up broken vases, time that could be spent in more valuable nurse-patient frontline interaction.’

This is logical. This represents the intelligent deployment of limited resources. This is being cruel to be kind.

This is a Big Fat Lie.

‘But they’re mine,’ the first woman says.

‘My husband bought me those,’ the second woman says.

‘Things are grim enough in here at it is,’ the third woman says, ‘without you taking away the little colour we have.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘but orders are orders.’

‘What’s wrong with the flowers?’ the second woman wants to know.

I tell them that the flowers keep falling over and that a nurse’s time is too valuable these days to be wasted cleaning up the mess.

‘None of our flowers have ever fallen over,’ the first woman says.

‘What’s the real reason?’ the third woman says.

‘Do you really want to know?’ I say.

‘I think we have a right to know. They’re our flowers.’

So I tell them that there is increasing evidence that some strains of bacteria can grow in stagnant water, that spilt water increases the risk of spreading infection in busy wards, and that the hospital is doing its best to minimise said risk.

‘Rubbish,’ the first woman says.

‘More EU shite,’ the third woman says.

‘It’s your own fault,’ I say.

‘Our fault?’ the second woman says. She is outraged, or as outraged as any heavily pregnant woman can allow herself to become. ‘How dare you?’

‘Why would it be our fault?’ the first woman says quietly.

‘Given your age,’ I say, ‘and taking into account the average human being’s medical experience, you’ve probably consumed, at minimum, three different types of antibiotic to date. Most people take an antibiotic at least once every four years.’

‘What has that to do with the flowers?’ the third woman says.

‘Back in the day,’ I say, ‘before they discovered antibiotics, hospitals had to be scrupulously clean. In theory, anyway. If you got an infection back then it was lights out. Nothing to be done. Then they invented penicillin. Which was great, but now everyone’s pretty much immune to antibiotics because they’re taken for everything. Colds, flu, cold sores – they’re going down like Smarties. Who got the orchids?’

‘Me,’ the second woman says. She is sullen but subdued.

‘Orchids are good as hospital flowers,’ I say. ‘They’re tough, resistant to disease.’

‘Why would that matter?’ the first woman says. ‘Surely they’re already dead before they come into the hospital.’

‘Fair point. Anyway, your problem is the hospital itself. I mean the building, not the way it’s run.’

‘The building?’

‘It’s a little known fact that hospitals suffer from Sick Building Syndrome. It’s a thing that happens in an environment where air quality is diminished due to the growth of bacteria and fungi microbes. They form in an invisible mould, especially in buildings that are well insulated and don’t have what they call a lot of air exchange. The problem gets worse when you have air conditioning and central heating, which are an integral part of hospitals, because these spread the microbes all over the place and you get cross-infections and suchlike.’

‘How come no one ever told us that?’ the third woman says. The second woman is now pale, her unsightly ruddy complexion a thing of the past. I expect no thanks for this.

‘Because going public with it would mean replacing all the hospitals every ten years or so. The country would go bankrupt just building new hospitals. Or it would,’ I say, ‘if it wasn’t already bankrupt. Anyone said anything to you about superbugs?’

All three nod. There is much thinning of lips. Microbes have become the teensy-weensy elephants in the corner.

‘The one to watch,’ I say, ‘is the MRSA. MRSAs account for over 40 percent of all superbugs in hospitals. The medical name is Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. It’s highly infectious and almost impossible to diagnose.’ The second woman stares while scratching absent-mindedly at her forearm. ‘It causes fever and inflammation as well as wound and skin infections. It also causes urinary tract infections, pneumonia and bacteraemia. In English, that’s blood poisoning.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ the first woman breathes.

‘The good news is that you’re pregnant,’ I say. ‘The bacterium lives harmlessly on the skin or in the nose and it’s no threat to a healthy person. And you all look healthy to me. But anyone who has extensive surgery, or whose immune system is weakened, they’re what they call vulnerable. So don’t go hoping to get off light with a C-section.’

‘Why don’t they just invent new antibiotics?’ the third woman says.

‘They’re trying, sure, but it’s not happening. Just last month, you might have heard about it, there was an outbreak of KPC in Limerick. Don’t ask me the Latin, but it’s bad juju. If I was you, I’d have my baby and make your man get a vasectomy. But that’s just me. Anyone mind if I take away all the flowers?’

No one minds. I say, ‘The whole superbug thing, I wouldn’t take it personally. It’s just Mother Nature having a word in our ear about over-population. I mean, if you want to hack a species down to size, it makes sense to target the weak and old, don’t you think?’

But they’re not listening. Maybe it’s Tuesday. Or maybe they’re too busy dialling their mobile phones and instructing their husbands to investigate the possibility of home birth.

