As the reed accents the oboe were her
prayers revealed on the edge of sleep: An under-one's-breath amplified to
intelligible by a string of snot or tightened sinus, rasping out her same
unchanged hopes from last year. The nightly mantra deepening through the
woodwind tones until the orchestration reached a bassoon like unconscious. The
nightlong symphony ensuing. Amen.
It was considering too closely the words of
others that had caused the demise of Mary's inner monologue. Some sort of
malfunction of the temporal lobe, according to the doctor. Or one of those
unknown but over-studied parts of the brain, labeled after whichever European
made the first incision toward understanding.
The areas of Wernicke, Broca and Broadmann,
perhaps, thought John, reading one of two maps in the waiting room as he waited - still waiting - for Mary to return with some long-awaited good news.
The one that was not the diagram of the
human brain - 'exploded' as it might be denoted in an automobile manual,
thought John. Medulla, Cerebelum, Pons and so on, blown up and orientated cross
section so you might learn the current best guess at how it all worked. The map
that wasn't this one was a pink-spattered Mercator projection, circa 1922.
It was a reproduction whose presence - John
always liked to think - was included as an ironic gesture; a comment on presumption. Indubitable wisdom of the Now tempered by - on close inspection - a
small printer’s note in the bottom left corner, indicating that this was the seventh
revision - the first to include details not known from 1 through 6, presumably. Unsettling thing for a surgery.
But Wernicke et al - like the namesakes
of anglicized Africa - could at least take heart at being first on the scene; vie
for reappearance beyond their years as their theories or the towns they founded grow and
diminish in importance, according to some present experiment or war, John supposed.
Hemisphere, lateral surface. The language
of cartography used also to chart man's greatest undiscovered continent.
Yes. Now that he thought of it, both posters, fully annotated, would be
useless - like those early maps when the towns, in grand lettering, obscure topography
with place names, because people hadn't figured out where on earth was important yet.
Better left unsaid, for you never know what might happen. It might be ok yet. He'd go on waiting.
