Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [43]
“Nose still numb?”
“Yes.”
Edgardo broke into the song “Comfortably Numb”: “I—I, have become, comfortably numb,” then scat singing the famous guitar solo, “Da daaaa, da da da da da-da-daaaaaa,” exaggerating Gilmour’s bent notes. “Okay! Okay, okay, Is there anybody in there?” Abruptly he broke off. “Well, I will go talk to my friend whom you met. He’s into this stuff and he has an interest. His group is still looking at the election problem, for sure.”
“Do you think I could meet him again? To explore some strategies?” And ask a bunch of questions, he didn’t say.
“Maybe. Let me talk to him. It may be pointless to meet. It depends. I’ll check. Meanwhile you should try your other options.”
“I don’t know that I have any.”
“Are you still having trouble making decisions?”
“Yes.”
“Go see your doctor, then.”
“I did! I mean, I’ve got an appointment. The time has almost come.”
Edgardo laughed.
“Please,” Frank said. “I’m trying. I made the call.”
But in fact, when the time came for his doctor’s appointment, he went in unhappily. Surely, he thought obstinately, deciding to go to the doctor meant he was well enough to decide things!
So he felt ridiculous as he described the problem to the doctor, a young guy who looked rather dubious. Frank felt his account was sketchy at best, as he very seldom tasted blood at the back of his throat anymore. But he could not complain merely of feeling indecisive, so he emphasized the tasting a little more than the most recent data would truly support, which made him feel even more foolish. He hated visiting the doctor at any time, so why was he there just to exaggerate an occasional symptom? Maybe his decision-making capability was damaged after all! Which meant it was good to have come in. And yet here he was making things up. Although he was only trying to physicalize the problem, he told himself. To describe real symptoms.
In any case, the doctor offered no opinion, but only gave him a referral to an ear nose and throat guy. It was the same one Frank had seen immediately after his accident. Frank steeled himself, called again (two decisions?) and found that here the next appointment available was a month away. Happily he wrote down the date and and forgot about it.
Or would have; except now he was cast back into the daily reality of struggling to figure out what to do. Hoping every morning that Emerson or Thoreau would tell him. So he didn’t really forget about the appointment, but it was scheduled and he didn’t have to go for a long time, so he could be happy. Happy until the next faint taste of old blood slid down the back of his throat, like the bitterness of fear itself, and he would check and see the day was getting nearer with a mix of relief and dread.
Once he noticed the date when talking with Anna, because she said something about not making it through the winter in terms of several necessary commodities that people had taken to hoarding. She had gotten into studying hoarding in the social science literature. Hoarding, Anna said, represented a breakdown in the social contract which even their economy’s capacity for overproduction in many items could not compensate for.
“It’s another case of prisoner’s dilemma,” Frank said. “Everyone’s choosing the ‘always defect’ option as being the safest. Or the one in which you rely least on others.”
“Maybe.”
Anna was not one for analogies. She was as literal-minded a person as Frank had ever met; it was always good to remember that she had started her scientific training as a chemist. Metaphors bounced off of her like spears off bulletproof glass. If she wanted to understand hoarding, then she googled “hoarding,