The doctor said he could be as aggressive as I wanted him to be. He was, of course, talking about how aggressively I wanted to pursue the perfect nose. I wasn't after the perfect nose per se. I just wanted my natural nose back, which coincidentally happened to be perfect.
I was in yet another examination room. For the eleventy-twelfth time I was describing the assault to yet another doctor. Each time, the experience was like a flashbulb going off in my head - a silent shutter clicking - capturing the memory like a photograph that each time receded further away. The photograph was 18 days away now.
The doctor - in my mind he was Dr. Who after his power to transport my nose back in time - explained the options available. He was a young Asian with flawless bone structure and a perfect nose that at least inspired confidence in the painful procedures I was soon to endure. Dr. Who said that he had to offer the option of doing nothing, which I immediately waived away. Then he described the first procedure, called Closed Reduction, a name that gave no inkling as to its nature. Closed Reduction involved using tools inserted in my nostrils to move the broken bones around in the nose and align them correctly.
Should the perfect nose not result from Closed Reduction, Dr. Who then described three other progressively more invasive procedures that would prove increasingly effective. They involved incisions and insertions and anesthesia and long recoveries. But, he stressed, there was no guarantee. I was going to ask him if he had gone to law school as well as medical school but thought better of it.
Dr. Who summoned to his computer screen the image of the CT scan that was taken at the emergency room 18 days ago. There, in bright x-ray yellow, was a picture of my skull, brain, and other insides of the head. Dr. Who pointed out the dark spots - the sinus cavities - which were supposed to be dark. Then he pointed out the bright spot - my brain - which he said was likewise in good order, by which he only meant that there was no brain bleed or skull breakage.
I stared at my brain in faint wonder . . . that strange object that was both camera and subject - from which sprang crying envelopes, Korean greetings, lives that flipped like coins, stupid and senseless headlines, captive dreams, the sadness that speaks, trauma, empires racing across the earth, time travel, wolves, satellites, ice ages, earthquakes, patterns, Dr. La-la-la, the Eyes of Innocence and Experience, and all the madness of the modern world.
Moving away from the bright spot, Dr. Who pointed out the bone of my nose, which was supposed to be a perfect triangle but which was in fact a jagged triangle showing fractures in at least seven different places. That was when I realized that serious pain was headed in my direction from the future, like a cresting wave still invisible under the ocean.
Dr. Who asked me to email him photographs of me prior to the incident to aid him in the reconstruction of my nose. We scheduled surgery for Tuesday, a little soon I thought, but better to rush headlong into the ocean than to wait for the tidal wave.
On his way out, Dr. Who reminded me to make arrangements to have someone pick me up from the hospital and watch me overnight, as I would be too disoriented from the anesthesia to get myself home. "Doctor, who?" I wondered. Who in the modern world would one day wade into these memories, not-yet-surfacing?
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