Fiction
Granta 119: Britain
Cover in collaboration with Sir Paul Smith
jagged dark lines angling in on
the empty center where the spinal cord had failed to register on
film. The break in the second vertebra was harder to make out, but
I took the surgeons at their word:
C1/2 fx: cont immob pending halo.
Will follow.
I
Granta 120: Medicine
Design by Michael Salu
Illustration by Kaniita Meechubot
Photographed by Nadegé Mèriau
THIS WAS STILL
RELATIVELY
EARLY IN THE
DAY AND I WAS
CAPABLE OF BEING
CHARMED.
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
WAS NOT IN the best
of moods as I made
my way back to the
ER, grabbed a clipboard and parted the
curtains to Bay 12. Still, I managed an adequate smile as I introduced myself. “John Mongay?” I
said tentatively.
The woman at his shoulder
blinked up at me, wearing that
same weary smile, brushing a lock
of hair from her face.
“It’s ‘Mon-zhay,’” she said, with
an odd combination of self-deprecation and something else — perhaps it was warmth? — that made
me like her. “It’s French,” she explained. She welcomed me into
Bay 12, which I had been inside
more times than I cared to count,
with a curious air of apology, as
if concerned about the quality of
her housekeeping. I was charmed.
This was still relatively early in
the day and I was capable of be-