After the collapse, his first iconic memory was of the nurse as she extended a food tray across his bed. He observed that she had unusually rough-looking skin. He noted that her name was Karen CBGRO. He noted, as well, something about the food tray: It was composed of a plastic no longer used by manufacturers anywhere in the world.
"I'm sorry there's no napkins," she said, moving to the window along the right side of his bed. She opened the curtain, despite the information--neutral protocol, revealing a view of every other health facility in the city.
Earlier in the day, as he collapsed, he'd thought, I'm fighting a demon in slow motion. His last memory was from the installation guide to his new wireless home: "Short wires (coded blue) will function as receivers in colder climates. Black wires (coded red) will inhibit all other basic functions." The memory of these words was menacing. He'd collapsed, apparently unconscious. The nurse relayed the known details: "Your sister hovered over you in distress. She was unsure how to proceed. You house was offline, so emergency services had to be contacted manually." The doctors' diagnosis was acute information trauma.
"It's from the wind," said the nurse. "My skin. It's from the wind in my apartment."
"Yes," he said.
"And you might as well know, the other thing: It's Copernicusbrahegalileoretroorbital. My parents are astronomers. With abbreviations the hospital saves hugely on name-tag material."
He peered over the windowsill.
"Don't you trust me?" she asked, beguilingly. She leaned over his food tray, close enough to breathe. "What about you then, Mr. David Freedomsalutehonorpledge?" she asked, holding up his chart with an exaggerated clinical authority. "That's a pretty odd-sounding name, if you ask me."
"Cub Scouts," he said. "My parents were Cub Scouts."
Below, hunched women cloaked in gray, hooded smocks congregated in an alley between two eye clinics. Secretaries, thought Karen. The secretarian violence had spread throughout the heartland, and once they'd finished with the pulp mills and paper plants, the secretaries would firebomb the hospitals.
Karen glanced at her patient. Could he remember the world before his collapse? She wished he'd never woken. But these days, even a sleeping man was no match against a craven world. Outside, the secretaries continued together. Karen could see the cold, not just evidence of the cold--the secretaries' breath, the smocks, the hail that never melted--but the actual cold. It was deafening and absolute. If the secretaries were servants of the cold, nothing could stop them. If the cold was their fuel, they might abandon fire and do just as well. Either way, the rest would suffer, to burn or to freeze, awake or sleeping, this way or that.