he said.
“What’s your statement?” one of the reporters called.
“Well,” Johnny said, “it’s this. My physical therapist is a woman named Eileen Magown. She’s a very nice lady, and she’s been helping me get my strength back. I was in an accident, you see, and ...” One of the TV cameras moved in, goggling at him blankly, throwing him offstride for a moment. “... and I got pretty weak. My muscles sort of collapsed. We were in the physical therapy room this morning, just finishing up, and I got the feeling that her house was on fire. That is, to be more specific ...” Jesus, you sound like an asshole! “I felt that she had forgotten to turn off her stove and that the curtains in the kitchen were about to catch fire. So we just went and called the fire department and that’s all there was to it.”
There was a moment’s gaping pause as they digested that—I sort of got the feeling, and that’s all there was to it—and then the barrage of questions came again, everything mixed together into a meaningless stew of human voices. Johnny looked around helplessly, feeling disoriented and vulnerable.
“One at a time!” Weizak yelled. “Raise your hands! Were you never schoolchildren?”
Hands waved, and Johnny pointed at David Bright.
“Would you call this a psychic experience, Johnny?”
“I would call it a feeling,” Johnny answered. “I was doing situps and I finished. Miss Magown took my hand to help me up and I just knew.”
He pointed at someone else.
“Mel Allen, Portland Sunday Telegram, Mr. Smith. Was it like a picture? A picture in your head?”
“No, not at all,” Johnny said, but he was not really able to remember what it had been like.
“Has this happened to you before, Johnny?” A young woman in a slacksuit asked.
“Yes, a few times.”
“Can you tell us about the other incidents?”
“No, I’d rather not.”
One of the TV reporters raised his hand and Johnny nodded at him. “Did you have any of these flashes before your accident and the resulting coma, Mr. Smith?”
Johnny hesitated.
The room seemed very still. The TV lights were warm on his face, like a tropical sun. “No,” he said.
Another barrage of questions. Johnny looked helplessly at Weizak again.
“Stop! Stop!” He bellowed. He looked at Johnny as the roar subsided. “You are done, Johnny?”
“I’ll answer two more questions,” Johnny said. “Then ... really ... it’s been a long day for me ... yes, Ma’am?”
He was pointing to a stout woman who had wedged herself in between two young reporters. “Mr. Smith,” she said in a loud, carrying, tubalike voice, “who will be the Democrats’ nominee for president next year?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Johnny said, honestly surprised at the question. “How could I tell you that?”
More hands were raised. Johnny pointed to a tall, sober-faced man in a dark suit. He took one step forward. There was something prim and coiled about him.
“Mr. Smith, I’m Roger Dussault, from the Lewiston Sun, and I would like to know if you have any idea why you should have such an extraordinary ability as this ... if indeed you do. Why you, Mr. Smith?”
Johnny cleared his throat. “As I understand your question ... you’re asking me to justify something I don’t understand. I can’t do that.”
“Not justify, Mr. Smith. Just explain.”
He thinks I’m hoaxing. them. Or trying.
Weizak stepped up beside Johnny. “I wonder if I might answer that,” he said. “Or at least attempt to explain why it cannot be answered.”
“Are you psychic, too?” Dussault asked coldly.
“Yes, all neurologists must be, it’s a requirement,” Weizak said. There was a burst of laughter and Dussault flushed.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press. This man spent four-and-a-half years in a coma. We who study the human brain have no idea why he did, or why he came out of it, and this is for the simple reason that we do not understand what a coma really is, any more than we understand sleep or the simple act of waking. Ladies and gentlemen, we do not understand the brain of a frog or the brain of an ant. You may quote me on these things ... you see I am fearless, nuh?”
More laughter. They liked Weizak. But Dussault did not laugh.
“You may also quote me as saying I believe that this man is now in possession of a very new human ability, or a very old one. Why? If I and my colleagues do not understand the brain of an ant, can I tell you why? I cannot.