Li stood at the door. “You wanted me?”
“Yeah, come on in. Tell the Inspector what we found out last night.”
“We were going through your file again. There was a piece of paper tucked away that said someone heard you had a stroke.”
“Not so.”
“It says your health is not very good.”
“I’m fine. Better than fine.”
“What was it, then? Something scared you off the mountain into a doctor’s office last year. That’s not like you.”
“It was nothing. Well, maybe it was something. A sign, an omen.”
“That’s what the doctor said?”
“In his own way. He said everybody dies eventually.”
“A doctor said that?” Kim threw up his hands. “I could have told you the same thing. Li could have told you. Some doctor you have. Who needs to hear that from a doctor?”
“How much longer you have?” Li looked a little unsure of how that sounded. “I mean, do you need a glass of water or something?”
“I’m perfectly fine, in the pink of health. Better than either of you, I’ll bet. And you want to know why? When I realized what had happened, I had this sense of ecstasy. I was in my cabin on the mountain, looking out the window at the trees, when all of a sudden my brain shook. And then I got weak; not just weak, it was beyond that, the other side of weak. It was like going through the secret door in the floor of our house when I was young.”
“It sounds like you were stunned, kind of in shock or something. The driver said the ceiling in your place looked kind of low. Maybe you hit your head.” Li was trying to be helpful. This was the Li I remembered from a long time ago, when we first worked together.
“Shock? No, I’d say it was the opposite of shock. Maybe revelation. In that instant, I realized that I wasn’t doomed to wind down like an old clock. I could go all at once, in a moment that I controlled. Not controlled consciously, of course, but something deeper, older, a self within, one that knew more, had seen more, like starlight passing through the earth, a speck of dust on the way to the other side of nowhere, everywhere, boundless.”
“Careful, you’re getting out of breath, O. Sit down. I think you might be hyperventilating.” Kim moved the green chair closer.
“I don’t need a chair.” My eyes must have had a strange gleam in them. Kim looked frightened, as if he wasn’t sure who I was. “Don’t you get it? It means I’m not on a leash. No one owns me.”
“Good. Forget the leash and sit. I’ll get you a glass of water.” He turned to Li. “Do we have a physician around here?”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “It’s only a power surge in the system. I get a little boost of energy once in a while, nothing to worry about.” I felt my blood pressure dropping back to normal. “It’s like stepping on the gas when the transmission is in neutral, that’s all. Probably helps clean the carburetor.”
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Li said. “Mechanical things are not his specialty.”
“Cancel your operation, Kim. The guy with the smirk is from SSD; I’m sure of it.”
“We now classify people according to their smirks?” Kim’s face ran through a dozen expressions. “What about these?”
“You think I’m kidding? If we’re lucky, they’ll leave us twiddling our thumbs and move things to another time. If they really want to make a point, they’ll do something ugly.”