Dr Jew

which appeared to be in good condition, and slipped into my jammies for some much-needed rest. I took it not in the bedroom allotted me, but on the bed next to your dear wife, where I might have immediate contact should her status turn sour, and where I could also keep her warm with my body's glow. I know I've said that Mexico is a tropical place, but one can never be certain when the weather might change, and I wasn't in a chance-taking mood.
    "So there we did lie, your wife recovering from the surgery, your friend and doctor recovering from the stress of battle and lack of sleep, and the gaucho on the floor never to recover again. We three found a kind of peace in this mercurial world, surrendering to forces outside our power, those mighty emanations in the depths of consciousness that always seem to have our best interests in mind.
    "Seemed! Aye, there's the rub. However things might seem, they are rarely so. And this escapade was no exception to the rule.
    "I awoke – I know not when, but the sun had expired and night taken its place. I awoke not soothingly. No, horribly. A ringing in my ears accompanied the dull ache in my bones, the horrible twist in my stomach, and stabbing pain in my left temple. The ringing stabilized and found familiarity: my patient's monitors – one of them awry! I got to my feet, found a light and gave her the once over. The angry beeeeeeep was her pulse, perfect in electronic pitch that acted as representative. Why? No! How? Losing her? She? No, no, no. Not on my watch! Not when I'm captaineering this vessel. Not to be. Not so.
    "I 'll again spare the jargon we medical men spit forth to impress Joe Q. Public in order to give it to you straight: she was dying. The globular formula that had initially seemed so appropriate a fit now jumped wildly out of control. Had it been the Mexican's doing with his orgiastic interference that sent her into shock? Or was this burden mine, the scientific failure of a formula still in beta testing? Probably the Mexican's fault. But that mattered not. She was my patient, my responsibility, and I must do all I could to preserve her. That I did.
    "Do you want to hear of my attempts? Do they interest you? Or would you rather I got to the tits of this sordid affair and unpack its full meat? I tell you that I tried. I tried with all my heart and brain, digging through my synapses for any sweet recipe that might revive her and take away that ashy cold marble texture in her skin. Oh God, I wanted it as much as you, Serge. Those once healthy lungs, with so many years still to clock – why would they not breathe? The riddle would have driven a lesser man insane. And who's to say that I was immune? I live on, but haunted.
    " Were I a corporation motivated solely by profit and inertia I would have let her slink away long before I did, packing her safely in the dirt to begin her decomposition. You guess rightly though in supposing I am not such a man as this, charting my own course as others shout Give up or It's Impossible and I smile with insanity, sure that victory lies just a little further over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough briar. Like those three hundred Spartans who would not take failure as an answer or Alan Shepard who ignored NASA when they said No, you shall not play golf on the moon and took his clubs and a caddy anyway – that was me, hovering over your Lise as her lease on life expirated, her smell grew more and more rancorous and deplorable, yet I went on, coddling her near, pumping air and nitrous oxide into any port of call, stacking her veins with needles and fluids to have her waken again like the Buddha, all golden-eyed and perky nippled. We went on and on, me and she, and I knew that either I would bring her back or else bring myself to the other side with her, so engrossed and enflamed with desire was I to create anew what I'd allowed to die.
    "Weariness engraved itself within me. I was a soggy sponge of perseverance and perspiration. The game was afoot no more. The hour was up. I knew. I knew . Bashing my head against the macadam hotel wall, my body and abilities were ready to give up – throw in the towel. But these were merely the tools of I , I , and this I would never surrender to the Adversary. Where there is Will, there is Way. Time is the only barrier, a padding between us and our desires. I had an idea, and for now it would have to wait. Yea, Lise would need to return with me to the U.S., but it might work… The