Free Heat by Michael Cadnum

what color she was going to paint the walls.
    â€œWhatever color the architecture committee picks,” she said, looking through my folder. “What do you think—nerve white? Bone marrow pink?”
    I gave a little pro forma laugh.
    She pried a paper clip free, nodding as she read. “How have you been feeling?” not looking up.
    â€œGreat.”
    This got her attention. “You haven’t experienced—”
    â€œDouble vision, no.”
    I answered no to nausea, dizziness, and told her promptly that my appetite was fine.
    â€œAnd the event-specific amnesia.”
    â€œI’ve been remembering it in sections.” I had prepared this statement, having anticipated the question, and it came out a little wooden.
    â€œHave you?” Friendly, but not friendly.
    I had to offer her something, something true. I had to give her some hint how I felt. “I have dreams.”
    Her gaze slipped off mine for an instant, as though dreams were not her field of expertise. “What of?”
    â€œThe dive,” I said. I couldn’t keep from sounding a little exasperated—why else would I mention this? “The accident.”
    She gave me the little wrinkle of a smile I had noticed before, as though “accident” were a euphemism.
    â€œI didn’t get the right altitude,” I said. “And then, because of that, I didn’t have the leverage when I tucked in. Of course, I could have hit my toes. A guy in San Diego broke a metatarsal a few months ago, dinging the tower with his foot. I could have missed and gotten away with it. But I didn’t.”
    â€œYou can’t remember it.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter.”
    â€œIt’s all right that you can’t recall the actual dive, step by step.”
    â€œThat’s what I mean—I know it’s all right.”
    â€œTell me about the dream,” she said.
    â€œWhat made you choose neurology?” I asked. One way to cross-examine an expert witness successfully is to mix up your questions, keep the witness just a little off guard.
    She looked at me with her polite smile. Her makeup was good.
    â€œYou could have picked—radiology,” I said, imagining her scurrying into the control booth, protecting her reproductive future from the electromagnetic waves.
    â€œRadiologists are the most boring people in the world,” she said, slipping out of her doctor voice for a second, as though visualizing radiologists at parties, next to her in meetings, excited about their new high-speed Kodak film.
    I wanted to be an ophthalmologist. I wanted to cure blindness, and I wasn’t afraid to imagine my touch searching the vitreous humor, the central fluid of the eyeball, for a steel splinter or a shard of glass.
    I had sometimes given into fantasies of my waiting room, with broad, comfortable chairs, easy for the sight impaired to find, with simple, beautiful abstract paintings, greens and blues, on the walls. I had fantasies I was a little embarrassed by, tall, soft-voiced male nurses telling frightened but increasingly hopeful patients, “Dr. Chamberlain will see you now.” But I had studied the university catalogs carefully, Duke, Harvard, Stanford. Dad had always said cost was no object.
    I told Dr. Breen about my dreams, putting some feeling into it.
    â€œThese nightmares trouble you,” she suggested, gently.
    I hesitated. “A little.”
    â€œI never remember my dreams. I’m going through a divorce, and I would like to have access to whatever my unconscious might have to offer in the way of dream commentary. But—”
    This happens to me—people look at me, make a judgment about my character, and tell me about themselves. “That’s too bad,” I said. “About not dreaming.”
    â€œI’ve always envied people who had howling nightmares. Wonderful story dreams. Rich inner lives.”
    â€œYou’re right to envy us.