Chapter I - Schism
#1 of Schism
It's a beautiful night but bitterly cold, and I draw my jacket closer to myself and shivier a little. The only sound I can hear is the tock-tock-tock of my shoes against the sidewalk. My shadow is now in front of me, then shortening, then behind me, then shortening again, then is in front of me as I pass another streetlight. The streetlight is one of the old mercury-vapor types, and it washes out other colors, making everything the same drab orange. I think for a while about the chemistry behind the mercury-vapor light and recite to myself the electron configuration and oxidation states of mercury, thinking pleasant walking thoughts. I see light ahead and think about what I will have for dinner when I get home. Arrival. I step inside and shake off my coat, putting it on the rack by the door. The spacious living room, which the front hall opens onto, is large and warmly lit. It's decorated in a modern style save the armchair in the corner which is upholstered in some sort of synthetic leather. I pass through the living room, pausing for a moment to enjoy the heat afforded by the gas fireplace. I keep going, into the kitchen, to prepare dinner. Ten minutes later, I'm eating a bowl of reheated beans and rice. I read while I eat, Isaac Asmiov's The Collapsing Universe. I read for another hour, finish the book, put my dishes up, and go upstairs to bed; I'm unusually tired tonight.
My alarm clock wakes me up and I roll over in the large, king-sized bed I ocuupy alone. The time is 8:30 AM. Time for work. I haul myself out of bed and into the shower. I take a longer shower than I should, perhaps half an hour, which means I'm going to be late. Of course, being senior chemical engineer for Kleiner Laboratories, the second-largest chemical products company in the world, has it's advantages. I could show up for work at 3 in the afternoon without serious repercussions. I step out of the shower and go to the mirror. Staring now at the middle-aged wolf in the glass, the once-black fur greying around his temples. I'm lost in thought and finally snap out of my reverie when I almost slip on the tile floor. I open the medicine cabinet and shake two pills out of two bottles. One is Dilantin, an anti-epileptic, and one is Zoloft. With that done, I leave the house. My car is provided for me by the company. It's a blue '04 Sebring. Driving it gives me great pleasure, although I'm by no means an exceptional driver. Now at work. I coast up to the gate and slide my Kleiner Labs RFID card into the scanning device, which opens the gate for me. My parking spot is right next to the elevator (another perk). The Kleiner Labs building is five stories, spread over 150 acres of land. I work on the top floor. All projects involving corrosive, explosive, poisonous, or otherwise hazardous chemicals are located on the top floor, for the simple reason that if one of the fume hoods fails, only the top floor will be affected. Currently I'm working on two projects, both commissioned by the US government. One, paid for by the Environmental Protection Agency, is to find a polymer that can replace Styrofoam but will biodegrade rapidly. The other is paid for by the Department of Defense and is studying organophosphate nerve toxins that produce a death indistinguishable from natural causes. I'm working on the first one today because I have no desire to get into the Hazardous Environment Suit that's required for work on the second one. Into the lab, swapping my street clothing for a set of surgical scrubs. I go into a chamber where I'm required to bathe in an antimicrobial fluid. Some common microorganisms are capable of breaking down the chemicals we're working with right now. Then, work.
Perhaps two hours later. I'm handling several beakers at once under a fume hood. I'm feeling good, content with my life, content with my work, content with just about everything except this niggling little sensation in the back of my head. It's like the feeling you get when you're trying to remember a name but can't. I know there's a term for it, French, but it's just not clicking. I turn to the mouse beside me, Alan von Smycke, and I'm about to ask him what the name of that feeling is when I remember it's deja vu. Deja vu is one of the symptoms of focal seizures, which almost always precede tonic-clonic seizures, the kind with the convulsing. My adrenal glands fire, dumping epinephrine into my system, dilating my pupils and making me go pale due to vasoconstriciton. Alan looks at me and asks what's wrong, but everything's wrong because his voice is coming from too far away. I reach out using arms millions of meters long, turn off the fume hood and close the door. Alan's looking alarmed now, herding me towards fresh air thinking I've inhaled some dangerous fumes. I haven't though. I manage to say, "Gonna....have a...seizure. Make sure this...stays in my...mouth." I pull out my wallet and jam it in my muzzle, having to make sure my tounge is safely out of the way of my fangs. I have to force words out, faster, faster, always faster because when I'm talking I can't breathe. It's unpleasantly like vomiting. Alan's gone entirely pale under his sandy fur and he's calling for a doctor. The closest infirmary is on the third floor, maybe 5 minutes away. I know I don't have that long. Things begin to distort, stretch, and I stare at a test tube rack which is now taking on impossible dimensions. My world grows bright, brighter, brightest, and shatters tinkling in hundreds of tiny pieces.