I trawl the hospital with a wheelie bin, reflecting on the number of ways there are to die while in hospital. Apart from superbugs and the natural degeneration of old age, there is the occasional wayward scalpel, the over-enthusiastic application of anaesthetic, the rare but very real danger of an Angel of Death, food poisoning, misdiagnosis, car accidents at the hospital gate.

Not all of these potential killers can be attributed to the fact that accountants now run hospitals on behalf of politicians. Happily, accountants are in the perfect position to advise that we cannot afford a report investigating the extent to which accountants have become our Angels of Mercy.

•

‘You forgot to put in about the hospital exploding,’ he says.

I make a note. ‘That reminds me,’ I say. ‘How’re you planning to blow up a whole hospital?’

He taps his nose. ‘Loose lips sink ships,’ he says.

‘Just tell me you’re being serious about it,’ I say, ‘that you have an actual plan. Don’t have me rewriting all this just to find out you’re thinking of having a prototype missile wobble off course or some deus ex machina bullshit like that.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says. ‘It’s all under control.’

•

Consider Cain, people. Cain was playing a game that God invented without passing on the rules. All that mattered back then was apples. Cain made sure he didn’t touch any apples and God hadn’t said anything about not smiting your brother.

Consider Judas. Judas was obeying orders. Judas was fulfilling the scriptures. Judas was the pawn that sacrificed itself. Who today has the courage of Iscariot, to endure eternal vilification for facilitating his master’s desire for suicidal martyrdom?

Consider Pilate. Pilate did his best. Pilate appealed to logic and reason but the patience required to deflect the willing martyr is unquantifiable. Pilate was caught in a pincer movement between the immovable object and the irresistible force. The sound of the universe is the sound of Pilate’s sigh.

Consider Cain, Judas and Pilate and judge not, lest ye be judged. Or judge away to your heart’s content. It’s a pointless exercise in self-aggrandising hubris anyway.

I, yours truly, Karlsson, align myself with Cain, Judas and Pilate. I embrace the how-it-is. I spit in the face of how-it-should-be. Cain, Judas and Pilate are among the few truly free men of history. It took the combined weight of your retrospective vilification and disgust to set them free.

Now they stand outside the narrative of history, banished from the party that celebrates not just the rules but the fact that there are rules. But their noses are not pressed up against the drawing-room windows. They are not envious. Cain, Judas and Pilate are down at the bottom of the garden in the shadows beneath a spreading oak, smoking a sneaky joint and entertaining themselves by composing haikus that seek to understand your need to belong.

My line for today: Most people are not looking for freedom at all, but for a cause to enslave themselves to. (Max Stirner, aka Johann Kaspar Schmidt)

I am no Luddite. Technology is not evil per se. A sword, a nuclear weapon, the internet – these are inert tools that may or may not be deployed by those with intentions that may or may not be retrospectively described as evil. A ploughshare beaten from a sword will be regarded as a weapon of mass destruction by the woodland creatures whose habitat was destroyed to prepare land for farming.

I prefer to surf the web aimlessly. I constantly avail of Google’s ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ option. There are always diamonds to be mined from the dross. Dross is defined by its propensity to yield precious material.

Tonight I stumble into a chat-room populated by young girls. These young girls are discussing the latest Katy Perry promo, which their parents will not allow them view on TV but which they have downloaded from the web on their mobile phones. I log on, join in. I tell them my name is Jennifer, that I am eleven years old, live in Dublin, and that I have not yet seen the promo under discussion. I expect to be ridiculed. Children are animals, fiercely self-defining in their shared imperatives as they struggle to survive and thrive. But I am pleasantly surprised. Compassion is alive and well and available at a young girls’ chat-room near you.

The conversation topic evolves. One girl, Tara, complains that her mother found her underwear in her bag when she was picked up from a supervised school disco. Mass commiseration ensues. Advice is offered. I confess that my mother does not allow me to attend such events. Commiseration threatens to melt down the server.

It grows late. One by one the girls retire to bed. We reprise the ending of every episode of The Waltons. Soon I am conversing alone with Tara, lol-ing IN CAPS when we recall our unsophisticated adoration of Justin Bieber. We arrange to meet again soon, metaphorically speaking, in the chat-room. We say our goodbyes.

Tonight I reflect that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet were thirteen and twelve, respectively. Tonight I reflect on how Shakespeare would have had no concept of the media through which his dramas would be performed in the future. Tonight the internet; tomorrow, perhaps, the tale will be beamed directly into my brain, and my subconscious will select the most suitable variations of my own personality to populate the cast.