by H. G. Reed
Severed
A novella
H.G. Reed
Book formatting by Derek Murphy @Creativindie
Digital E-book by Kindle Direct Publishing
SEVERED
Copyright © 2017 by H.G. Reed
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. No part of this book may be used in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
For information contact :
[email protected]
http://www.hgreed.com
Cover design by H.G. Reed
Image in the United States public domain : A Skull Sectioned – 1489, by Leonardo da Vinci
First Edition: May 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
NOW
Junior Year, October
I CAN STILL FEEL THE grit of pavement against my face as he thrust my head into the asphalt, its pebbly surface still slick with Thursday's rain. The heat from the barrel of his gun burned against my scalp but it should’ve been cold.
Not the gun barrel. My scar.
A hand grabbed a fistful of what little hair was left on my head, nails digging into my skin. Mom had made me cut it the day before. The day before… When everything had been fine and no one was bleeding or dying or having guns held to their heads.
“It's getting too long,” she’d said. What she meant was, “You look like your father.”
Thanks, Mom.
His dirty nails carved ravines into the back of my head, bloody rivers mixing with the wet asphalt. The old scar that ran from ear to ear was on fire. He pushed the right side of my face into the rough surface, the broken bits and pieces scratching and clawing at my cheek. I tried to fight, but he fought harder, smashing my face into the street again. My right eye gave up trying and finally swelled shut.
Darkness shrouded the empty alley, but the street lamps' iridescent glow was enough for anybody to make out their features. Anybody except for me. I mean, I did make out their features. I did see what happened—what they did—but the problem is, it went to the right side of my brain. And that side is useless to me. That side was severed. If only he’d been smashing the other side of my face. Maybe I could tell the police what they did to her.
Of course, I look guilty. I'm the guy who was at the scene of the crime and won't tell anyone what he saw. When I showed up this precinct unannounced, all eyes said I was the culprit. When they asked for my story, I sputtered, coughed, stuttered, and spat. Still, my brain couldn’t form the words. No surprise there, I told them it would happen.
I know what happened to her, but I can’t say it. Can’t write it. I place the dull pencil on the table and try to block out the buzzing sound of the one fluorescent light.
I’m sitting in an interrogation room now with no less than three cops watching me from the double-sided mirror as if they can hear the tangential cascades in my head. They also see a blank notepad in front of me. Not a damn word.
I’m going to prison for this.
THEN
Freshman Year, Fall
SHAKING. I’M ON THE ground and I'm shaking, and I can't make it stop. I never can.
“You! Call 911!” My professor shouts, but the paramedics won't make it in time. They never do.
No, all I can do is hope to high hell that these people know enough about seizure response to keep me from biting off my own tongue. I taste metal.
“His mouth—it's bleeding.”
Shit.
I wish I could tell them to calm down. It's just a seizure. I've had no less than two a day in the past month alone. But they don't know that. Maybe I can convince the school that the professor's droning lecture triggered my “episode.” I always love when they call it that. Like I can just change the channel to another, healthier brain. Well, if this is an episode, it's definitely a re-run.
“Where's the ambulance?” A girl shouts from somewhere. “His eyes are rolling back into his head!”
I imagine it's all quite terrifying to these rubber-necking bastards.
I choke on the blood and the torn bits of flesh that used to be attached to the inside of my cheek, and more people start to scream. Surely if my lips turn blue like last time, they'll get the idea and roll me over on my side. There’s pressure against my shoulder, and then the pressure leaves and I'm on my right side.
Thanks.
I've been at this school all of two weeks and now I'm going to be known solely as that kid who had a seizure in Dr. Fynes' class. The new meds were working, but the pattern never changes. We try something new, it works for a while, and then the seizures come back. Nothing works as they hope, and my own hope at having a normal life evaporates like a mist, just a ghost of something that used to be.
Maybe I can transfer to a different university, or a technical college. For now, all I can do is wait: wait for the seizing to stop, wait for the paramedics to arrive. I read the fine print at summer orientation. The school can't administer meds even at a time like this. “Too much liability,” they said. Well what liability will you be up against if I choke on my own blood and die in this classroom?
That’s a bit dramatic, but when you're flopping on the floor like a fish out of water, there's not much else you can be.
“Hang in there, Rory.”
I'm doing my best, Dr. Fynes.
She's a nice lady. I really hope I don't die on her watch.
I know this doesn't make sense. For all intents and purposes, there should be no cognitive processes going on right now. I can't explain it, but it is what it is. That's what the doctor told Mom when she took me in the first time. I was four. I distinctly remember his frown as he told her, “It is what it is.” His jowls jiggled as he shook his head while Mom cried and hugged me, saying over and over that she was sorry.
