Chapter Three
According to the large digital clock high on the north wall of his studio it was 3:30 in the afternoon when he woke up.
Damn, I've been out for almost ten hours. Was everything that happened just a dream?
David looked around his studio,
Well not the earthquake.
He surveyed the damage; the fallen objects and such, but perhaps he imagined the injury to himself. It just seemed too preposterous otherwise. He had to prove to himself that all that had happened to him was not real. It just couldn’t have been.
He looked at his arm and it looked fine. There was no pain and his arm functioned normally. An examination of his arm from wrist to elbow found nothing abnormal. There were some bloodstains on his shirt and shorts that he slept in, but no other outward signs that he had been injured.
He rose from the couch, and decided to look for the towel that, he thought, he had used on his arm. The towel was exactly where he had dropped it in his “dream”. It had some blood on it but not enough for the trauma that his dream had shown him. He didn’t know what to think or what to do next.
What can I do to prove or disprove this injury or that I am not a robot? None of this is making sense to me.
Then it dawned on him.
“Bruce. I’ll call my brother Bruce. He’s a GP. I’ll get him to x-ray me and that will proof definite.” Jack screamed to himself elated.
Quickly he walked to the glass wall of his studio side stepping the mess on the floor. The afternoon sun warmed his studio and the automatic glass polarization mechanism had polarized the large expanse of glass that kept the studio from becoming an oven but still allowed the studio to be bright for working. I He picked up the cordless phone and stabbed redial location number two to dial his brother as he went out onto the front porch. Out in the sun and open salt air he always thought clearer. The surf crashed relentlessly on the rocks below.
Bruce's phone rang four times before it was answered.
“Dr. Landry’s office. Can I help you?”
“Hi Liz. It’s Jack. Is my brother busy?”
“Oh, hi Jack., she said. Her voice went up an octave and she seemed excited that he called. "Have you finished your museum sculpture piece yet?”
“No, not yet Liz. I’m having a little problem with the balance of the piece.”
“Oh, well I would be glad to come over and help you with your balance.” she teased.
“Maybe tomorrow Liz, but I really need to talk to Bruce.” he said in a friendly but firm tone.
“Oh, ok. Are you not feeling well?”
“Uh, yeah, I am not exactly, uh, feeling like myself today.” he said and grimaced.
“Aw, poor baby. I’m sorry to hear that. Hold on a sec, he’s coming out of examination room three now. Lemme see if I can catch him,” she put him on hold.
After a few seconds of symphonic hold music his Bruce picked up the phone.
“Hey Jack. What’s wrong? Is your regular doctor out of town or something?”
“Uh, no, Little bro. I have a problem that I need to see you about. You’re the only one I can come to. Is Wendy still there?”
“Uh, yeah, she’s finishing up a leg x-ray, and then she’s off for the rest of the day. What’s up and why the mystery?”
Jack dodged the question. “Ask her to stay until I get there, I need an x-ray done. Tell her I’ll pay her a hundred bucks if she waits for me to get there.”
“What’s wrong, Jack? Did you break a leg or an arm, or something? Are you hurt?” the concern in Bruce's voice could be heard.
“No I’m OK, I think, I’m not hurt, but look Bruce I can’t explain right now. Once I get there I’ll tell you everything. Trust me.”
“Ok, sure. You’ll make Wendy’s day. Wendy turn down a hundred bucks? Right. She’ll be here.”
“Ok great thanks. I’ll be there in about ten minutes and explain everything.” he hung up the phone.
darted inside and placed the phone on its cradle. Quickly he changed into street clothes. In just a few minutes he locked up his studio and climbed down the stair case and got into his Jeep Rubicon for the drive to his brother’s office in Elk.
On the drive over to his brother’s office, Jack mulled over the events of the day.
“I can’t be a robot. I am human. I know I am.” he said to himself as he turned onto the highway.
