Chapter 6: Ceth Orrand Begins Dying in Earnest

The diagnosis came on a Tuesday, which Ceth Orrand noted because Tuesday had been the day they ran the operation, and he had always believed in the administrative logic of coincidence.

Dr. Fenara Yult delivered the findings the way she delivered all findings — standing, not sitting, which Ceth had identified in the initial consultation as a professional habit designed to prevent patients from reading the news as an invitation to prolonged conversation. She was a precise woman who had chosen her specialty with the understanding that precision was the only mercy she could reliably offer. He respected this. He had spent thirty years in a profession where imprecision was the category of error that produced bodies, and he recognized its opposite as a form of integrity.

"The degradation pattern is consistent," she said, "with what we identified in the secondary imaging. The lesion distribution suggests progression will accelerate in the cortical memory architecture before it affects motor function." She paused. "You will notice cognition before you notice anything else. That is the nature of this presentation."