Oblivion_ stories - By David Foster Wallace Page 0,119

an erection or ‘Boner’ at this time [my first in several months], the origins and associations of which were, in my disoriented state, wholly unknown; the indirect cause may have been the sudden surge of adrenal- or stress-related hormones caused by the findings’ sudden shock.)

There were, following this alleged ‘diagnosis,’ approximately two to four seconds of collective silence, punctuated by the noise of construction activities, rain striking the Conference room’s west window, and a ringing telephone somewhere deeper within the administrative offices of the Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic. My quondam or former first wife, Naomi, never accepted the fact that I did not want children with her; I was afraid of ‘repeating the cycle.’ Also, my pager was vibrating. Hope’s own facial expression or mien, upon the Sleep specialist’s news, was the somewhat exaggeratedly ‘bland’ or ‘unreactive’ one which I knew so well from other marital embarrassments, an affect which signified that she was experiencing a sense of bitter vindication or triumph, but was disguising or effacing her pleasure in order to appear to be taking the ‘high-road’ in the conflict, as well as to avoid my possibly accusing her of vindictive triumph, as well as to show a lack of any surprise and to attempt to make clear that she had ‘never’ had or entertained the ‘slightest doubt’ that she was in the right in the dispute over the conflict, and that the Somnologist was now merely confirming what she had in reality ‘kn[own] all along.’ Only a certain slight gleam or avidity in Hope’s pale eyes betrayed her surprise and triumph at my stunned disbelief at the Sleep team’s apparent Medical diagnosis or ‘ruling.’ The sound of the ringing telephone, seemingly unanswered, continued on in this brief, silent interval prior to the young, forbiddingly nubile or ‘paphian’ technician’s there-upon ejecting, inserting and manually adjusting or ‘re-setting’ the Monitor’s display as the bland, phlegmatic Somnologist’s diagnosis now shifted its focus to my wife’s own E.E.G. measurement’s recorded ‘brain’ waves, which, on the Monitor, to Hope and myself’s inexpert or ‘lay’ eyes, appeared indistinguishable from my own display, except, of course, for the difference of its now being Hope’s own name and P.P.O. and Darling Clinic ‘Patient code’ numbers displayed beneath the template whose palsied, erratic line now signified Hope’s brain’s electrical activity during this calibrated time frame. These particular areas, Dr. Paphian averred between several sudden, conspicuous, screaming or ‘shrieking’ sounds from a ‘power’ saw or router somewhere down the corridor (there was also the ambient smell of freshly cut wood, as well as industrial plastic, in addition to the Hispanic’s pungent cologne and Hope’s customary brand of ‘JOY’), pointing out with the salacious technician’s hand-held pointer distinctive spikes or ‘nodes’ in the erratic line of Hope’s ‘brain’ waves, indicated—to (as it, so to speak, ‘goes,’ quite obviously, ‘without saying’) both of our further surprise—that not merely myself but Hope, as well, had herself evidently also been verifiably or empirically asleep during the recorded time periods when she allegedly ‘heard’ my ‘snoring’ (while, in addition or concurrently, due possibly either to extreme fatigue or adrenaline, I myself was also experiencing at the same time a radically compressed or seemingly accelerated sensuous mnemonic tableau [or, as it were, interior ‘clip’] of my memories of teaching Audrey to operate ‘her’ [although registered, for insurance purposes, in Dr. and Mrs. Sipe’s legal name] new Mazda coupe’s five speed ‘stick’ transmission in a Lower Squankum parking lot filled with myriad parallel angled lines, Audrey’s fulgent auburn hair untied or ‘down’ and chewing some type of bright blue gum, the compartment awash in sunlight and her yearly Christmas saffron bath gel’s scent, the noisome sound of her breathing and shapes of her leg as she worked the relevant pedals up and down, the sotto voce profanities when we lugged, bucked or stalled with soft squeals and bit lip and—[“Do stop”]—and thus, in the renewed, brief, ‘stunned’ silence after the M.D.’s second diagnosis, I myself forgot to feel triumph, ‘vindication’ or even any confusion at the apparent or paradoxical sleep ‘verdict’’s reversal. My heart had, as it were, ‘sunk’ several inches; I missed our Audrey terribly; I wanted now to go alone to help her pack and Withdraw and be borne back home [notwithstanding my foot’s by now being almost numb or ‘asleep,’ I could and would not uncross my legs], to drive at rates well in excess of the posted limit and to storm the out-of-State dormitory or ‘castle’ or ‘enceinte’ or machicolated banishment’s