Glimmering

Off with the laryngoscope and back to the eyes again. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. She looked puzzled. “Have you had thrush?”

“No.” Spark of panic. “Do I now?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. But there’s something weird in there. Like a growth—”

“A growth? What kind of growth—”

“I don’t know. Here—” She slid a tongue depressor from a sterile packet, and something like a very long Q-Tip, what they used for throat cultures. “Say ‘Ah,’ I want to scrape some of it…”

He said, “Ah,” gagging. Growths. Fungus.

“Huh.” Emma’s eyes widened as she turned to hold first the wooden depressor and then the culture probe to the light. “This is very strange.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, look—there’s definitely something going on in there. See?” She held the tongue depressor so he could see what was on it, a thin film of something granular, faintly greenish—not a sickly mucousy green, but crystalline, like dyed salt. The same thing adhered to the Q-Tip.

“What is it?” he whispered.

Emma shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. Or heard of anything like it.” She stared at him. “It appears to be in your eyes, too, Jack. Are you having trouble seeing? Blurred vision, anything like that?”

“Uh, well—well, yes, maybe a little.” He gazed at the cultures in her hands. “Jesus, Emma, what is it? Is it a fungus?”

“No. It’s definitely not a fungus. Not thrush. A fungal infection doesn’t look like this. I don’t know what looks like this. And your temperature isn’t elevated, for whatever that’s worth, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in your lungs.

“Actually, you do seem sort of okay—I don’t see any lesions, or anything like that. But you have obviously lost quite a bit of weight, which isn’t so great. Any nausea?”

“Not really. Just—I don’t feel all that hungry. I feel kind of speedy, actually, most of the time. And my dreams are weird…”

He thought of the Fusax, inches from his elbow in the nightstand drawer.

“Huh.” She fixed him with an odd look. “Jule has weird dreams, too. Has he told you?”

“No.”

She bent beside her canvas bag, withdrew two plastic Ziploc bags. Deposited the cultures, one in each, then scribbled something on the labels. “I’m going to have these checked out. It’s very strange, these crystals—they almost look like uric acid does, when you get dehydrated.”

“What could it be?” Viruses from rain forests and newly exposed meteorites, mass amphibian die-outs and now a new disease, courtesy of Leonard Thrope.

“I don’t know. Did you ever see The Andromeda Strain?”

He started to laugh—horrified, almost delirious.

“I’m sorry!” She swept him into a hug, cradling his head with latex hands. “Oh God, Jack, I didn’t mean that—”

“It’s okay,” he gasped. “It’s okay—”

“It’s just so strange, you read all the time about these weird new things. But some of them are good, Jackie—you know? At least in theory, this could be good,” she added somewhat dubiously. “I’ll run it by the lab, have some other people look at it. Are you doing anything different? Some weird therapy?”

Again, the Fusax in the drawer. “No.”

“Huh. Okay, then.” She peeled off the gloves and slid them into a biohazard container. “Well. You feel up to eating, after all this?”

He laughed again, more easily. “Oh, sure, Emma! This is like, a real stimulant to the appetite—”

“Not right now. Maybe a little while?” She slung the canvas bag over her shoulder. “I’ll have Julie come get you.”

He watched her, heart spilling. There were deep lines around her eyes; her skin looked grey and listless. “You look tired, too, Emma,” he said. “You never get a break, do you?”

She smiled sadly. “No. But that’s okay. I’ve been overdoing it, probably. I’ve felt for a while now like I’m coming down with something. Occupational hazard.”

At the door she stopped. “Oh—I forgot. I looked at Mary Anne—”

“Marzana.”

“Whatever. She’s definitely pregnant. But she seems okay, as far as I can see. I gave her some vitamins. I brought some for you, too—can you make sure she takes them?”

“Sure, Emma. Anything you say.”

“All right. I’ll see you later.” And she went downstairs.