It gets weirder

I spend the next day watching English movies with Arabic subtitles. During commercials, while casually looking at the CT scans, I notice something wrong, something very wrong. My blood turns to ice as I realize that there has been a horrible mistake. The last name on the scans does not match mine. Some of the letters of my last name are there, but others have been replaced, and all have been rearranged to make a new name. I’ve been morphed from a French Canadian Marie Descent to a Russian Marie Sekdeny by the Egyptians . . . or is it the ancient Greeks up to their old renaming tricks through some weird time travel wormhole? 

Yet, that’s not the most disturbing thing. My age has also been altered. Two years have been added to it, catapulting me prematurely into the next decade. These definitely cannot be my scans, but the pictured foot is unquestionably mine; I recognize my metatarsals. I knew having surgery at midnight was a bad idea. I’ve entered the Twilight Zone and there are no exit signs in sight. 

I feel like Michael York’s character in the 1976 film Logan’s Run, where people, living in a futuristic society, are not allowed to live beyond the age of thirty. Every citizen’s hand is implanted, at birth, with a crystal which changes colour as they age, and starts to blink when they reach thirty, at which time, they get vaporized in a spooky ceremony. Those who don’t want to have their molecules scattered about the scenery try to run and escape. Michael York’s job is to find where these “runners” go. 

So, he goes undercover and becomes a runner himself by having years added to his age, and his crystal accelerated to blinking status. I examine my own hands for any device, blinking or otherwise. I find only the intravenous port and it’s not blinking . . . yet. I’m ready though. If anyone from the future comes in my room to atomize my face, I’ll beat them with my new crutches.

Nice Hotel Doctor comes for a visit to make sure I’m being a good girl and am not terrorizing the nurses. I pounce on him and show him the malevolent CT scans. He smirks and admits that they screwed up my name. I no longer care about the name. I point to the age with a bony finger that is looking older by the second, and filled with outrage, I bellow “I am not fifty! Make them change it.”

 He’s positively laughing now. I want to seize him by the collar and shake him silly, gorgeous manly specimen or not, as my usually jovial self is no longer in any mood for levity. No one messes with my age and lives. He’s saved by the arrival of Hercules who has come to fit me with a walking air cast. With a chuckle and a wave, Nice Annoying Hotel Doctor—I, too, can rearrange people’s names—takes this opportunity to flee. 

The fitting of the cast having taken place, Hercules tells me that I’m not permitted to walk with it for six to eight weeks. This bears the question: Why is it called a walking cast then? As a small consolation, I’m allowed to remove the cast at night, to sleep. What a relief! At least I won’t have to worry about bashing my good leg to a pulp with the rigid plastic and metal weapon on my broken leg, should I have a nightmare and try to run in my sleep.

I sulk well into the evening when, around 11 p.m., Pleasant Midnight Surgeon comes to give me my walking (ha ha—isn’t this just hilarious) papers. We chat a bit and he asks, “Any problems from the anaesthesia?”

“I don’t really know, I slept through it,” I answer with a smirk.

Raised eyebrows. Then, after a few seconds, the brows retreat to their normal position and a smile appears. Another few seconds go by before he starts giggling. It appears that the humour of my remark has taken the scenic route to his brain. The mental detour is explained when I learn that he’s been up for forty-eight hours straight. Gosh, I’m surprised he manages to speak coherently at all; me, I’d be in a coma.

Still giggling—my little joke ostensibly taking its time prancing along his neurons—he gives me a prescription, discharge instructions, and a host of phone numbers and email addresses to reach him, should I have any problems during the rest of the trip. I rearrange his name to Very Pleasant Super Nice Midnight Surgeon, VPSN Midnight Surgeon for short. I finally get discharged at midnight. In Cairo, it seems, important things get done at midnight. So be it. 

When I first got to the hospital, Daniel stayed with me until they came to take me for surgery, and he came back every day to bring me the essentials, like a toothbrush and toothpaste, bottled water, flowers, calm, and serenity. Kareem also came to visit, bearing flowers as well. These two are the sweetest guys I’ve ever met. And now, as I get discharged in the middle of the night, Daniel has come to take me back to the hotel. He says it’s just part of the job. I say he should be canonized.