Good Morning

There was no warning at all. The diagnosis was tossed down in front of them, and the doctor drew a red circle among words they couldn’t understand. “There. It’s confirmed. Progressive pontine degeneration syndrome.”

He turned to look at her beside him. She gripped his hand tightly and asked, “Can it be treated?”

The doctor pointed the cap of his pen at the back of his own head. “A lesion of the pons. The pons is here, and it handles a lot of things. Your responses to the outside world, temperature regulation, sleep, the body’s information, all of it has to pass through here. With your condition, the pons slowly shrinks and degenerates and develops cavities. According to the literature, only two cases have ever been found worldwide. Neurology has held two consultations, and we’ve consulted specialists in America too. At present there’s no treatment plan.”

She asked, “If not surgery, what about medicine?”

The doctor answered, “Trivastal, Aricept. He can take the drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, but there’s no guarantee they’ll work.”

She asked, “When an episode comes, does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt. Like the earlier episodes, he’ll fall asleep. As the pons gets worse, the sleeping time will probably get longer and longer.”

“How long?”

“A few hours, a few days, a few months. Hard to say.”

“Then it’s the same as a coma…”

“No. During sleep, the REM cells in the pontine tegmentum are abnormally active. In other words, the patient will dream constantly.”

“Dream the way we do when we’re asleep?”

“Right. Light sleep, constant dreaming.”

They walked out of the hospital. The sunshine was just right.

He squeezed her hand and smiled. “Why be so nervous? The earlier episodes, I slept a little and woke right up. What a quack like that says, just hear it and forget it.”

She answered, “That’s right. You work so hard. A few extra naps will do you good.”

He said, “Wake up and say good morning.”

She smiled. “Good morning.”

They walked down the steps hand in hand. Suddenly the world turned upside down, and on the second-to-last step, he fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke, the first thing he saw was the dull fluorescent light on the ceiling, and he knew he was lying in a hospital bed. He vaguely remembered the long, long dream he had just had, but the moment he saw her, it was suddenly wiped clean. She sat sideways at the foot of the bed, flipping through some magazine and humming a song.

He quietly shifted his body and slipped his toes out from under the covers to tickle the small of her back. She yelped and jumped off the bed, then stood in the middle of the room grinning like a fool. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

He yawned. “Sure. I was dreaming. How long did I sleep?”

“Exactly 36 hours,” she answered at once. “You must be starving. There are dumplings in the lunch box. I’ll go heat them up.”

That actually gave him a start. “That long? I have to deal with my emails. Give me my phone, give me my phone.”

She came over and took his hand. “Stop making trouble. You slept so long your body won’t listen to you. I’ll help you sit up.”

He said, “Ai, my body’s so heavy. If I didn’t have you, I really wouldn’t know what to do.”

She was displeased. “How could you not have me? Where would I go?”

He laughed. “I’m just talking. Once I’m discharged and done with work stuff, I’ll take you to a movie.”

“A romance.”

“Okay, a romance.”

They chatted for a while, ate the dumplings, went through the discharge procedures, watched a movie, went home, opened a bottle of red wine, and went to bed and made love. Early the next morning, she opened her eyes. He didn’t.

He had a very long dream. In the dream they had a healthy baby boy and raised him to adulthood. They paid off the mortgage on a two-bedroom flat, changed cars a few times, and kept a Shiba Inu named Abao. After Abao got lost, they kept Banban and Xiaoyezi, until those died too. They lived in the two-bedroom flat. The rooms grew bigger and bigger and they shrank smaller and smaller, slowly turning into something like a pair of babies snuggled against each other.

Translator’s note: The dogs’ names are cute nicknames: Abao is roughly “Treasure,” Banban “Spotty,” and Xiaoyezi “Little Leaf.”

He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling and the fluorescent light, so he moved his gaze to look for her. She sat by the window. Light came through the curtain and made her as transparent as a pane of glass.

She saw that he was awake and smiled. “Good morning.”

She said, “Did you sleep well? You were dreaming, weren’t you?”

Then she said, “Honestly. I’m always waiting for you to wake up. You never leave me time to tidy the house.”

He coughed and asked, “Morning… Ai, my body’s heavy. How long did I sleep this time?”

“Anyway, the dumplings went bad.” She stood up and walked to the bed. “Hungry? What do you want to eat?”

He answered, “Not hungry… seems I’m not hungry. I want to chat with you. After we chat, I still have emails to deal with.”

She said, “Mm. I want to chat with you too.”

They chatted for fifteen minutes. He told her about the dream, and the two of them held hands and laughed and laughed. She told him about the weather lately, shared some funny news, and hummed songs for him. Fifteen minutes later, he couldn’t finish a joke and carried its punch line off into sleep.

She slumped to the floor. People rushed into the ward, put a mask on her face, and filled her lungs with an oxygen-rich solution. She was loaded into a transparent capsule and carried by a driverless vehicle through the dim, yellowish city. On the way, a strange doctor gazed into the air and read out her vital signs, then tried to talk her out of it. “Your body can’t take another cryogenic hibernation. The damage from this thaw was severe.”

Her throat made a gurgling sound. “I paid enough money. Monitor his brain waves, and thaw me when he’s about to wake up the next time. That’s what the contract said fifty years ago.”

The doctor gave a bitter smile. “That gentleman is already…”

Through the liquid, she looked up at the swirling sky. “Wake up and say good morning. I’m afraid if he wakes up and doesn’t see me, he won’t know what to do.”

In bed, he said, “Morning.” His wrinkles piled up into a smile.

It must have been a dream.