Chapter 2 1

It was pitch black outside, and I didn't know how long I had been unconscious.Slowly I heard a faint, rhythmic sound, the crunching sound only a wheel can make.An unconscious person cannot hear such a small sound in the dark.So I judged that I had regained consciousness, and that I could feel the presence of the outside world from head to toe.I also smelled an odor - either rubber or plastic film.This must not be in a coma, so what is this too... too much?The feeling just now was too clear, not like a dream. So, what exactly is this? who am I? What happened to me? The wheels stopped making the creaking sound that was driving me so hard just now.I'm motionless now, and there's another crackling sound all around me, coming from that rubber-smelling thing.

I heard someone say: "Which one are they talking about?" There was a silence. Another said: "I think, um, four." We moved in the other direction again, but this time at a slower pace.I can hear slight footsteps now, they may be wearing soft-soled shoes or sneakers.This is the few people who spoke just now, and they are pushing me forward again. There was another heavy thud in my ear, followed by a soft squeak, which I thought was the opening of a door with air-filled hinges. What the hell is going on here?I yelled, of course it was just my heart, my lips were stiff.Although I can feel its presence, I can't make it move; I can also feel the tongue lying in my mouth like an unconscious mole.

The thing under me rolled again.Is this a rollaway bed?It must be a hospital bed.I used this thing on President Johnson's shameful and despicable adventure in Asia.I suddenly understood: I was in a hospital, and something bad happened, like the bomb that exploded twenty-three years ago and almost made me lose my sexual function.I'm about to have surgery - which basically explains a lot of what's happening to me, and it's logical.But I'm not hurt anywhere!It's just that I'm overwhelmed by fear, but everything else is normal.If these people were the nurses who pushed me into the operating room, why was it that I could neither see nor speak?

Someone spoke, and it wasn't from the two people I heard ahead of me. "Guys, come here." My bed was pushed to another place.What the hell happened to me?This question keeps beating my brain. To figure this out, shouldn't we first figure out who we are?I asked myself, and I found the answer to that question myself.I'm Howard Courtnell, a stockbroker, and some of my colleagues call me "Howard the Conqueror." The voice of the second person is not the voice of the first three (female voice, cold tone). "Rusty, your comments are always pleasant. Can you hurry up? My child's nanny wants me to be back at seven because he promised to have dinner with her parents."

Because it's Saturday.There was a gurgling sound from afar.you are, are... I suddenly heard a bang. This is the sound I like. Maybe I came to this world just to hear this sound. What kind of sound is it?By the way, it was the sound of a golf club hitting a golf ball from a tree.I stood up and watched the golf ball fly towards the blue... Someone came and grabbed me by the shoulders and calves and picked me up.I was so terrified that I tried to shout, but I couldn't make a sound.It's also possible that the squeak itself was too quiet, much quieter than the wheels under me.Perhaps, there is not even a much smaller sound than this, maybe this sound is just my imagination.

I was being dangled in the dark air - hey, don't throw me off, I have a bad back!I yelled loudly, and my lips and teeth couldn't move again.My tongue was still lying quietly in my mouth.The mole was not only knocked unconscious, but completely dead.I suddenly had a terrible thought: what if they misplaced me, and my tongue blocked the windpipe below, and I couldn't speak?Thinking of this, I was terrified, not just terrified.I couldn't catch my breath, and people said "I was tongue-tied", which is probably what they were talking about. I heard a second voice (Rusty): "Doctor, you're going to like this guy. He looks like Michael Bolton."

The female doctor asked, "Who is Michael Bolton?" The third person spoke, and his voice sounded like a little boy, only in his teens.He said: "Michael Bolton is a white mariachi singer who wants to be black. That's not him in bed." His words caused a burst of laughter, and the female doctor's voice also joined in.Someone put me on a table that felt like it had a cushion on it.That's when Rusty got to work.I don't know what he's up to, and it crackled again, as if to tell people that he just stood there alone and did all the daily work.A sudden burst of fear stopped me from being amused.Because, I thought what if my tongue blocked my windpipe and I couldn't breathe?What should I do if I am out of breath now?

Am I already dead?Is this what death is like? True.I'm comfortable lying here, like I'm wearing a condom, but it's horrible, the darkness outside, and the smell of rubber, which means I'm dead.Today, I am Howard the Conqueror, and I am a successful stockbroker.I was a headache for other members of the Derry Municipal Country Club, and I was a regular at the world-famous Nineteen Holes golf course.In 1971, I participated in the medical service team sent to the Mekong Delta. At that time, I was a timid boy, and I often dreamed that the dog would wake up crying at night.Now, all of a sudden, I experience this feeling again, this smell.

Dear God!I was lying in a body bag. The voice of the first person was heard again: "Doctor, please sign here. Please write more heavily. There are three pages in total." Hear the sound of pen rustling on paper.I suspect that the person who spoke just now gave the female doctor a clipboard. my Lord!Don't let me die!I tried to cry out, but nothing came out. Am I panting?I mean I don't feel like I'm panting, but my lungs seem to be fine.If you swim too deep and then try to breathe out, it must be very difficult and painful, but I don't feel that at all when I breathe, so I must be fine, no?

A voice murmured deep inside: "Unless you're dead, your lungs won't need air so badly - no, because a dead man's lungs don't need to breathe, a dead man's lungs just... …don’t worry." Rusty said, "Doctor, what are you doing next Saturday?" If I'm dead, how can I feel, how can I smell the body bag that's wrapped around me?How can I hear the voices of these people talking?The doctor said that next Saturday night, her dog, Rusty, would be shampooed.What a coincidence.Are they all laughing?If I'm dead, why don't they send me away, why they keep talking about Oprah under the white lights.