Blackness.
I wake up in the infirmary on the third floor, staring at a light fixture that has the bright, pale quality you only find in hospitals, schools, and prisons. A doctor is saying something about post-ictal sleep into a tape recorder. I can hear the whir of the tape, although it's possible that's just a sort of hangover. I start to sit up and the doctor puts a paw on my chest, pushing me back down gently.
"Don't try and sit up, you might pass out," he says, gently.
I lie back down and ask, "How bad was it?"
"Pretty bad. You were convulsing for about 3 minutes before I could give you phenobarbital. You'll definitely be sore in twenty minutes or so."
I sigh, worried. I haven't had a seizure since three years ago, when I started taking Dilantin.
"I didn't even know you were epiliptic, Mr. Taylor." I wonder how he knows my name, but I appreciate that he doesn't immediately use my first name; I view that as a sort of intrusion. Technically my title is Dr. Taylor since I have a Ph.D but I don't correct people - it seems pretentious to insist on a title. I sit up to try and get an image of the doctor instead of a disembodied voice. He's a cougar, my age, but with tawny fur unmarred by grey. He's exceptionally fit, and he's wearing a white cotton shirt, khakis, and a silk tie with regimental stripes. He's about 6'1 and square-shouldered; more or less the picture-perfect 'handsome doctor' character. I wonder idly what color his eyes are but his head is down because he's reading my employee file. I imagine that's how he knows my surname is Taylor. He looks up, and I'm startled because he has heterochromia. His right eye is brown and the left is hazel. It's striking, and my face must have shown it, because he says, "It's congenital; my mother had it."
"It's very pleasant." I can't think of anything else to say.
"Thank you." He seems a little taken aback and I avert my gaze, thinking I may have been too forward. He doesn't sound angry, though, when he says, "You should see your doctor. Who is he?"
"His name is Butcher, Dr. Adrian Butcher."
"That's unfortunate," he laughs.
"Very," I say. "At least he's not a surgeon. By the way, what's your name, doctor?"
He looks up at me and I'm again taken aback by his eyes. "Gordon Kellogg."
"Well, thank you for the phenobarb and sympathy, Dr. Kellogg. I'm afraid I should get back to work though."
"Understandable. I would like Dr. Butcher's phone number, though."
"Sure, it's 359-707-3214."
He writes this down on a scrap of paper and I turn to leave. He calls after me, "Oh, I almost forgot." I turn back and he hands me two white tablets.
"What's in them?"
"They're Demerol. For the muscle pain." I swallow them dry and thank him, then leave.
The rest of the work day passes uneventfully. I arrive home and remember I have to schedule an appointment with Dr. Butcher. The Demerol is slowing me down and I have the phone in my paw for almost a minute before I start to dial. On the third ring, the doctor's receptionist answers. I explain the situation to her and she says I can come in today, the doctor will make room in his schedule. I hang up and leave. Driving to the doctor's office. It's in the metro hospital even though he's private practice, in the "Professional Building". I feel better already. Now in the doctor's office and I'm noticing again that peculiar sort of fluorescent light. The doctor enters.
"So you had a seizure today."
"Yes. I recognized the symptoms of a focal seizure and put a wallet in my teeth and summoned a doctor. Then I started convulsing, but the doctor was on hand with phenobarbital."
"Excellent. Any physical damage, bruising or the like?"
"No." A lie but a harmless one.
"Good. You haven't been skipping your medication, have you?"
"No, of course not."
He looks worried for a second, then excuses himself. I imagine he's paging through the Physician's Desk Reference, looking for a stronger anticonvulsant. He comes back in and gives me a prescription for twice my normal dose of Dilantin.
"Let's see if just increasing dosage helps...take one of these a day. You'll probably have some side effects, mostly sedation." He hands me an orange plastic bottle filled with orange and white capsules.
I thank him and leave, thinking all the while about how much I hate Dr. Butcher. He has a sort of tone about him, as if you're just a naughty child and he always knows what's best. The question about skipping my medication, for example. I manage to pay his receptionist and get out of there.
