Smoke And Mirrors

II.

It is a grey November day, and Rajit is now a tall man in his forties with dark-rimmed spectacles, which he is not currently wearing. The lack of spectacles emphasises his nudity. He is sitting in the bath as the water gets cold, practising the conclusion to his speech. He stoops a little in everyday life, although he is not stooping now, and he considers his words before he speaks. He is not a good public speaker.

The apartment in Brooklyn, which he shares with another research scientist and a librarian, is empty today. His penis is shrunken and nutlike in the tepid water. "What this means," he says loudly and slowly, "is that the war against cancer has been won."

Then he pauses, takes a question from an imaginary reporter on the other side of the bathroom.

"Side effects?" he replies to himself in an echoing bathroom voice. "Yes, there are some side effects. But as far as we have been able to ascertain, nothing that will create any permanent changes."

He climbs out of the battered porcelain bathtub and walks, naked, to the toilet bowl, into which he throws up, violently, the stage fright pushing through him like a gutting knife. When there is nothing more to throw up and the dry heaves have subsided, Rajit rinses his mouth with Listerine, gets dressed, and takes the subway into central Manhattan.