I heard the screech of something being torn apart.Suddenly, I was placed under white light.The light was too harsh, like the sun shining through thin clouds in winter.I tried to squint to keep the light out, but to no avail, my eyelids were like blinds with broken rollers, and they couldn't move. A face moved close to me, blocking some of the light.This light comes not from the surface of the table, which is somewhat shiny like a star, but from a row of fluorescent lights overhead.The face looked youthful, traditionally handsome.The man was about twenty-five years old, like those pictures of muscular men with beach backgrounds in Belwaukee or Mellows Art Museum, although smarter than them.He has thick black hair and wears a green surgical cap sloppily on top of his head.He also wears a tight top.Those cobalt blue eyes can captivate a lot of girls.A few round, dirty freckles hung high on his cheekbones. I hear a third voice: "My God, he does look like Michael Bolton. Only he had urticaria papularis when he was a kid and it's kind of scarred. Maybe..." He moved closer , the smooth, sleek tie on the neckline of the doctor's green uniform touched my forehead. "...but, I get it. Hey Michael, sing us something!" Help!That's the song I'm trying to sing, but all I can do is stare blankly into his dark blue eyes.I'm just wondering: am I already dead?If dead, how did he die?Does everyone have to experience death after the heartbeat stops?if i'm still aliveHow could he not see my pupils constricting under the light?But I know the answer, or I think I do.My pupils are not constricted, which is why the fluorescent light is so harsh. That tie was tickling my forehead like a feather. Help!I yelled at the "beautiful Belwaukee".He was probably still an intern, or a kid still in medical school.help!Please! I can't even move my lips. The face turned away and the tie no longer touched my forehead.All that white light going through my helpless, bewildered eyes and straight into my brain was like being raped in hell.If I were to stare at this light for any longer, I would be blind.But I thought maybe it would be a relief to be blind. "Hiss..." It seemed to hear the sound of a club hitting a golf ball, but this time it was not as sharp as last time.My hands feel terrible, this ball is flying up, no, it's spinning... turning away... turning... damn it. I was so sad. Now I saw another face approaching me, wearing a white doctor's uniform instead of the green one I had seen before, and a mess of orange hair on top of it.My first impression of him was that he was a low IQ guy.He must be Rusty.He grinned broadly, in a wooden way, like a high school student, or a little boy with a "Genius to Unfasten Bra" tattooed on his arm. "Michael!" Rusty yelled, "Jazz guy, you look. What an honor you are, sing us a song! You fucking sing!" The doctor's voice came from somewhere behind me. She was very calm, and she no longer pretended to be amused by those sensationalists as before. "Shut up, Rusty." Then the voice shifted slightly. "Mike, what's going on?" Mike's voice was the first human voice I heard, Rusty's partner.His voice was a bit depressing for a boy who wanted to grow up to be something like Andrew Tees Clay. "He was found next to the 14th hole at Derry Municipal Country Golf Club. Not actually on the course. They're in such a bad situation. If the doubles weren't playing behind him, if they didn't see him With a leg stuck in a tangled bush, he'd probably be a meal for ants by now." I heard the hiss again in my head.Only this time, one after another, it was awful: it was the rustle of the head of my golf club against the undergrowth.This is supposed to be the Fourteen Holes area, with its famous poison ivy, poison ivy and… Rusty was still squinting down at me, stupid and greedy.It wasn't my death that attracted him, but my Michael Bolton resemblance.Yes, I get it, I'm going to make the most of it with those female clients from now on, otherwise, this face will grow old very quickly.If so... OMG! "The attending doctor?" the female doctor asked, "Is it Cazalian?" "No," Mike said, looking down at me for a moment.He was at least ten years older than Rusty.His black hair was mingled with some white hair, and he wore a pair of glasses.How did no one find out I'm still alive? "The truth is that one of the doctors in the doubles found him. His signature is on the first page. See that?" Hear the sound of flipping paper.Then, "It's Christ Jennings, I know him. He's the one who treated Noah after Noah's Ark crashed into Mount Arata." Rusty doesn't look like he's getting the joke, but he laughs harshly in my face.I could smell onions on his breath, and a whiff of leftovers.If I can smell onions, I must be alive.It must be, if... As I was still thinking about it, Rusty moved closer to me, and I saw a glimmer of hope.He had seen something, he must have seen something, and wanted to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.Rusty, God bless you and your onion smell. But his goofy grin was still on his face, and instead of giving me mouth-to-mouth respiration, he slid his hands down my jawbone.Now he grasps one side of the jawbone with his thumb and the other with his other fingers. "He's alive!" Rusty yelled. "He's alive, and he's about to sing for the Michael Bolton fan club in Autopsy Room Four." His fingers squeezed tighter and tighter, and I felt as if the anesthesia had just worn off.His fingers ran up and down my jawbone, rattling my teeth. "If she's a bad woman, he doesn't know." Rusty sang out of tune, which was annoying.Singing like that would blow Percy Sledge's head off. "She can't make mistakes..." Under the pressure of his rough fingers, my teeth opened and closed, and my tongue went up and down for a while, like a timid guy crossing a turbulent river. "Stop singing!" the female doctor snapped.She seemed genuinely frightened.Rusty seemed to feel it too, but he didn't stop, and continued to sing happily.His fingers pinch my cheek now.My glazed eyes looked up and saw nothing. "If she puts him on... let him lie on the closest companion." Here she was, a lady in a green uniform with a chinstrap wrapped around her neck and a hat dangling behind her, something like Cicero Kidd's sombrero.Her short brown hair, grown to her eyebrows, gave her a handsome yet stern look.It's more chic than beautiful.She grabbed Rusty with one hand and pulled him back from me.The nails on her hand were cut very short.