This first teaser is not a pivotal moment in the story, but I find it poignant and with deep pathos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nChris Beaumont, CHU Limoges<\/strong>
\u201cI don\u2019t feel well,\u201d H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Beaumont tells her husband Chris. He\u2019s in the bathroom, fresh out of the shower. She is standing by the door, looking fragile and afraid, but determined too. Her tone is matter-of-fact, but she\u2019s looking at her husband intently, a stare where he can read her tension and concern. He freezes, his breath caught in his throat, his body suddenly both ice-cold and feverish, tingling. He wants to speak, but she forestalls him.
\u201cI have a headache. It just started ten minutes ago\u201d. Chris shoves down a sudden impulse to scream and clamps his teeth together. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like a normal headache.\u201d
He forces himself to ignore the wave of apprehension and fear that\u2019s menacing to overwhelm him and instead takes H\u00e9l\u00e8ne\u2019s hands in his. \u201cI think it could be this thing you\u2019ve been working on,\u201d she continues. \u201cOr maybe it is<\/em> just a normal headache and I\u2019m just a drama queen\u201d, she adds with a tight smile. \u201cYou need to take me to hospital. Now\u201d.
Chris blinks furiously, still staring at her. He\u2019s been discussing his work with his wife every night, in a bid to get rid of some stress, and H\u00e9l\u00e8ne now knows all there is to know about it. She knowns his team hasn\u2019t managed to study the way it sets in. They\u2019re always too late, the test subjects already gripped by the debilitating melancholia.
\u201cYou need to take me in and run your tests,\u201d she carries on, as if reading his mind.
Chris nods, blinded by tears. Silent, shocked, he walks to the bedroom with her and starts dressing as she packs a light suitcase. He quickly puts his shoes on and grabs his keys. He hates it, but time is of the essence, as H\u00e9l\u00e8ne has straight away understood. Half of him wants to take her into bed, press his body against her, the duvet over their heads, like a den, a cave where nothing bad can happen. The other half, the researcher half, recognises that H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is right. If he can examine her before, during and after, maybe they\u2019ll learn how the disease operates, how it evolves. Maybe gain some insight that could ultimately save her, if indeed it\u2019s that type of a headache at all because it won\u2019t be, obviously. It can\u2019t be.
H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is already walking towards the door. Their fifteen year old daughter is standing in the doorway, carrying her schoolbag. \u201cMarie, I\u2019m taking mum to hospital,\u201d Chris tells her, his voice tense. She doesn\u2019t move and her eyes go from her dad to H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \u201cIt\u2019s probably nothing,\u201d H\u00e9l\u00e8ne says, embracing her.
\u201cIt\u2019s this zombie thing, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Marie blurts, her body rigid, her fists clenched. She glances at her dad accusingly but says nothing. He reads the unspoken denunciation, the broken trust. He casts his eyes downwards, half-dragging H\u00e9l\u00e8ne past his daughter. They don\u2019t have time for hugs, they don\u2019t have time for lengthy farewells. They don\u2019t have time<\/em>.
A thousand thoughts are firing in Chris\u2019 brain. He infected her, somehow. They had sex the previous night, did that contribute to her condition today? He reviews what they had for dinner. He’s infected her, he’s certain of it. He should have quarantined himself, it\u2019s his fault, he brought this scourge into his home. He\u2019s uttered the words and the monster got real.
The drive to the hospital is silent and mercifully quick. He\u2019s called Martha, the head lab engineer and her boss, and the second he crosses the threshold of the hospital reception area, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is sat into a wheelchair and rushed to the neurology ward. She doesn\u2019t talk much, but she seems both amused and awed by the effectiveness and professionalism of the various nurses who hover around her. She does grimace as she\u2019s being shaved, and keeps rubbing a lock of hair between thumb and index finger. She\u2019s lowered into a gurney, a saline drip taped to her left arm and various sensors hooked onto her body, connected to strange boxes that beep and hum. A helmet is fitted to her head, the cold metal making her wince. She asks for her phone and takes a selfie. Chris\u2019 mood oscillates wildly between the hope that whatever she has is but a normal, benign headache, and black despair at the very real possibility that she will soon be brain dead. Martha, after a glance at him, takes charge of the proceedings and tells him to remain beside his wife.
It takes roughly two hours. At the beginning, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne is chatty, holding the fear at bay, joking with the nurses and then, gradually, the light in her eyes starts to fade. Martha swears she can physically feel <\/em>waves of anguish coming from Chris, who\u2019s still sitting next to her as her consciousness gently ebbs away. She could measure them if the proper machine existed.
In the end, Chris is slumped forward in his chair, vainly patting his wife\u2019s hand, staring at nothing, just like her. From a medical point of view, these two hours have provided a unique insight into the development of the disease. On a more personal point of view however, Martha doubts Chris will be functioning emotionally like a normal human being ever again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This first teaser is not a pivotal moment in the story, but I find it poignant and with deep pathos. Chris Beaumont, CHU Limoges \u201cI don\u2019t feel well,\u201d H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Beaumont tells her husband Chris. He\u2019s in the bathroom, fresh out of the shower. She is standing by the door, looking fragile and afraid, but determined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-98","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cdillingerbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}