Another Tuesday, Another Trial.

The buzzing of the alarm was certainly alarming this morning. I opened my eyes and realised that it was still dark outside. Once I was fully awake I worked out when was the last time that happened; it was approximately sixteen years ago, back in the days when I had to cover morning matinees for the theatre’s Christmas show. I hated it then and I hate it now; I’ve always hated it. The human animal is not nocturnal; it feels unwholesome and unnatural to get up before the sun’s light gives you the cue. (Strangely, I don’t find it in any way unnatural to go to bed routinely at 2.30 in the morning. I suppose it’s because it’s still dark at 2.30, even in the summer.)

But today I had to get up in the dark because I had an early appointment at the Human Body Diagnostic and Repair Workshop, alternatively known as the Royal Derby Hospital. I was early so I got called in for ‘preps’ early, before being consigned to ordeal by the dreaded Computerised Tomography machine.

‘Is your bladder full?’ asked the red-haired woman with glasses, firm mouth and an authoritative air. ‘No,’ I answered indignantly. ‘The fact sheet said simply that I was to have nothing to eat or drink for at least an hour before my appointment. It made no mention of full bladders.’ ‘You need water, then,’ she persisted. ‘Drink this gradually so that it trickles down and doesn’t fill your bladder too quickly.’ She gave me one of those big polystyrene cups, the sort McDonald’s use as a repository for a double-portion of whatever you’ve chosen to be poisoned by. Only this one was full of water. I pointed out that I was still experiencing the symptoms of a urinary tract infection occasioned by one of last Tuesdays procedures, and might have difficulty holding a bucketful of water in my bladder during examination by a piece of artificial intelligence. ‘Do your best,’ she ordered. ‘They’ll keep an eye on you.’

So then I met the humans who would be pushing the mechanical Minotaur’s buttons, and they were lovely lady humans. The first of them told me what the procedure was about and answered many questions which were hurriedly concocted in the hope of making me sound intelligent. (I wanted them to think me important, you see, and a force to be reckoned with rather than patronised, especially by a machine whose intelligence was disdainfully artificial.) And then she got me settled comfortably on the slippy-slidy bed thing and said that going into the tunnel would be like sliding into a washing machine with the spin cycle just starting. It sounded interesting, and so I submitted cheerfully

‘This is the worst bit,’ she continued, at which point the younger and prettier of the two came over and stuck a needle into my arm. It had a blue bit of plastic at one end and a pink bit at the other, and I was moved to ask whether the order of the colours was determined by gender. I desisted, being impatient to tell the younger and prettier of the two that ‘it didn’t hurt a bit.’ (Offering an enthusiastic manner and words of encouragement to attractive young women is my way of making the world a better place.) Apparently the needle was there to facilitate the squirting of a dye into my blood stream, but I didn’t enquire after its purpose; I decided I’d exuded sufficient intelligence and thirst for knowledge for one day. And then we were off.

Going into the tunnel was a bit like sliding into a washing machine at the start of a spin cycle, and then Mr AI started giving me orders:

Breathe in

Obeyed. Pause.

Hold your breath

Obeyed. Slip-slide, whirr, whirr, slip-slide back again, take your partners one-two-three (well, you know…)

Breathe

I breathed.

They did about four of those and then asked after the state of my bladder. ‘Under pressure,’ I replied. ‘We have to wait fifteen minutes now,’ she said with that look of apology which appears practiced, ‘and then take some more scans. Will you manage?’ (Well, there isn’t much you wouldn’t manage if it meant not going back into Mickey the Robot’s grotto, is there?) ‘Yes,’ I said, and felt the rose glow of manly fortitude mingle with the ink they’d squirted into my blood stream and which was making me feel strangely hot in strange places.

And so the machine and I danced some more, and then the lovely ladies said ‘all done’ and permission was given to go for a pee, which I did. And then – delight of seemingly endless delights – the red-haired woman with glasses, firm mouth and an authoritative air came back into my life, this time to remove the needle still sticking in my arm and still sporting pink and blue plastic bits.

‘Put your fingers here,’ she ordered. I obeyed. ‘Let go.’ I obeyed again. ‘Right, if it starts bleeding when you’re getting changed, apply pressure here.’ ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ I said, finally adding a subversive edge to my generally acquiescent manner, ‘I’m sure I’ll have plenty left.’ ‘That’s not the point,’ she remonstrated decisively. ‘If you bleed on the floor, I’m the one who’ll have to clean it up.’ So I lost after all. Never mind; I’ve long felt that my life this time around is all abut observing the experience, and that’s what I’d done. Mission successful.

So now the wait for results begins. 7-10 days, they said, but I called into the GP’s surgery on the way back and the receptionist said it sometimes takes longer than that. It seems I have a restless time of indeterminate length ahead of me, standing in the dock awaiting the verdict. So much for feeling, so much for observation, so much for trials, so much for life.