The tension eases, my eyes roll forward in their sockets, and suddenly the dark world comes back into light. It's over. I try to move my mouth to clear it of the bloody saliva, but Dr. Fynes hushes me; urging me to stay still. A moment ago, I was flailing all over the place and now I'm not allowed to move.
A pair of uniformed guys comes running in with a small duffel bag, and I'm certain a gurney isn't far behind. I know the drill.
“We got a call about an epileptic patient,” the taller guy huffs.
Too late, buddy. Show's over.
I told you they wouldn't make it in time.
* * *
“Mom, I really think we should talk about it.”
“It's already been discussed. I don't understand why you'd want to mutilate your body.”
I slather more peanut butter on my sandwich, hoping it will lessen the taste of raw flesh in my mouth. The seizure at school happened three days ago, and Mom still won't let me talk about the experimental procedure. Even in hypotheticals. But I’m not hypothetically epileptic.
As much as I tried to ignore the signs, the doctors confirmed my suspicions after the paramedics rolled me out on the stretcher, much to my chagrin. I could have walked out on my own, but protocol was determined to stamp out what little dignity I had left. Once Mom met me at the hospital, the doctors gave us the bad news. Is a hurricane any less deadly if you know it's coming?
“Your son's epileptic episodes have increased over time,” the doctor said as he pointed to some number on a chart. It could have been a crossword for all I knew. “In fact, they've increased quite significantly over the past year.”
“So?” I asked, not sur
e why he was telling me something I already knew. I was the one having the seizures after all.
“So, it tells us that the medications didn’t work as well as we hoped, and we may need to consider an alternative method of treatment.”
This, too, I already knew. The med failure was the main reason I’d had the seizure in the middle of class. However, I hadn’t known of any alternative options.
“And what would that be?” Mom asked, her hand firmly on my shoulder. I didn't need to look at her to know she had been crying. She felt helpless in all of this, as did I. But what could I say to comfort her? “Sorry Mom, I'll try not to spit blood next time?”
“Rory is an eligible candidate for a corpus callosotomy.”
“A what?” we said in unison.
“It's the severance of the corpus callosum, the tissue membrane that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.”
“You’re going to do brain surgery on him?” Mom’s panic was building.
“It’s our last resort,” he assured. “It’s not a procedure we do often, and only in extreme cases, but we can’t ignore the ineffectiveness of every medication we’ve tried thus far.”
“But he could die!”
“As with any surgery, there is always a risk ma’am. But Rory is young—”
“My son is only seventeen!”
“Which is what makes him a viable candidate for this procedure. His recovery time would be fairly quick, and we expect his...side effects to be minimal. The younger the patient, the more likely the brain's plasticity will mediate any unwanted effects accrued by—”
I tuned out. I didn't care what he had to say or what warnings he was required to tell me by law. All I knew was there was a way out. Finally, there was a way to make it stop.
Bruce Springsteen now blares through the kitchen radio as I finish spreading jam on the other piece of bread, and slap the two halves together. I take a bite and chase down Mom to where she has retreated. She's crying in the living room again.
“Mom, it's not mutilation,” I garble through a mouthful of sandwich bread. “You don't think epilepsy is bad enough on its own? Now I can be rid of it.”
“It's not that simple, Rory. There could be complications.”
“I'm pretty sure choking on your own tongue in the middle of Biology is considered a complication.”
“Stop that. You know I hate it when you talk like that.”
I put the sandwich down on the coffee table and sit next to her on the overstuffed sofa. She turns to face me, giving me her undivided attention. This might be my only shot, so I lay it on thick.
“You know I love you, Mom, and you know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. But this is already hurting you, and now I have the chance to help both of us.” I realize my words are actually genuine. “I know how it must feel to get that call from the school—”
“No. You don't. You will never know what it's like to see your child...to get that phone call over and over, and I pray you never know that. How am I supposed to condone brain surgery? Brain surgery, Rory!” She bursts into tears again, and I pat her shoulder, trying to comfort her but with no success.
“You don't have to condone it, Mom.” She looks up at me as if she's won, happy that I listened to her for once. Skipping second grade had its perks, but also some drawbacks. Namely one. I’ve always been younger than everyone else in my grade, which Mom thinks gives her license to treat me like a kid even when I’m a college student. But all that will end soon. “I'll be eighteen next month.”
She pauses as she lets this steep, then bursts into tears again. “You're all I've got in the world.”
“You're all I've got too,” I say, patting her on the shoulder until the sobs turn to sniffles, then dry up altogether.
* * *
“Thanks for seeing us today Dr. Vanzell.” I offer a small smile as we walk into his oddly homey office. I half expected it to look like an O.R. Instead, the man in the white coat crosses the carpeted room and sits behind his large, mahogany desk, inviting us to sit. Mom doesn't say anything; she just looks at the floor and shuffles over to one of the two leather chairs situated in front of the desk.
