Michal, meanwhile, leaned back properly in his chair and just existed, watching everything around him and finding an almost touching pleasure in it. Maybe it's good after all, everyone around him isn't thinking about the fact that they lost the house, they're thinking about him, and they're all on the same boat now. It doesn't matter that they wish he was okay as much as they wish for the same thing. In the end, it's probably good that his body started betraying him a little earlier than he had outlined. He shouldn't die before 7:00 PM anyway, when all the nanobots will turn off, it's just possible that the nanobots are trying to make it look more natural now, after all, they have a certain amount of artificial intelligence in them, and it's also Pavel's work after all, maybe he planned it that way. It didn't occur to him to ask him. Mistake. Now he knows.
But on the other hand, it must be admitted that it has its originally unintended charm. He might be able to say goodbye to everyone directly and not die alone at home and lie here for another week and decompose. They'll be shocked. But is it such a shock at his age? Everyone must have suspected that it would come soon. But still, it could have come about 2 hours later, he would have at least had time to chat with them a little more and taste what kind of cakes they brought.
"Hey, and what kind of cakes did you all bring, anyway?" Michal asked, and as he spoke, it seemed that he used up more air than usual. Well, it was an unusual sight. He was sitting on a chair literally like he was dying and asking about cakes at the same time. However, at least Robert was glad that he was at least not just thinking about his death anymore, and he was happy to join in:
"We brought plum, but I already tasted it, and we went a little overboard with the sugar. It's like a fruit cake with plums."
"Then show me the bounty."
"But you shouldn't eat, what if they want to operate on you," Klara reminded him.
"As if this whole lunch didn't count now. Just bring it here, please."
So Klara took a small plate and a knife and ran with them into the living room, from where she returned with one piece. She placed it next to Michal on the table and brought him a spoon with it. Michal, with a tired sigh, cut off a piece with the spoon and tasted it. He thought about the bite and tasted it again.
"Well, yeah, there's something to it. The plums are sour, and the dough is sweet."
"Just add whipped cream on top, and it's a cake from the pastry shop," Robert added.
"Or this kind of jelly," Michal confirmed.
"But you can't eat it in large quantities like a cake, it's really like a cake, it's so sweet. Whose work is it? Yours or Terezka's?" he said after another spoonful.
"Terezka's, I just don't know if she'll be happy now that you told her it's too sweet."
"But you started it by saying it's like a cake," he defended himself, and then he suddenly cleared his throat. In response to that, no one said anything again for a while. By then, after a long search and rummaging through the rooms, little Dan returned with the broom. He returned to a completely silent kitchen. He swept up the shards, threw them in the trash, and placed the broom and dustpan right next to it. Then he went to sit back down at the table. The silence was broken by Tomas:
"So? Better?"
"Well, so... I still feel weird, but it's not so bad."
Suddenly, a dog began to howl next door. It howled long and mournfully. Immediately after that, the faint siren of an ambulance could be heard, which was getting stronger every second. Outside, it was still raining, but there wasn't such a big hurricane anymore. When the ambulance was close, it turned off the siren and just illuminated the surroundings with its flashing blue and red lights. That light was already shining through the windows of the kitchen into the house. Tomas immediately went out to meet them. The door clicked behind him, and he immediately returned with a pair of paramedics. One of them was a doctor who was carrying a tablet in a waterproof case for the report, and the other was apparently an ordinary paramedic. Another person outside was already preparing the bed in the ambulance and was ready to come to help in case Michal had trouble getting to the ambulance.
"Good afternoon," the doctor began in a calm, formal tone and continued: "so what's wrong with us?" and as soon as he saw Michal, he said:
"Are we breathing well? Are you dizzy?"
"A-a little worse. But I'm not dizzy yet."
"Um, okay. Can you stand up? Or would you rather sit?"
"Yeah, if it's about that, I can walk to the ambulance."
"Okay, as you wish. If you feel unwell at any time, tell us. We'll stop, you'll sit on the ground, and we'll wait for our colleague with the stretcher, okay?"
"Yes."
"So if you can slowly stand up, don't worry, my colleague here will also be catching you, and we'll go slowly. We're not in a hurry, we have everything ready in the ambulance," the doctor continued, while the paramedic went to Michal from the right and was ready to be his constant support. Michal slowly began to get up, and the paramedic helped him slightly. Then, when he was standing, he grabbed him across his entire back under his left shoulder and supported him while walking and at the same time was ready to catch him if he fell. Micka noticed that something was happening and went to look in the kitchen again.
In the kitchen, she then just dumbly watched as Michal shuffled into the hallway. When Michal, with the help of the paramedic, actually got to the hallway, he wanted to change his shoes there, but the paramedic told him:
"Forget the shoes, it's warm in the ambulance, and you won't impress me with that. And the nurses at the hospital don't care either." It was still raining outside. Tomas hurried up, and when they were leaving the house, he held an umbrella over the two of them. The second paramedic, meanwhile, opened the sliding door on the side of the ambulance and helped Michal get in. Then he immediately sat him down on the stretcher and ordered him to lie down on it. The first paramedic then returned and was dealing with something with the rest of the family, while the second one was already getting to work.
"Can you take off your shirt?" he asked him.
"Feel free to cut it, it's just a piece of fabric."
"Okay, because I need to measure your EKG."
