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Page 41 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The room Dr Gresch shows me into is modest but comfortable. There’s a sofa and a TV and a large window in the wall that looks out onto a corridor. Kathryn is standing there, watching.

‘We will start with observing you for a few waking hours and then overnight,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry it’s not the most exciting way to spend your vacation.’

‘I’m excited,’ I tell her.

‘Excellent.’ Dr Gresch nods, her expression neutral.

‘The thing to remember is that previously these observations have only ever been made in a lab with simulations, and what we are doing here isn’t as accurate, but we are trying to replicate those studies in a “real world” setting.

’ She encapsulates the two words in air quotes.

‘Why do you say “real world” like that?’ I ask, imitating her.

‘Well, what is reality?’ she says as her assistant brings in a trolley laden with equipment that is about to be fitted to me.

‘All we really know is that this incredibly complex lump of hot wet mush in our heads takes what clues it can from our five senses to construct a reality that we are able to live with. We don’t know – we can never know – that it is actually real.

’ She gestures at a chair. ‘Now, if you could take a seat here for me?’

‘Am I dead?’ I ask her as she begins to pull a sort of hairnet over my head.

‘Why do you ask?’ she says.

‘Because I have this constant ringing in my ears. It sounds a bit like when a heart monitor flatlines – and because everything that has happened to me in the last few days would tie in with your brain flooding you with hallucinogenic chemicals when you are on your way out the door and making your last seconds of life seem to last a lifetime.’

‘Did you see that in a movie?’ she asks. Now she’s attaching sticky pads to my chest and back.

‘Probably,’ I say.

‘Well,’ she says cheerfully, ‘I feel like I am alive and real; therefore, you are alive and real, too. Mind you, I would say that.’

‘Comforting,’ I reply.

‘It’s meant to be.’ Dr Gresch laughs. ‘If it seems real, if it feels real, then what does it matter either way? Human experience is mostly emotion. It is real to you. That’s really all “reality” is.

’ Those air quotes again. ‘Now, you’re all hooked up.

So, take advantage of the free streaming services – and there’s a load of books.

Just relax. I’ll see you in the morning. ’

Turning to the window, I wave at Kathryn, who blows me a kiss goodnight.

‘If I’m in another reality when I dream, and I get stuck there, say, what would happen to my body?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dr Gresch says. ‘I guess we’d find out.’

‘Will you do something for me?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Will you look up a Professor Salvatore Borg for me? He was a physicist in Milan in the nineties. And maybe also in Malta in the early twentieth century.’

Dr Gresch raises her eyebrows but says nothing.

‘Of course.’ She smiles. ‘See you on the other side.’

‘But the other side of what?’

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