Hannibal Lecter spends a Weekend at Bernie's

It had been a long day; like a woozy trip to the dentist to have a tooth removed. Some local anaesthetic, a little light-headedness, an awkward mechanical structure attached to the head, a lot of sitting around with a numb ass, a few paracetamol pills for possible post-surgery headaches. The horror-inducing forceps? A tube-like machine within which you lie down with head locked in position for administration of high-intensity cobalt radiation. 

The curious thing: the least painful part was the radiation itself. The Gamma Knife performs its work in total silence. When asked for my choice of music I felt that on this day silence might offer up more perspective than I needed. After musing about some Mozart I naturally settled on Metallica.

It was surreal—listening properly for the first time to an album I had heard a dozen times. The lyrics began 'in the name of desperation, in the name of wretched pain, in the name of all creation gone insane, we're so fucked, shit outta luck, hardwired to self-destruct.' Whether deeply profound or meaningless the intensity did not let up for the next 58 minutes of surgery. 'How loud do you want the volume' the nurses asked. 'All the way up, please'.

'Did you hear that racket playing in the radiology control room?' Ingrid asked me as we left the hospital after I was discharged a few hours later. I just smiled.
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