The Surgeon

Pinkie awoke to find himself strapped onto an operating table. Even his wrists and feet were bound. A large bandage was on his head. Around him were tables with surgical tools and equipment. There were people there, dressed in surgical gowns and preparing for an operation.

"W-w-w-where am I?" he mumbled.

"You are in Great South University Hospital," said a voice.

Pinkie turned his head slightly to the left to see where the voice was coming from and saw a man whose back was turned to him. This man was being helped into a surgeon's gown by two assistants.

"So it was you who shot Cardinal Zhang," the man continued, turning around. He had an effeminate face but the right side of it was hidden by a white mask.

A feeling of foreboding came upon Pinkie as the man approached him. "W-w-w-w-who are you?" he asked.

"I," said the man, "am Dr. Vincent Tejero Ordonez. I am the head of the hospital's trauma and emergency department, but that's just what my job description says. Some people call me "Dr. Frankenstein" because of the other things I do. And you Pinkie, or whatever your name is, are among the most unfortunate persons today. You know why? Let me tell you a story."

He approached the operating table and held up his hands for the assistants to put the surgical gloves on them.

"A long time ago," the man began, "there was an irresponsible drunkard gambler of a fisherman who was married and had five children. He also had a mistress who bore him a son. The fisherman hated this son but didn't stop using his mother. His family likewise hated the woman and her son. But because the woman was the maid of a well-to-do old widow, the money she earned kept the abuses at bay -most of them at least.

One day, the woman and her employer died in a car accident. The woman's parents couldn't take the shock of losing their only child, their only daughter, and died brokenhearted. The children of the old widow, who were by now living in Canada, came back to bury their mother. Although they were not familiar with the boy's circumstances, they gave him a handsome sum of money out of gratitude for what his mother had done for their mother and returned to Canada. The boy had completed his first year of college, then.

But the money didn't last long. It was plundered by his father and his other family and once the money had been used up, the boy was thrown out of the house. He wandered around, searching for work and managed to take a few odd jobs but it wore out his body. He fell sick often, with a weakened immune system. Leprosy set in and he suffered deformities as a result of secondary infections.

Because of this, looking for work became impossible and he was reduced to begging in the streets. People looked in horror at his wasted body, and the only thought left in him was to die. He hated himself and his family. But one day, while begging in the vicinity of the cathedral, a priest grabbed him and dragged him to the archbishop's palace. Fighting back was useless because the boy was already too weak. This was no ordinary priest because the other priests were bowing to him, and sometimes kissing his free hand. The priest threw the boy into an ambulance, which drove off to a hospital.

In that hospital, the boy was subjected to massive doses of medication in order to stop the disease and some surgery also to replace certain body parts that had been destroyed by the leprosy. He survived. Do you know who that priest was? It was Cardinal Zhang."

Pinkie shuddered as the masked doctor came closer and continued his tale. "The boy recovered and the cardinal decided to help him finish his studies and he was made a scholar of the EOGC. During those days, the boy decided to become a doctor and made up his mind to repay the cardinal's kindness. And do you know who that boy was? It was me."

The doctor took his mask off; the sight was terrifying.

While the left side of his face, as well as his mouth and nose, were normal the right was withered and shriveled.

"It was a mistake for you to shoot the cardinal," the doctor snarled. "By the time I'm through with you, you will wish Maximilian had sent you to your maker!"

An assistant fitted a surgical mask on the doctor's face and cap on his head. "The taipan ordered me to remove your pituitary gland," Ordonez continued. "Your so-called third eye-"

Pinkie started.

"But he didn't say I should do it painlessly! Let's put your cult's belief that 'this world is an illusion' to the test, shall we?" Ordonez sneered. "I'll show you they call me 'Frankenstein.'"

"We're ready to administer the anesthetic, sir," said an assistant.

"There won't be any," Ordonez said to him. "We'll just give him a paralytic."

Words of a mantra formed in Pinkie's mind. He began mumbling them out while another assistant administered something into his arm with a syringe.

Ordonez lifted his scalpel. "The cardinal would never approve of what I'm about to do," he hissed. "But I will do it for his own good!"

Pinkie screamed.