He held his left arm up to his ear and flopped his wrist back and forth, and opened and closed his fist, thinking if he’s a robot he should hear motors, or mechanical sounds, or something inside his arm. But he heard nothing. Not a whir, or a click, nothing, just nothing.
The drive seemed longer than usual to Jack. Finally he pulled up into the parking lot of his brother’s medical practice and parked in front of the small, one story, red brick, office building. Bruce's shingle hung by the entrance.
The lot was mostly empty except for a few cars and Wendy’s truck. Bruce usually ended his day between 4:00 and 5:00 pm and then went to make his hospital rounds at the nearby small hospital. It was 3:58 pm.
Will Bruce think that I've has lost his mind when I tell him my “problem”? Hell, I think that I've lost my mind.
Bruce had always thought that Jack had a strange mind. He'd always said that there was a thin division between genius and insanity and that he straddled it. Maybe his was right and the he had crossed that line in the wrong direction.
He shrugged and got out of the Jeep. As he walked to the door, he again held his arm to his ear and flopped his hand back in forth. Still he heard nothing.
Jack walked into the waiting room, and Liz looked up from behind the reception desk to see who had entered. Her pretty face immediately brightened up when she saw Jack coming through the door.
“Hi Jack.” she said in a very melodious tone.
“Did you feel that those tremors this morning? That second one really shook things up here. It took me an hour just to pick up all the stuff that fell on the floor.” she held her hands palms up and moved them around her to indicate the area.
“Hey, Liz. Oh yeah, I felt ‘em alright. It messed up my studio some, but no other real damage that I could see. So other than the quake this morning, how’s it going? Is my brother working you to the nub?” he kidded as he approached the reception desk.
“Oh yeah. You know Bruce. He must have the most popular practice in Elk. He spends more time with his patients than any doctor I know.” she said her emerald eyes locked on to his.
“Bruce has a bedside manner that's the best. I've worked for several doctors before, and your brother is an angel. He always has time to sit and chit-chat with his patients. They just love him for that.”
“Let me see if he’s finished with Mr. Bishop. He’s his last patient, and can that man talk. I sometimes have to save Bruce from this man’s continuous talking of football, ice cream, and whatever. I’ll be right back.”
She got up from the reception desk, smiled a big sexy smile at Jack; turned around and started down the hall. He just watched her; a very petite and well figured young woman walk down the hall to get his brother.
He thought about what he was exactly going to tell his bother. I think I’m a robot. No, he better not start like that. He decided just to let Wendy x-ray him and let his brother “discover” that he's a robot and would go from there.
Liz came down the hall with Bruce and Mr. Bishop. Mr. Bishop was still bending Bruce’s ear about something that happen to him in the 1960’s when he was in the Navy.
“Mr. Bishop.” Liz cut into his monologue.
“Let me get you some samples of those pills that Dr. Landry prescribe for you.” she said as she took Mr. Bishop’s arm and steered him away from Bruce.
With Mr. Bishop’s attention diverted to Liz, Bruce shook Mr. Bishop’s hand. "Ok Bob I'll see you next time. Thanks, and Liz will take care of you."
Mr. Bi
shop looked a little perplexed and looked back and forth between Bruce and Liz and then shrugged and continued his one-sided conversation with Liz as she steered him down the hall to the waiting room.
Bruce turned to his brother and walked the few feet quickly.
“Jack, let’s go to the x-ray room in the back and see what’s going on with you. Wendy’s waiting.”
“Sure. I’ll tell you a story you are not going to believe if the x-rays show what I hope they don’t.”
Bruce look at Jack quizzically and opened his mouth to say something, but Jack held up his hand in the universal stop talking gesture.
“Not until after the x-rays.” Jack said.
Bruce shrugged clapped Jack on the back and they walked to the back of the clinic chatting.
They passed Mr. Bishop and Liz, and Mr. Bishop was telling Liz how important fiber is for regularity. Jack and Bruce just looked at each other and broke into a broad grin.