By then, the doctor had also boarded the vehicle. While the paramedic was cutting the shirt from the neck down, the doctor asked him:
"What about your hand? You said you lost feeling in it?"
"Well, it's still not right."
"So still the same, okay. But you're talking, so it might not be it. We'll see what the EKG says. Mm, you don't have chest pain?"
"No, I don't."
"Or a feeling of heat, cold?" he tried again.
"Also no." Meanwhile, the paramedic moistened his chest in specific places, where he then attached suction cups with cables. On the device above Michal's right, his heartbeat then appeared, and a paper started coming out of it, where it was all drawn over time. At the same time, the paramedic was already preparing an oxygen tank and a mask for him. He lifted Michal's lying head and pulled a mask over his face, to which a tube led.
"Oh, like for a pilot," Michal said.
"Exactly."
The doctor, meanwhile, tore off the growing sheet of paper from the machine and began to decipher something in it. He frowned. Then he announced to his colleague:
"There's something there, the left ventricle is weaker, but... it's not so much that it's doing anything on its own right now. I'd take him to the hospital. CT, chest and hand X-ray, nothing will happen, and ultrasound of the arteries. It could be a clot that didn't head straight to the head but elsewhere."
Then he stood in front of the stretcher and said to Michal:
"Raise both hands and hold them in the air for a moment. Try it. Both hands up." Michal reached out both hands and put them in the air. However, after a short while, the left one began to betray him.
"Hold it." But Michal simply didn't have the strength in it. He couldn't hold it, it went down.
"Smile at me," the doctor ordered inquisitively. Michal smiled, but his corner of the mouth didn't droop.
"Let's go," he assessed.
He got out of the vehicle and waved his hand at the second paramedic. He quickly ran to Michal and strapped his legs and torso from under the stretcher. The doctor, meanwhile, got in with the driver. The sliding door closed by the hand of the first paramedic, and the ambulance drove off. The doctor in the driver's seat was already starting to fill out a report on the tablet, which the hospital they were heading to was supposed to receive.
When they were already moving, the first paramedic began:
"So, grandpa, how are you?"
"I'm okay."
"Where did we pull you out of, anyway?"
"Family celebration."
"You were getting annoyed there, so you called us to save you from there?" the other one tried to help him.
Okay, here's the translation of the seventh part of Chapter 1:
"Of course," Michal said with a certain harsher tone.
"But then you have it as an experience ride. As you said, you have a mask like some pilot now," the first paramedic tried again.
"Yeah," Michal began to tune in to the same wavelength. These guys certainly wanted to make the ride in this unfortunate machine more pleasant for every unfortunate person. Why spoil it for them when they're trying so hard.
"And while we're at it. I'll tell you that my favorite fighter jet was and will always be the F-35. My dad had the F-14. And what's your favorite fighter jet, gentlemen?"
"Well, I'm not into that, I don't know anything about that. I never followed fighter jets. I'm more into football. I even had a collection of cards and magnets," the first one began.
"But watch out, he's a Sparta fan," the second one added.
"So you see. That never appealed to me. Me and team sports in general... I was never good at that. I'm more of a solo everything. Then you're the only one you can disappoint."
"But that can't be fun, being alone in it."
"Sometimes it's not, but you disappoint fewer people when it doesn't work out."
"Yeah. But then even the joy isn't as great," the first one told him.
"Probably not."
"And have you disappointed someone?" the first one was immediately interested, but at that, his colleague from the side of the ambulance gave him a sharp look.
"Yeah. My son."
"It's none of my business, but if you want..." The second paramedic, meanwhile, gave him a second ugly look, but then he might have started to understand why his colleague was asking. He's not doing it for himself, for his own curiosity. He's letting the old man talk. If he talks himself, it will go by faster for him, and if he can confide in them, maybe he'll feel relieved. Because what's the probability that when someone is already 100 years old and rides in an ambulance to the hospital, that he'll come back?
"Yeah. He ended up as an incurable alcoholic. They're keeping him in a loony bin, and he'll probably never get out of there until he dies. He's actually waiting for death there. A tragedy..." At that moment, the first paramedic stepped in:
"So at least he'll have peace and quiet in heaven then." But Michal had to answer:
"Yeah, heaven. Heaven, in my opinion, is in the best case only for those who are afraid to look the truth in the face. Life begins and ends. This is the life that should be lived, and when a person should create and discover, and there's simply nothing before or after. One would have to upload one's consciousness somewhere into a computer."
"And that's pretty sci-fi," the paramedic finished and played it up a bit, and so that it wouldn't stay in this dark moment, he actively continued:
"And you said that's in the best case..."
"Well, in the worst case, it's a tool of ordinary manipulation. Like in some twisted cult, or... like the Vikings had it. They had that they absolutely had to fight and kill foreign people, because only if they die in battle will they get to Valhalla. Yeah, so that's it. I don't really mind religion as such in general, but the fact that it encourages irrational thinking and behavior. The problem is that religion is essentially about it being an unproven faith, and firmly believing in something unproven is irrational in itself. All in all, religion is irrational. Moreover, it's such a flexible concept that anyone can create their own. You know, when one person believes in fairy tales, he's a fool, but get a group of them, and it's a new religion."
To give it some form, he said to Michal:
"Aha. Yeah, well. Fortunately, you, sir, won't be seeing Valhalla anytime soon. We'll see what's wrong with you and get you fixed up."
Comments (0)
See all