Shards: A Novel

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Book: Read Shards: A Novel for Free Online
Authors: Ismet Prcić
the doctor who talked weird, was over for a cup of coffee. He had given Mustafa a chocolate earlier, which Mustafa had devoured in three, enormous mouthfuls. He could see him now sitting on the sofa, holding his eyeglasses by their rims and sucking on one of the plastic tips meaningfully.
    “Children of physicians often suffer from verminophobia,” the doctor said.
    “Is that what it’s called?” his mother asked. From where he was lying, Mustafa could see only her bare foot lightly bouncing under the coffee table. It bounced sporadically againstthe doctor’s shin until the doctor moved it closer so the foot rested against him and the bouncing stopped altogether.
    “Verminophobia is an unwarranted fear of germs, yes.”
    Mustafa didn’t believe in germs. The smallest thing he ever saw was a grain of sand on a napkin, and he didn’t see anything on it resembling the multilimbed creatures whose photographs his mother pointed out in one of her books. He thought if they existed, they existed somewhere else, in the dirt or in the muddy water, in pond scum, but not here in the apartment. Otherwise he would have seen one by now, especially crawling around on his belly.
    The pressure cooker hissed like a train and his mother jumped and ran to the kitchen, apologizing all the way. The doctor pulled out a kerchief from his pocket and started to clean the lenses on his glasses when he noticed Mustafa lying there in the hall. He smiled and motioned him over.
    “Gentlemen do not eavesdrop on other people’s conversations,” the doctor said.
    “I’m not a gentleman, I’m a scuba diver.” Mustafa stood up.
    The man laughed.
    “That is quite humorous, Mr. Scuba Diver,” he said and put his glasses back on. Mustafa, on the other hand, took off his goggles because they were beginning to fog up, inverted them, and let them rest against his forehead, still attached to his skull by their elastic band. He squinted at the doctor:
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    “May I ask you a question.”
    “May I ask you a question?”
    “Always, son.”
    “Is it possible to die from germanophobia?”
    “Do you mean verminophobia?”
    “When people are scared of germs.” Mustafa said germs with skepticism and disdain.
    “I’ll tell you a story if you promise not to tell your mother that I’ve told you it.”
    “I promise.”
    “A certain physician from Tuzla would wear surgical gloves at the dinner table. If he dropped a pen on the floor in his own house, he would put on gloves, pick it up, dispose of it, remove the gloves, wash his hands, and open a new package of pens. Once, in the winter, his car wouldn’t start, so he had to take public transportation to work. The bus was full and he had to stand. The driver pressed the gas pedal a little too eagerly, the vehicle jerked forward and the physician from Tuzla lost his balance, fell headfirst into the edge of a seat, cracked his skull badly, and later died in the hospital from head trauma. He refused to hold on to the rail for fear of it being contaminated by who knows what kind of germs. That physician . . . that was my brother.”
    “Is that a yes, then?”

Excerpts from Ismet Prci’s Diary
from October/November 1998
    The other day I was in the cafeteria at school and out of nowhere I thought there was shelling. They were shelling Moorpark College. I dove for nothing.
    How is it that some shell that exploded long ago in Tuzla can reassemble itself, fly backward into the mouth of the mortar that shot it, get shot again, and reach me here at the Moorpark College cafeteria? How is it that I can exist in both the past and the present simultaneously, be both body and soul simultaneously, live both reality and fantasy simultaneously? How is it that the smallest units of light can be both waves and particles simultaneously, depending on how you look at them? Where’s the logic? Where’s the sound mind? How am I to interpret?
    Mati , you’d kill me, but I drink. You have no idea

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