The "Point"

Watch it!!!, don’t wander, I’ll tell you what happened from the very beginning so that you’ll get the feel of things, but remember: the events of that day have nothing to do with the point of this story. 

The point is not that I return to my car after playing football feeling a tingling in my arm. I’m hot, I say to myself, and open the window. I know I shouldn’t light a fag but I can’t let pass the bronchial dilation that follows my physical activity. This is psychological, I think, I’ve got this idea in my head and maybe that’s why I’m also feeling a slight discomfort in my chest. I let a fresh breeze blow in my face and wonder if it was a good idea to stop at the auto-Mac before the game, I always wonder if stopping at the auto-Mac is a good idea. I get home and I’m still not feeling well, I get into the shower because there’s nothing like a good shower to set you right.

Water hits me on the back of my neck and things seem to fall into place. I step out of the shower with my robe on; I still feel some discomfort, a minor one but a discomfort all the same. So I tell the guys I share the apartment with that I’m going to the kiosk to buy a soda, not just anything, a cola with caffeine and that will fix me, I say to myself, I’m exhausted and I need something to pep me up. I’ll take a walk while I’m at it and take some fresh air. But I can hardly make it to the kiosk, those last meters are the longest, and instead of a cola drink I ask for an energizer and chocolate to boost the effect. Two more minutes and I’m back to normal, I try to convince myself, and I put both of them down before I reach the corner. But I feel the ground moving and I have to sit on the edge of the sidewalk. I get my Japanese cell-phone. Is that you? I can’t move, bring the car and take me to the health clinic (the one near home). 

I walk in, with my medical insurance card ready, obsessive as I am, and wait for the lady at the reception desk to notice my presence. Without even looking my way she takes my card and asks me what’s wrong with me. I sort of mutter about my symptoms and she points inside, not giving it much thought. I go down to the basement. Every minute that passes I feel the pressure on my chest getting worse and I’m immediately referred to the physician on call. He asks me routine questions, makes me lie down on an examining couch and they start doing all shorts of tests I could talk at length about (but that’s beside the point).

Being hospitalized is not the point either. Or the fact that all that couldn’t have lasted very long, or maybe it did, I don’t know. But what I do remember very clearly is that suddenly a pregnant lady doctor turns up (a message, a paradox?), who in low, slow undertones tells me I’m suffering a cardiac event. The words are kind of strong (say them out loud and see how they sound to you), and I tell the doctor so. They say they’ll do everything in their power to make the event as short and smooth as possible. But soon I’m surrounded by tubes and cables and I feel I’m short of breath so they put an oxygen mask on me. The air doesn’t get to me, I demand more air, this is the maximum says the nurse, I insist I need more.

And I black out.

When I light up again I’m in a sort of field, you know, like in the movie Gladiator, when the guy touches the wheat blades, (but don’t stay there because it’s not the point), I see around me a lot of people I don’t know and I walk calmly like them, and with them, it’s such a peaceful feeling, like when I was a kid and went out shopping with my mother. But I also begin to realize there are voices shouting at me, Jorge, Jorge, and I feel on my back something that holds me back, a force, no, a rope, that’s it, there’s a rope tied round my waist and it’s horrible because I can’t walk any further, what’s more, it drags me backwards, and my presence on that field is no longer pleasant, it’s distressing because it’s in jeopardy. Yes, there are enemies wanting to drag me out of there while I want to stay there forever, but Oh! That damned force is stronger, I’m unable to deal with it.

I know all this I’m telling you is very tough and maybe you’re thinking that the point of this entire story is my passing through that field, but it’s not (although we’re drawing closer). Don’t try to out guess me, listen: I regain consciousness, I’m agitated and sweaty, and my heart recovers its monotonous and necessary boom boom. Nobody tells me I’m back from death and they don’t mention the plates on my chest. Instead, they tell me they put in a stent to unclog the artery. No calls are allowed or visitors besides family, and one at a time because being calm is important to my heart recovery.

Besides, I’m feeling very tired and the only thing I do is sleep and watch TV. One night, I think it was the fifth night, a nurse leaves me a tray with food. I’m already feeling better and even bored of being there and she asks me how I’m feeling. The normal thing to do would be to say very well thank you, but I don’t know why, I get this urge, like when you feel like going to the bathroom, to tell her what happened to me, tell her what I hadn’t said to a living soul. I don’t know why I want to tell her about it, maybe because she asked me in such a gentle voice, with such a simple look, but let’s not stop there (that’s not the point).

And so I tell her, in full detail, especially about my journey through the Elysium Fields and my combat against that overpowering, distressing force (exaggeration is the mother of every story). While I’m telling her I realize that has been the most extraordinary day in my whole life and that I’ve been in the place where we’ll all end up some day and it’s both a privilege and a relief to know that death can be that: a journey across a pleasant (Italian?) field. I must pull myself together to stop from crying, because I fear it may be harmful (there’ll be plenty of time to go back to the countryside) and because to me it’s important that this woman whom I don’t know but looks at me straight in the eyes know what I’ve been through.

I finish telling her my travels, convinced that what happened to me will change my life for ever. At that moment I think: Now I will be different, I’ll do everything better, I will improve my life and the world, I will become the kindest, simplest and healthiest person. Because the effect of what happened to me will last in me forever, the emotional memory of a miraculous, extraordinary experience (yes, all that and much more I felt at that moment).

But no. No, no, and no.

A thousand times, no.

I become silent, she smiles, holds my hand and kisses my forehead and says: all those we manage to bring back tell the same story. They all say the same, she says to me. D’you get it? Or must I explain it to you? The same! All of them! And now when I think of that day, trying to evoke it in its entire emotional dimension, I feel nothing. Of course, I can tell it to you once and a hundred times in full detail but what stands out in my mind like a huge neon sign are the words that nurse said to me.

And that is the point, the  damned point to this story.