cancerous times? What kind of condition might we expect to have diagnosed in a facility called Autumn Harvest Farms? Whooping cough, croup? A touch of the grippe? Familiar old farmhouse miseries calling for bed rest, a deep chest massage with soothing Vicks VapoRub. Would someone read to us from
I had misgivings. They took my samples away, sat me down at a computer console. In response to questions on the screen I tapped out the story of my life and death, little by little, each response eliciting further questions in an unforgiving progression of sets and subsets. I lied three times. They gave me a loose-fitting garment and a wristband ID. They sent me down narrow corridors for measuring and weighing, for blood-testing, brain-graphing, the recording of currents traversing my heart. They scanned and probed in room after room, each cubicle appearing slightly smaller than the one before it, more harshly lighted, emptier of human furnishings. Always a new technician. Always faceless fellow patients in the mazelike halls, crossing from room to room, identically gowned. No one said hello. They attached me to a seesaw device, turned me upside down and let me hang for sixty seconds. A printout emerged from a device nearby. They put me on a treadmill and told me to run, run. Instruments were strapped to my thighs, electrodes planted on my chest. They inserted me in an imaging block, some kind of computerized scanner. Someone sat typing at a console, transmitting a message to the machine that would make my body transparent. I heard magnetic winds, saw flashes of northern light. People crossed the hall like wandering souls, holding their urine aloft in pale beakers. I stood in a room the size of a closet. They told me to hold one finger in front of my face, close my left eye. The panel slid shut, a white light flashed. They were trying to help me, to save me.
Eventually, dressed again, I sat across a desk from a nervous young man in a white smock. He studied my file, mumbling something about being new at this. I was surprised to find that this fact did not upset me. I think I was even relieved.
'How long before the results are in?'
'The results are in,' he said.
'I thought we were here for a general discussion. The human part. What the machines can't detect. In two or three days the actual numbers would be ready.' 'The numbers are ready.'
'I'm not sure I'm ready. All those gleaming devices are a little unsettling. I could easily imagine a perfectly healthy person being made ill just taking these tests.'
'Why should anyone be made ill? These are the most accurate test devices anywhere. We have sophisticated computers to analyze the data. This equipment saves lives. Believe me, I've seen it happen. We have equipment that works better than the latest X-ray machine or CAT scanner. We can see more deeply, more accurately.'
He seemed to be gaining confidence. He was a mild-eyed fellow with a poor complexion and reminded me of the boys at the supermarket who stand at the end of the checkout counter bagging merchandise.
'Here's how we usually start,' he said. 'I ask questions based on the printout and then you answer to the best of your ability. When we're all finished, I give you the printout in a sealed envelope and you take it to your doctor for a paid visit.'
'Good.'
'Good. We usually start by asking how do you feel.'
'Based on the printout?'
'Just how do you feel,' he said in a mild voice.
'In my own mind, in real terms, I feel relatively sound, pending confirmation.'
'We usually go on to tired. Have you recently been feeling tired?'
'What do people usually say?'
'Mild fatigue is a popular answer.'
'I could say exactly that and be convinced in my own mind it's a fair and accurate description.'
He seemed satisfied with the reply and made a bold notation on the page in front of him.
'What about appetite?' he said.
'I could go either way on that.'
'That's more or less how I could go, based on the printout.'
'In other words you're saying sometimes I have appetitive reinforcement, sometimes I don't.'
'Are you telling me or asking me?'
'It depends on what the numbers say.'
'Then we agree.'
'Good.'
'Good,' he said. 'Now what about sleep? We usually do sleep before we ask the person if they'd like some decaf or tea. We don't provide sugar.'
'Do you get a lot of people who have trouble sleeping?'
'Only in the last stages.'
'The last stages of sleep? Do you mean they wake up early in the morning and can't get back to sleep?'
'The last stages of life.'
'That's what I thought. Good. The only thing I have is some low threshold animation.'
'Good.'
'I get a little restless. Who doesn't?'
'Toss and turn?'
'Toss,' I said.
'Good.'
'Good.'
He made some notes. It seemed to be going well. I was heartened to see how well it was going. I turned down his offer of tea, which seemed to please him. We were moving right along.
'Here's where we ask about smoking.'
'That's easy. The answer is no. And it's not a matter of having stopped five or ten years ago. I've never smoked. Even when I was a teenager. Never tried it. Never saw the need.'
'That's always a plus.'
I felt tremendously reassured and grateful.
'We're moving right along, aren't we?'
'Some people like to drag it out,' he said. 'They get interested in their own condition. It becomes almost like a hobby.'
'Who needs nicotine? Not only that, I rarely drink coffee and certainly never with caffeine. Can't understand what people see in all this artificial stimulation. I get high just walking in the woods.'
'No caffeine always helps.'
Yes, I thought. Reward my virture. Give me life.
'Then there's milk,' I said. 'People aren't happy with the caffeine and the sugar. They want the milk too. All those fatty acids. Haven't touched milk since I was a kid. Haven't touched heavy cream. Eat bland foods. Rarely touch hard liquor. Never knew what the fuss was all about. Water. That's my beverage. A man can trust a glass of water.'
I waited for him to tell me I was adding years to my life.
'Speaking of water,' he said, 'have you ever been exposed to industrial contaminants?'
'What?'
'Toxic material in the air or water.'
'Is this what you usually ask after the cigarettes?'
'It's not a scheduled question.'
'You mean do I work with a substance like asbestos? Absolutely not. I'm a teacher. Teaching is my life. I've spent my life on a college campus. Where does asbestos fit into this?'
'Have you ever heard of Nyodene Derivative?'
'Should I have, based on the printout?'
'There are traces in your bloodstream.'
'How can that be if I've never heard of it?'
'The magnetic scanner says it's there. I'm looking at bracketed numbers with little stars.'
'Are you saying the printout shows the first ambiguous signs of a barely perceptible condition deriving from