At home. I turn on the TV, tune it to CNN. An otter reads off some stories...the usual; bombs in Syria and Iraq, a school shooting in Norway, the latest deadly side effect of some prescription medication or another. That reminds me and I swallow one of my new, stronger pills with a glass of soy milk. I watch some more news and consider what to do for dinner tonight. There's steak in the fridge, but I really don't feel up to cooking. I decide to go out for dinner. There's a small Italian place I frequent, well out of the way of tourist traffic and mainstream diners. I put on my coat and leave.
At the restaurant, it's small and dim and there's wine-colored tablecloths. I am seated, the maitre d' greeting me by name. I'm deciding what to eat when I hear a voice.
"Mr. Taylor?"
I turn in my seat to see Gordon, dressed in a dark, reserved dinner jacket, white shirt and dark trousers. "Dr. Kellogg. How are you?"
"Fine." I'm pleasantly surprised to see him here and offer him a seat. He accepts and picks up a menu.
"I've never seen you here before," I say.
"Yes, this is actually my first time coming."
"Then you're ordering the salmon risotto. No arguments." He smiles and nods before putting down his menu. He procures from his dinner jacket a sleek-looking silver cigarette case, from which he takes an elegant filtered cigarette. He's about to light it when I say, "That's an interesting choice for a doctor."
He blushes. "God, that's so rude of me. Do you mind if I smoke?"
"No, not at all. I actually started coming here because this is just about the only restaurant left in the US that has a smoking section."
He lights his cigarette and blows a few smoke rings. I'm mesmerized, following the progress of the smoke ring from a tiny puff to a nebulous vague circle when Dr. Kellogg clears his throat loudly and I realize he's offering me a cigarette. I accept and he lights it with a gold Zippo lighter. It's possibly the best cigarette I've ever had. I ask him what type they are.
"They're Danish," he says, "House of Prince."
"They're excellent," I say, and take a sip of my water. A waiter comes to take our drink orders. I get a cabernet sauvignon and Dr. Kellogg gets the same. While the waiter is there I say that we're both getting the salmon risotto. The waiter nods and goes away and I continue smoking.
It is three hours until we finish, one of those meals where you drink too much and eat too little. After my third glass of wine, I switch to cranberry and vodka, while Dr. Kellogg switches to gin and tonic. By the time the last plate is cleared from the table we are both much too drunk to drive. I call a cab for us.
On the ride home, I say, "Where do you live, Doctor?"
"Call me Gordon. And it's quite a ways away...I guess about thirty minutes."
"You can stay at my house tonight if you want."
"Uh..." He considers it through the haze of alcohol. "Sure, I guess. It's Friday, right?"
I nod. He nods too.
We're at my house and it takes me three tries to get my key in the lock properly. I walk into the wide, well-lit living room and stride over to the fireplace to get a fire going. Gordon walks in and stares around at the living room before settling on the couch. With the fireplace turned on, I go into the kitchen but forget what I'm doing in there, so I turn off the lights and leave. The TV is on and Gordon is staring blankly at the screen, which is tuned to MSNBC. I have a 500-channel satellite package, but I only ever watch four channels: MSNBC, CNN, the Food Network, and Comedy Central. I sit down on the couch also and am watching TV for nearly an hour before I realize I'm about to pass out. I stand up and Dr. Kellogg falls over onto the couch, asleep. Apparently I was supporting him. I turn off the TV and the fireplace and find a blanket which I put over Gordon. Upstairs and to bed.
I wake up in the morning with my head pounding and the vauge worrying sensation that I'm going to vomit sometime today. The clock says 11:52. I drag my body out of bed, floss and brush my teeth, wind up vomiting, brush my teeth again, take my Dilantin, dress and go downstairs. Gordon is sitting on the couch, with the TV on but muted. He hears me and turns, saying, "I'm probably the most irresponsible doctor you've ever met, huh?" We both smile weakly.
"Do you want some breakfast?" I ask. He nods and I realize we're both talking in the hushed tones of those who both have hangovers.
I take enjoy preparing breakfast to a great degree; why, I don't know. I make eggs for both of us, as well as hashbrowns and strong black coffee. Before going back into the living room I also slice a few kiwi fruit and put everything on a tray.
Gordon and I eat slowly without saying anything. After breakfast is done and the dishes are put away I suggest we get a taxi back to the restaurant to retrieve our cars. He agrees and we leave.
At the restaurant we go our separate ways.
"Thanks for the room and board..." He trails off and I realize he doesn't know my first name.
"Gary. And it's no problem, I had a nice dinner."