“Of course. Thorough consultations are always encouraged, and I’m glad to hear you are seriously considering this operation. Research has shown it drastically reduces the frequency and severity of the seizures, and allows the patient to live a fairly normal life.”
“Fairly?” Mom mumbles so that only I can hear.
“Yeah, let's talk about that,” I say.
I shift in my chair, putting on my best adult face. This is my life, my brain, my procedure. I need to start acting like I know what the hell I'm doing. If not for the doc's sake, then at least for my mom's. She's a mess today. Pretty much like every other day.
“So what exactly would be some of the side effects I can expect?” I say in the same voice as those actor-patients in the pharmaceutical commercials.
“For starters, you may experience some dizziness during recovery, along with difficulty focusing and blurred vision, but that's normal after any neurological procedure. It’s quite a long recovery period. It can be several months, or a couple of years before you feel your best. You must understand this is a serious operation—”
“That's what I've been telling him, doctor,” Mom says. She's suddenly come alive now that she thinks there’s a chance the good doctor is on her side.
“It is serious,” he continues, “but necessary in my opinion.” Mom shuts up again. “Rory, the membrane connecting the two halves of your brain will be cut. That membrane is how the two halves communicate, transmit neurological...” he fumbles for the word my non-medical mind can understand, “sends messages.”
“And?”
“Well, when we cut that membrane, your right half will no longer be able to talk to your left half.” I'm still not getting the gravity of the situation and he can see it. “Certain parts of your brain will be inaccessible. You will still have your vision. You will still have the ability to talk, walk, write and speak.”
“So why do I feel like you're telling me bad news?”
“Rory, have you ever heard of split-brain syndrome?” I haven't. “It has a number of effects, the largest of which is the way you interpret what you see into speech and text.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask, trying to sound grateful when all I feel is suspicious.
“Both eyes are connected to the occipital lobe in your brain. The left visual field is located in the left side of each of your eyes, not just your left eye, so whatever you see in the left visual field travels to the right half of your brain for processing. Under normal conditions, the brain would be able to pass information from one side to the other, but not if that connection is cut.”
“That sounds like brain damage,” my mother says, holding back tears by tightening her vocal cords. It pains me even listen to it.
He continues, seeing the blank stare on my face. “The good news is the gap between halves will stop all signals from crossing over, even the negative ones. That's the whole point of the procedure. So now, if you do have an episode, it can be contained. It will be markedly less severe.”
I try wrapping my mind around what this means, but all I come back to is I don’t have to live like this anymore. I would give my left nut if it meant the seizures would stop.
“Mr. Halstead.” He takes his glasses off like shit's getting real. “If we do the procedure, you can have a normal life. You can go back to college, you can have a girlfriend, have a normal sex life...” He glances at Mom then back to me “... when you're ready.” He clears his throat, quickly trying to find neutral ground. “You can probably even drive a car in a couple of years if—”
“But he'll lose his speech?” Mom trills.
“No, Mrs. Halstead— “
“It's Calloway.”
“Mrs. Call— “
“Ms.”
“Mom,” I grumble as I press my fingertips into my eyes. “Nobody cares
. Dr. Vanzell wants to fix me.”
“You don't need fixing!” She turns to me, grabbing my hand like it’s just us in the room, but the squeak of the leather chair behind the fancy desk reminds me that we’re not.
“Please, Rory,” she begs, and I have to look away. “Think about this. There’s another way. There has to be.”
She darts a look at Dr. Vanzell who sits with lips pursed, staring down at his desk. There are no other options.
“No, Mom. This is it. I know it’s risky, but I can’t do this anymore. The seizures will only progress—getting worse, more frequent. That’s what the doctor is trying to tell you.”
It’s now my turn to look to the doctor for help, but instead of avoiding my gaze, he holds it steadily with his own. We both know I’m right.
“I can’t listen to this anymore,” she says with a hand over her face to hide the falling tears. She stands up and leaves the room.
God, can the woman have one conversation that doesn't end in tears?
“I'm sorry, doctor.” I stand to go, knowing there is nothing more he can tell me without my legal guardian present. Being a minor sucks, even if it's only for two more weeks.
“Rory,” he calls and I stop at the door, “this procedure is your best shot. You won’t lose your speech; however, it’s important you know the limitations that come with it. You won't be able to verbally articulate information the way you used to.”
“I have to stay calm,” I say, turning back to him.
“Pardon?”
“If I’m freaking out, who is going to help her through it?”
“It’s okay to be scared, Rory.”
“I know.” I look down at my shoes, one hand on the stainless-steel doorknob. “I just can’t tell her that. She’s been through a lot already.”
“Precisely. Given your history of physical trauma—”