Rupert Thomson - The Insult

Youve been shot.

I heard someone say it. I wouldnt have known otherwise; I wouldnt have realised. All I could remember was four tomatoes three of them motionless, one still rolling. And a black shape, too. A shape that had a curve to it.

Ive been shot.

Sirens circled me like ghosts.

I slipped away, the feeling of having fallen from a plane, of falling through dark air, and the plane flying on without me

Each time I woke up, it was night.

Then voices spoke to me, out of nothing. Voices told me the rest. Youd been shopping, they said. You were in a supermarket car-park when it happened. It was a Thursday evening. You were walking towards your vehicle when you were fired upon, a single shot. The bullet took a horizontal path through the occipital cortex. One millimetre lower and you wouldve died instantaneously. You suffered no damage to adjacent structures; however, you have lost your vision and that loss is permanent. There were no witnesses to the shooting.

I lay in bed, my neck supported by a padded brace. My head had a strange deadness to it, as if it was an arm and Id slept on it.

My mouth tasted of flowers.

The voices told me I was in a clinic in the northern suburbs. They told me how much time had passed, and how it had been spent: brain-scans, neuro-surgery, post-traumatic amnesia. They told me that my parents had visited. My fiance, too. None of what they said surprised me. I could smell bandages and, behind the smell of bandages, methylated spirits, linoleum, dried blood. I imagined, for some reason, that the lino was pale-green with streaks of white in it, like certain kinds of soap or marble. It seemed to me that several people were positioned around my bed, though only one of them was speaking. I turned my face in his direction.

Something I didnt understand. Occipital something.

The same voice answered. Occipital cortex. Its located at the back of the head, the very base of the brain. Its responsible for visual interpretation. In your case, the damage is bilateral: both lobes are affected.

You said the loss of vision is permanent

Thats correct.

So theres no chance of recovery?

None. The voice paused. Im sorry.

Somebody placed a hand on my shoulder. I wasnt sure which one of them it was the man whod been talking to me or one of the others. I couldnt have said what it communicated. Pity, maybe. Consolation. It reminded me of the feelings Id had about churches when I was young. How Id imagined an angels touch might be.

I found that my eyes had filled with water.

Bits fly off me as I run.

The place is always the same. Its a city street, though not one I recognise. Sunlight everywhere. The buildings blaze with it.

I can see myself running. The bits flying off me. Two ribs, an ear. One of my arms. Some teeth. They come loose, drop silently away. Its like the way things happen in space. I watch a finger leave my hand, spin backwards through the bright gold air behind me. Soon theres just the running left.

You might think it would stop then, but it doesnt. I keep running, even though I dont have any legs. Even though the bodys gone, the elbows too, the lungs.

Its hard to describe. Its like one kind of air passing through another. Its not a bad feeling. The flesh has gone. Theres only the spirit left.

I wake up sweating

The man who had talked to me before was sitting by my bed. This time he was alone.

My names Visser. Bruno Visser.

What do you look like? I said.

An understandable question. He mentioned light-brown hair, pale-blue eyes. He was fairly tall, he said. Then he told me he was my neuro-surgeon, as if he thought that detail might complete the picture.

And what about me? I said. What do I look like?

He paused, his silence awkward or perhaps just curious, intrigued.

I mean, am I disfigured? I asked him. Would I recognise myself?

Theres only one disfigurement, as you put it, and its not really apparent. He explained that Id lost a small section of bone on the left side of my cranium, shattered by the strangers bullet as it exited. The normal procedure was to wait until the tissues healed, and then to fit a titanium plate. It was a fairly simple operation, he assured me. There would be a scar, of course, but the hair would grow back over it. Nobody would know.

He continued, more earnest now (he had moved his chair closer to the bed, his voice was lower). I shouldnt underestimate the task that lay ahead, he said. When someone loses their vision suddenly, at least three stages can usually be distinguished. First theres shock, a numbness that may last for weeks the bodys own protective anaesthesia. Then depression sets in. This stage could last longer. Months. Years even. Hopelessness, self-pity, suicidal thoughts I had to be ready, he said, for any or all of these. Finally, when Id finished mourning my loss of vision, there was the gradual rehabilitation: the development of a new personality, with different capacities, different potential.

And now for the bad news, I said.

At this clinic, Martin, Visser said, we dont believe you should be under any illusions about your condition.

I dont think theres much danger of that.

There was a silence. Perhaps you should get some rest. His chair creaked twice. He was gone.

I wake sweating, wait for my heart to settle. It always takes a while, after the dream, for my hands to join the smooth, glossy stumps of my wrists. For my body to piece itself together.

This is what must have happened after I was shot. I mean, that must have been the first time it happened. Only then it would have taken longer. Hours, probably. Maybe days. And there were parts of me that didnt reappear, of course. One small section of my skull, measuring, according to Visser, 2.75 cm. by 1.93 cm. My eyesight, too. That never came back either.

I lie here with my neck supported by the brace. I move my fingers against the coarse wool of the blanket that covers me. I move my feet against the undersheet. There will come a time, I think to myself, when this wont happen. When I dont wake up in a hospital bed or any other bed, for that matter. When disintegrations pull can no longer be resisted. When the bits of my body continue to fly outwards, like the universe itself.

Visser returned. I knew him by his footsteps or, to be more accurate, his shoes. Theyd been repaired with metal, those steel crescents that prevent heels or toes from wearing out. I turned my head towards him. He wanted to explain something to me I sensed his need but he wasnt sure how to begin.

At last he leaned forwards, his clothes releasing a faint odour of carbolic. NPL, he said.

Im sorry?

No perception of light. Ill give you a demonstration. He reached into a trouser or a jacket pocket. Im holding a torch. Now, can you tell me, is it on?

I stared hard, but I had no awareness of a torch. I wasnt aware of anything.

Is it off, Visser said, or on?

Ive no idea.

And yet your pupils still contract. The torch clicked. Whats interesting about cortical blindness is that its absolute. Your eyes still see, they still respond to light. Its just that what theyre seeing is not being recorded in the brain. He shifted in his chair. Imagine a TV. A TV receives electromagnetic waves from a transmitter and it reconverts those waves into visual images. If the TVs faulty, the electromagnetic waves are not converted. Unfortunately, thats where the analogy ends. Unlike a TV, the occipital cortex cannot be replaced, or even repaired. We simply dont have the technology as yet. Do you understand?