Gordon blushes and I don't know why. I get worried I've said the wrong thing but he just says, "Me too," and gets in his car and leaves. After a moment, I do the same.
At home, I walk in the door and sit on the couch and have another seizure. There's almost no focal stage this time, just a minor sense of something being fundamentally wrong and then I'm out.
I wake up on the floor and it is now darkening outside. I wonder what's going on for a few minutes as I stare at the ceiling. Then I start to feel the onset of a migrane headache and I realize I had a seizure; I always get migranes after them. I estimate that it's about 7 PM. My nose and a small gash on the side of my head are both bleeding. I assume the gash has something to do with the small smear of congealed blood on the corner of the nice glass endtable next to the couch. My head feels bruised and I slowly probe my body for any other injury, but none seems apparent and I consider myself lucky. I sit up, taking care not to jostle my head too much. Drinking last night was a mistake - alcohol can be an epileptic trigger. I wonder to myself why I'm still convulsing - the stronger medication should have taken care of that. I call Dr. Butcher.
The doctor's office is closed, so I take another Dilantin in the hopes that it will ward off future seizures...although I know it's pretty pointless inasmuch as it's very rare to have more than one seizure in a day. I go to sleep after an hour.
The next day, Sunday, I go to the doctors office. He seems very worried about me, which makes him even more infuriating. He advises me that occasionally furs with epilepsy will suddenly get worse with no apparent cause. He asks me to stay for observation at the hospital for a week. I call work (that is, the CEO; I report directly to him) and say that I'm taking a couple weeks of sick leave. I have some accrued. My boss says he understands and he hopes I get better. I thank him and ring off.
Monday. I'm being confined for most of my time to a hospital room, which is not as bad as it sounds since the room is rather nice. They're trying different anticonvulsants, I gather, to see if anything works. They're going to try sodium valproate, zonisamide, gabapentin, and even mephobarbital as a last resort. The start with the sodium valproate, the least sedating of them. I've been used to taking a hundred milligrams of Dilantin daily so I'm used to being sedated. The valproate is a nice turn, but unfortunately it doesn't work. Around 6 PM I am reading a book, then suddenly I am sitting in bed, it is morning, and a nurse is taking my blood pressure. I clear my throat and she jumps a little. I smile and ask her for some orange juice; I'm terribly thirsty. She says, "Sure," and goes off to get a doctor and some juice. She returns with the doctor on call in this ward. He takes over the diagnostics, taking my blood pressure and temprature. Everything looks normal but it's clear that I need a stronger anticonvulsant.
Tuesday is no better, except for one thing. After they administer intravenous gabapentin, Dr. Butcher comes in accompanied by Dr. Kellogg. I'm happy to see him, as I'd been feeling lonely here in the hospital. He smiles at me and expains, "I heard from Alan that you needed medical leave. I consulted with Dr. Butcher and he's agreed to let me on as a secondary physician." I smile and nod (weakly because the gabapentin is seriously clouding my mind).
Every day at some point I see Gordon, and every day, at some point, I pass out and wake up restrained in bed. At the end of two weeks the doctors are stymied and I'm feeling more and more out of it from being passed out for two-thirds of each day. Eventually Drs. Kellogg and Butcher come in to talk to me, accompanied by the neurologist, Dr. Chandrasekhar. Dr. Chandrasekhar, a fox, speaks in a soft and infinitely soothing Indian accent.
"You have to understand," he starts off, "that neurology is rather a murky field. There's very little in the way of understanding how the brain actually works. We have cured some diseases of the brain, but we often do not know anything about why those cures work."
I ask for clarification.
Before Chandrasekhar or Gordon can speak, Dr. Butcher says, "We're considering brain surgery as an alternative to medication." Dr. Chandrasekhar just nods and closes his eyes, but Gordon looks miffed at being cut off verbally.
"Not a lobotomy or anything, of course," Dr. Butcher continues. "Those were-"
"Yes, I know. Lobotomies haven't been performed since the 70's. What specific type of surgery were you thinking about?"
Dr. Chandrasekhar speaks. "We think the best surgery for ameliorating your symptoms would be a procedure called a corpus callosotomy. In this surgery, we would remove the portion of the brain called the corpus callosum, the small piece of white matter that links the two hemispheres of the brain."
Even through the haze of Neurontin, I can realize that would have some pretty profound side effects.
As though reading my mind, the neurologist says, "There have been some cases wherein subjects have experienced major psychological effects after the operation, but these cases are few and far between."
