I stop listening. I sense that this bureaucrat is launching into some pre-arranged spiel in which he'll no doubt deny all cover-ups and hidden agendas. This sounds like more bullshit. The other people taking part in the debate challenge him but, although he squirms and struggles to keep control, he ultimately remains tight-lipped. I get the feeling that this programme might have been arranged as a public relations exercise but it's failing miserably. The politician's unease and the way he's blatantly avoiding the questions people are putting to him means one of two things. Either the government knows full well what's happening and is simply choosing not to tell the public, or the authorities genuinely don't have a clue. Both alternatives are equally frightening.
Twenty minutes more of the news channel and my eyes are starting to close. The debate is over and the headlines are back on. They say that the military may be drafted in to help maintain law and order if the police do become over-stretched as the grey-haired panellist suggested in the debate earlier. They also say that the problem is largely limited to major cities and there are, as yet, no reports of it spreading to other countries. Most worryingly of all, there's talk of an after-dark curfew and other restrictions being introduced to keep people off the streets and out of each other's faces.
It's what isn't being said that bothers me. I'm just concerned that no-one seems to have a clue what's going on.
TUESDAY
vi
Jeremy Pearson felt like he was about to be sick. He'd been okay when he'd been prepped for the operation, but now he was actually lying on the table in the operating theatre with people crowding around him and machines beeping and buzzing and that huge round light hanging over him he was beginning to feel nauseous and faint. I should have gone for the general anaesthetic not a local, he thought to himself as Dr Panesar the surgeon walked towards him. I'm paying enough for this operation as it is, a general anaesthetic wouldn't have cost that much more…
'Okay, Mr Pearson,' he said through his green cloth facemask, 'how are you feeling?'
'Not too good,' Pearson mumbled, too afraid to move. He tensed his body underneath the sheet and gown which covered him.
'This won't take too long,' Dr Panesar explained, ignoring his patient's nerves. 'You're the fourth vasectomy I've done today and none of them have lasted much longer than half an hour so far. We'll have you out of here before you know it.'
Pearson didn't respond. He was feeling faint. Maybe it was the heat in the theatre or was it just the thought of what was about to happen that was making him feel like this? Was this normal? Was he having a reaction to the anaesthetic they'd used to numb the feeling in his balls?
'I don't feel…' he tried to say to the female nurse who stood next to him, holding onto his arm. She looked down and, seeing that he was struggling, slipped an oxygen mask over his face.
'You'll be fine,' she soothed. 'Have a bit of air and try and think about something else.'
Pearson tried to answer but his words were muffled under the mask. How can I think about something else when someone's about to cut into my balls?
'Do you follow cricket?' an older male nurse on his other side asked. Pearson nodded. 'Have you seen the tour report today? We're not doing too badly by all accounts.'
The oxygen was beginning to take the edge off his nausea. That's better. Starting to feel more relaxed now…
'Okay, Mr Pearson,' Dr Panesar said brightly, looking up from the area of the operation. 'We're ready to start now. I explained what I'm going to do in clinic, didn't I? This is a very small procedure. I'll just be making two incisions, one on either side of your scrotum, okay?'
Pearson nodded. I don't want to know what you're doing, he thought, just bloody well get on with it.
'You feeling a bit better now?' the female nurse asked, gently stroking the back of his hand. He nodded again and she removed the oxygen mask. He could feel the surgeon working now. Although his genitals were anaesthetised, he could still feel movement around his legs and occasionally someone brushed against the tips of his toes sticking out over the end of the operating table. More nausea. He was starting to feel sick again. Christ, think of something to take your mind off this, he silently screamed to himself. He tried to fill his head with images and thoughts - the children, his wife Emily, the holiday they'd booked for a few weeks time, the new car he'd picked up last week… anything. As hard as he tried he still couldn't forget the fact that someone was cutting into his scrotum with a scalpel.
Is this how I'm supposed to feel, Pearson thought? I'm cold. I don't feel right. Should it be like this or is something going wrong?
'Don't feel right…' he mumbled. The nurse looked down and slammed the oxygen mask on his face again. The sudden movement made Dr Panesar look up.
'Everything okay up there?' he asked, his voice artificially bright and animated. 'You all right Mr Pearson?'
'He's fine,' the nurse replied, her voice equally artificially trouble-free, 'a little light-headed, that's all.'
'Nothing to worry about,' the surgeon said as he took a step around the edge of the table and looked into his patient's face. Pearson's wide, frightened eyes were dancing around the room, squinting into the bright lights which shone down over his prone body. Dr Panesar stopped and stared at him.
'Dr Panesar?' the nurse asked.
Nothing.
'Is everything all right, Dr Panesar?'
Panesar stumbled back to the other end of the table, his eyes still fixed on Pearson's face.
'You okay, Dr Panesar?' his surgical assistant asked. No response. 'Dr Panesar,' he asked again, 'are you okay?'
Panesar turned to look at his colleague and then tightened the grip on the scalpel in his hand. Crouching back down again he slashed across Pearson's exposed genitals and severed his testicles and scrotal sac. Blood began to spill and spurt over the operating table from sliced veins and arteries.
'What the hell are you doing?' the surgical assistant demanded. He pushed Panesar out of the way and moved to grab his hand and wrestle the scalpel from him. Delirious with fear, Panesar turned and sliced the man with the blade, cutting him open in a diagonal line down from his right shoulder.
Panic erupted in the operating theatre. The staff scattered as the surgeon lunged towards them. Pearson lay helplessly on the operating table, turning his head desperately from side to side, trying to see what was happening around him. Covered in blood and still brandishing the scalpel Panesar fled from the room. Pearson watched him run. What the hell was going on? Christ, he suddenly felt strange. He felt cold and shaky but his legs felt warm. And why were people panicking? Why all the sudden movement? Why had the nurses gone to the other end of the table and where was all that blood coming from?
Still anaesthetised and oblivious and ignorant both to the pandemonium which was rapidly spreading through the private hospital and the fact that he was rapidly bleeding to death, Pearson looked up into the light and tried to think of anything but the fact that his surgeon had just disappeared in the middle of his vasectomy.
12
There's a strange atmosphere everywhere today. Everyone seems to be on edge. No-one seems certain about anything anymore. Everybody seems to be thinking twice about everything they do and worrying more than normal about what everyone else is doing. Our ordinary lives and the day to day routine suddenly feel more complicated than they did before and yet I'm still not even sure if anything's actually changed.