Free Bully by A. J. Kirby Page B

imagining the whole thing.
    It was only when we reached the swinging double-doors that led directly to the operating theatres that I realised that it was really happening, and it was happening now. That it wasn’t a dream; I really was going to lose my foot. That Tommy or no Tommy, something awful was happening. It wasn’t just some faraway event like when the doctor broke the news to me, or even when the mean-looking orderly bashed the gurney against the door to my room… It was happening now.
    Everything seemed to click into focus. It was as though, for the first time in my life, I realised that there was such a thing as consequence. Only in that moment had I realised that the world was turning; a spinning dance-floor of momentum from which I couldn't escape. For so long I’d been living in that one moment, head-lost. Now I understood that this terrible thing was going to happen to me and I would have to live with the physical consequences of it for the rest of my life. And although that life might not have been forever, it was still real. This moment was still real. More real now than in my most desperate moments of the previous sleepless night. More real now than even a few moments ago, as we passed the military police. Before, the situation was abstract. This could happen to you at some point in the future. Now, there was no avoiding the fact. My foot was going to be amputated. I would no longer be whole. I would forever be defined by what was missing. If there was to be forever. For now, what I had to worry about was the very real possibility that I would be fleeing Tommy Peaker a cripple.
    I gripped onto the metal struts of the gurney with white-knuckled hands, started chanting in my head: this can’t be real. This can’t be real. But I couldn’t convince myself. I knew. I knew.
    ‘Is there no alternative?’ I pleaded.
    Montaffian solemnly shook his head. He looked tired. More tired than I’d seen him even yesterday after he’d had to scrape two Americans off the road. Big black saddlebags hung from his eyes. His beard looked more unkempt.
    ‘No way we can delay it?’ I begged.
    Montaffian looked away for a moment. But then he looked back at me.
    ‘Give us a moment, will you boys,’ he said to the orderlies. And they immediately left us alone, clomping off down the corridor muttering between themselves.
    ‘There’s no going back, Gary,’ he said, softly. ‘You need to understand the reality of the situation. If you do not have this operation, you will die. And I know that, uh, in your current condition, you may believe that death is a viable alternative to this. After all, what fit and healthy young man could consider themselves an invalid… But at some point in the future, you will value life again. I promise you.’
    I stared into his milky blue eyes. I both hated and loved him in that moment. Montaffian told me what I needed to know; which was unlike my experience with the rest of the medical profession. People who usually wanted to keep the cards close to their chests, not revealing anything of their hand until the very end, if at all. Dr. Montaffian told me his hand from the off. He also told me my hand. And when you’re dealing with the devil, that’s very important.
    Our eyes still locked, Montaffian shouted back to the two orderlies.
    ‘I think we’re ready now.’
    I nodded and succumbed to consequence.
     
    At first there was darkness and I was not aware of anything. Not time, not space, not my mind or my body. In this time, I suppose I was floating. Drifting, like someone that’s lost at sea. Next, a vague awareness washed over through me; not feelings per se, but rather the humming emergence of some kind of consciousness. Faraway sounds. Dappled light. Colours. Like falling from a great height. And at the bottom came more confusion.
    I was drowning in an enclosed space filled with mud and leaves. I could sense the edges of my known universe, as though my mind was sending out