I nod. "Well," I start off cautiously, "is there any physical danger involved?"
"No."
I consider. Obviously having seizures daily would put me out of a job. I would be entirely barred from leading a normal life.
"Alright....if you think it will help, I suppose I'll undergo the surgery."
Dr. Chandrasekhar nods and leaves with Dr. Butcher. Gordon stays behind and sits down in the rather uncomfortable-looking hospital chair next to my bed. I gaze at him and find myself thinking he looks handsome in a lab coat. A strange thought. I close my eyes and shake my head from side to side to clear my mind.
"Something wrong?" Gordon asks.
"Just trying to wrap my head around the prospect of surgery," I lie.
"Yes, well," he says, looking a bit uncomfortable. "That's really what I stayed behind to talk to you about. While it's unlikely that you'll have any really profound symptoms post-op, there are some things you should know. As Dr. C said, neurology and especially neurosurgery are really unexplored fields. We do know, however, some basic things about brain structure. When the two hemispheres of the brain are seperated, a lot of abnormalities with speech can occur; this effect is multiplied when you're identifying something you're looking at. I can explain the reasons why to you later if you're interested. My point is..." He stops. I wait. After he gathers himself for a moment, he resumes.
"My point is you're a well-spoken fur. It's why I like you. You should be prepared to lose some of that eloquence." Abruptly he gets up and leaves.
I think for a long time after the doctors leave, and even after it gets dark. It's why I like you. I wonder for a moment if Dr. Kellogg is preparing himself for this surgery more than me. I'm still thinking, as a matter of fact, when the darkness of a seizure descends on me.
I wake up in bed with restraints on my wrists and ankles. All three doctors are standing over me measuring my various biological markers. Gordon has a microphone wrapped around his throat and is dictating. I manage to make out words through the muzzy post-ictal state.
"Patient is coming out of post-ictal sleep at 18:22, Universal Time Coordinated minus 8. Preperation for surgery begins ASAP."
"When...am I going in?" I force out.
"Probably within the hour," Gordon says.
I search with my right paw for the bed control but it's just outside of my reach. Dr. Butcher loosens the restraint, and I grab the small beige remote and press a button which brings me up to a reclined sitting position. I try and clear my thoughts. There's a dextro-saline IV drip hooked into my left arm. The doctors bustle about, making preparations. Eventually they move me from my bed to a gurney and strap me into it.
Dr. Chandrasekhar says, "We don't know how anesthesia will react with your epilepsy, Mr. Taylor. Therefore, we're going to give you a painkilling drug which will both dampen the possibility of a seizure and aid the inhalation anesthetic." I make a quick deduction.
"Fentanyl?" I ask.
Dr. Kellogg nods and I start grinding my fangs. I've never told anyone, and I don't intend to now. I just pray to god the fentanyl will knock me out before it makes me high. When I was in college, my professors recognized my prodigy for chemistry and gave me the full facility of the university lab. My interest in psychopharmacolgy was great, and so I spent most of my time then synthesizing various compounds with pharmaceutical applications. One day, I accidentally ingested some pure fentanyl hydrochloride and was in a stupor for three hours. Over the next half-term, I continued to make fentanyl. The reagents were cheap and I only needed to make about a gram overall. Nothing was missed, but for 6 months I was injecting fentanyl more and more. I stopped cold turkey when the final exam rolled around. It was the most horrific experience of my life. I spent 2 days locked in my single dorm, thrashing about hallucinating and vomiting. I have never touched anything since besides the occasional drink and smoke.
They shave patches around my temples. I look in a mirror and am immediately struck by how odd those two pink patches of skin look peeking out from the mess of grey-black fur that is around them. I am wheeled into a surgical theater. Several other doctors are sitting around the periphery of my vision, interested by how such an uncommon procedure is performed. The saline drip is still in place in my arm, and now Dr. Kellogg loads a long metal syringe gun with clear fluid from a small glass bottle. I manage to make out the words "Fentanyl Hydrochloride, USP" on it. Sweat beads pop up on my brow. He injects it into the rubber tube snaking down to my arm.
I am almost instantly enveloped in brown light, savoring the sensation in my gut and head, better than any orgasm I've ever had or ever will. I recede into the gurney and Dr. C. presses a plastic mask around my muzzle. I inhale from the heady, sweetly-scented vapor and I am gone.
I wake up in the hospital room which has become all too familiar over the past two weeks. Dr. Chandrasekhar is standing over me smiling gently.
