The Lunatic Messiah

by Simon Cutting

  The phone had been ringing loudly for about thirty seconds before Thomas Armaita was unable to continue incorporating it into his dream and was woken up by it.

  'What time is it?' asked his wife blearily, and he glanced at the digital clock on the side table.

  'Three.'

  'Well who's calling at three in the morning? I have to go to work tomorrow.'

  Thomas grunted and put his slippers onto his feet. Just then the ringing stopped, and he almost decided to leave it and get back into bed when he heard Gabriel's voice out in the corridor. He sighed and opened the door to the bedroom. Gabriel was standing in the hallway in an oversized t-shirt, squinting in the light and talking into the phone.

  'Well yes, he's here. It's three in the morning. Of course he's here. We're all here doing what people always do at three in the morning. We're sleeping.'

  'Who is it?' asked Thomas.

  'Well if you're so sorry about it then why did you call at three in the morning?' continued Gabriel, no doubt berating one of his staff members at the hospital.

  There was no one else it could be at this time.

  'Give me the phone, Gabriel,' he said wearily.

  'He's a psychiatrist, not a surgeon. What is it that can't possibly wait until morning?'

  Thomas reached across and grabbed the handset, but Gabriel wouldn't release it.

  'Give me the phone, Gabriel,' he demanded, and she finally relented and let him tear it from her grasp.

  She folded her arms in front of her chest and glared at him.

  'You know, I have a European Lit lecture at nine tomorrow morning. Why don't you get another phone line and keep one in your room if people are going to be calling at all hours,' she said, storming back to her room and slamming the door behind her.

  Thomas shook his head in disbelief at the impossibility of talking reasonably to his own daughter and then lifted the handset to his ear.

  'Thomas Armaita. Who's speaking please?' he said.

  'Dr Armaita, I'm really terribly sorry to call you at this hour, but I spoke to Dr Pontius and he assured me that you would want to know as soon as possible...'

  'It's fine, Martin, really,' Thomas said, recognising the voice of the night receptionist at the hospital.

  'Well it's just that one of your patients, a Mr Joe Finch...'

  'What about him?'

  'He's had another seizure. A particularly severe one.'

  'Well that's certainly bad news, but Dr Pontius should be able to handle that.'

  He could hear Martin's hesitation on the other end of the line, and he suddenly remembered the last thing that Joe had said to him.

  'I'm afraid not. He's dead, Dr Armaita.'

  Thomas pulled into the car park and was annoyed to find that his own spot was taken by someone else. It was probably a member of the night staff who thought they could get away with it. He cursed and pulled his car into a handicap spot by the entrance, hoping that he could also get away with it at this time in the morning. He got out of his car, tucking in his shirt as he walked quickly towards the building. He had dressed quickly and in his haste had forgotten to put on a belt, so his trousers sat a little lower than was comfortable. When he reached reception, Martin just pointed and he kept going past him without even saying hello. Soon he was at the door to Joe's private room, which was wide open. Pontius turned when he saw him. He was leaning over the body and inspecting its pupils with a torch.

  'Dr Armaita. I'm glad you came, yes?' he said.

  Joe was lying in the bed as he always was. He looked a little pale, but other than that it was hard to see any difference. His wrists were still bound by the leather restraints.

  'Well I think we can take these off now. He always hated having to wear them,' Thomas said, allowing a certain amount of remorse to enter his voice.

  'Yes, of course, yes,' replied Pontius, and the two men took an arm each and released Joe from his restraints.

  His arms fell limply by his sides.

  'He's still warm,' commented Thomas, and Pontius nodded excitedly.

  'Yes, exactly. That's the thing. He's still got a heartbeat and we don't even have him on life support.'

  'He's still got a heartbeat?'

  'Absolutely. But we're seeing no brain activity of any kind. His pupils are unresponsive, but he's breathing unaided. It's really quite extraordinary.'

  Thomas went to the end of the bed and picked up the chart. It had noted on it the times of his various seizures over the last few days, as well as the time the nurse first noted his lack of responsiveness, apparently when she came in to check on him immediately following his seizure. Sure enough he had no brain activity.

  'So he's brain-dead?'

  Pontius nodded.

  'Yes, completely. No high level functions whatsoever. The question, of course, is why? An epileptic seizure cannot be the cause of this, surely. Besides which, all other bodily functions seem completely unaffected. It's as if his mind just...'

  'Transcended,' whispered Thomas.

  Pontius looked at him curiously at his choice of words and shook his head.

  'Well, no. I was going to say shut down. In light of this, I'm not even convinced that what we're dealing with here is temporal lobe epilepsy.'

  Thomas looked at him with surprise and placed the chart back on the end of the bed.

  'You're not? Well that's not good. You've already misdiagnosed him once. What if his wife decides that your incompetence contributed to the death? I would keep that to yourself, if I was you.'

  Pontius looked annoyed at the word incompetent and he folded his arms across his chest, just as Gabriel had done earlier. It was almost comical, to see a grown man on the verge of a tantrum.

  'It was not misdiagnosis on my part, Dr Armaita. I think the problem is that what we're dealing with here is something that has not yet been defined. The problem is I was trying to fit it into a category when no such category exists, yes? We could be looking at a completely new condition. Just think about it. I could have discovered something wholly unique. I was thinking that perhaps I should call it Pontius Syndrome. I was considering Pontius-Armaita Syndrome in view of the fact that it seems accompanied by a psychological aspect, but I'm not so sure you deserve such an honour now.'

  Pontius was still sulking, but Thomas was looking at him incredulously. He seemed completely indifferent to the fact that a patient under his care had died.

  'How can you think about naming it when he's only been dead an hour? This is a man's life we're talking about, not your ticket to getting your name in some medical journal.'

  Pontius shrugged.

  'It's both.'

  Thomas took one last look at Joe. He looked peaceful in his sleep, breathing shallowly and regularly. His mouth even looked like it had the remnants of a smile, and Thomas comforted himself with the fact that he didn't seem to have suffered too much. He looked contemptuously at Dr Pontius and then turned on his heel and walked from the room. He was meant to be at work in a few hours anyway, so there didn't seem to be much point in going home. He instead stopped by the coffee machine and placed a dollar into the slot. As the cup slowly filled he thought about the day before and what Joe had said to him. Something about his vehicle remaining but his mind leaving with no trace. What else had he said? Something ridiculous about the universe compacting into a singularity once he was gone. It was nonsense of course, but as Thomas took the cup from the machine and had a sip he felt a sense of unease slowly beginning to settle on him. Despite his natural scepticism and common sense he couldn't quite rid himself of the irrational fear that, at some point today, the universe would come to an end.