The first words out of his mouth are, "The operation was a complete success." I sigh and smile, then psychologically probe myself. I expected to feel different somehow, but everything seems the same. I sit up, then rejoin the blackness for an interesting few moments.
When I come to again, Gordon has one paw on my chest and the other on a sphygmomanometer. "Don't sit up again," he says. "The anesthetic has lowered your blood pressure." I nod weakly and let my head fall back into the soft pillow. Gordon removes his paw from my chest and now he is saying, "We have to run some tests to determine the full extent of the surgery's impact psychologically."
After the last of the isoflurane is out of my system they let me walk to a room where they will test me. On the walk there I am wearing only the standard-issue hospital gown, which is only slightly less revealing than if I were simply stark naked. For some reason I can' t stop blushing on the way to the room, even though Gordon keeps his eyes firmly affixed on the hallway ahead.
In the room now. There is nothing in this room but a table and three chairs. The walls are blue tile, and the floor is white and black checkered linoleum. I sit down in the single chair on one side of the table and after a moment two furs come in: one male and one female. The male, an otter, sits down across from me and shuffles some papers. The female, a wolf, affixes electrodes to my shaved temples and connects them to an EEG device. She then sits in the other chair.
The otter asks, "Shall we begin?"
I nod.
He takes out a white card, perhaps 10 inches tall by 5 inches wide and says, "Name the object shown on this card." I had been expecting a Rorschach-like test but this is a clearly delineated object.
"It's a soda bottle," I say.
"That is correct." He hands me a black piece of plastic, really just a handle with a small dish on the end. He says, "Cover your left eye with that and tell me what the object on this card is." He holds up a different card.
"It's a chair."
"Correct. Now cover your right eye and tell me what this is."
I cover my right eye and he holds up a card with a black shape on it.
I struggle. "It's.....a...." I'm a little scared although I knew something like this would happen. I know I recognize the object, but it's like I can't find the word for it. "A....." Finally I have to admit that I don't know. The otter nods and the wolf jots something down on a piece of paper, looking at the EEG printout.
"Very well," he says. "Now look at it with both eyes." I take the piece of plastic away from my right eye and relief washes over me as I find that I can now identify the object.
"A heart!" I say, rather loudly. The acoustic ceiling tiles absorb most of the noise but still the wolf flinches a little, unprepared for my outburst. "Sorry," I say.
"A heart is correct."
He takes out a black box with an aperture in it; for reaching inside, I guess.
"Now, there are some small models inside this box. With your left eye covered I will show you a card, then I want you to reach in with your right hand and feel the models. Pick out, without looking at it, the model which you think represents the thing on the card."
The tests continue in this fashion for I don't know how long. Look, select, determine, always with one eye or the other covered. Sometimes I get things wrong, but the testers seemed to be expecting that. Finally I am allowed to leave.
I am gathering my things in the hospital room, now comfortably dressed in khakis and a green button-down shirt. Gordon is sitting in the corner, talking about what will happen now.
"You remember," he says, "the psychological evaluation you took when you were first admitted?"
"I remember being in a dull room with a duller fur," I joke.
Gordon smiles but it doesn't reach his mismatched eyes, which seem concerned.
"Well, we found some things during that session that might be....well....exacerbated by the callosotomy."
"Like what?"
"Well, the main thing is that you seem to have what psychologists call 'flattened affect', meaning you..." He trails off.
"It's all right. Hopefully I know myself well enough that nothing you say will surprise me." I smile.
Gordon continues. "Flattened affect is a diminished or absent sense of empathy, that is, a sense of caring for another creature. The tests also revealed minor anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, and alexithymia, the inability to express emotions verbally. These are all considered negative symptoms of schizoid personality disorder."
I nod and understand what he's saying. Since I was a cub I've known that emotionally, I'm...well, dead. I've always known. My first time having sex, I found the act itself pleasant enough, but there was no emotion. Only the act. In college I witnessed a fur get beaten to within an inch of his life for being gay. The two perpetrators, a pair of drunk wolves, ran when they saw that I was watching. I checked to make sure the poor fur was still alive, called an ambulance, then left. Knowing mentally that you should feel upset by something like that isn't enough. I slept like a log that night.
"Listen," he says, "In all probability nothing bad will happen. But, in case something does, I'd like you to report to me after work each day, just as a sort of check-up." I nod again.
As I leave the hospital a chill breeze blows, ruffling my fur. Today is Saturday, December first. I draw my coat closer to myself and walk to my car, to drive myself home.