The Best Australian Science Writing 2015 (16 page)

* * * * *

‘Writing about bird songs is like dancing about architecture.'

As Napster broke the music industry, the MP3 file made redundant a century of imaginative onomatopoeia. WeBIRD cannot hear the poetry of a Flame Robin – ‘
You may come, if you wish, to the sea
' – in the sonogram of a bird call. Leafsnap cannot see ‘
foliage trifoliate, margins runcinate
' in a snapshot of a leaf.

Like these pioneering apps, the great field guides of the future will identify species by algorithm not allusion. Algorithms that characterise the geometry of a scale pattern, the spikes and troughs of a sonogram. Algorithms that interrogate hundreds of images and calls to capture the geography of accents and
provenance. Algorithms that will always appreciate a little help from a human:

Phone: ‘Excuse me, Megan, is that a New Holland Honeyeater I hear calling behind you?'

Megan: ‘Where? Oh, I see it, no it's an Eastern Spinebill. Good try Hal, their calls are really similar.'

Phone: ‘Thank you for the correction, Megan. I shall upload the identified call to improve the database for next time.'

* * * * *

Will we
like
the field guides of the future? Will EucSnap ever replace my coconut-scented Costermans? Will we stick with our bulky books, long glossaries and child-friendly bird calls? The ‘warm, intimate vinyl' sounds of the past?

Your preferences don't matter. Neither do mine. You already have a guide, you already value nature. What really matters is whether a phone full of apps can help a new generation of ‘digital natives' to value and conserve the diversity and beauty of the natural world.

I hope so. I hope my grandchildren pocket a galaxy of guides to nature's delights, and use it to call on the soundscape of the planet. If they do, they'll never need to ask, ‘can we squeeze another field guide in the glove box?' They'll just need to be careful with the coconut oil.

What shall we teach the children

Lost in a floral desert

How I rescued my brain

David Roland

I'm having trouble working out where I am. I'm in a puzzle and need to put together the clues to work out what this is about.

I'm sitting in a row of beige plastic chairs. When I turn my head, I realise that my wife, Anna, is next to me. Other people, scattered around the room, are flicking through magazines or shuffling their feet. I get the feeling that they don't want to be here.

The sunlight slanting through the windows is soft; it must be morning light. I look up to see a woman behind a counter. She seems harassed, and her hair hasn't been brushed recently.

We seem to be in some sort of waiting room, but I don't know why.

In one corner of the room, on a low table, there are piles of magazines. I walk over to pick up
Country Life.
There's a section on real estate: quaint, homely looking cottages and sandstone mansions. There's one I like: a cute cottage with a garden for $350 000. Is that a lot of money? I used to know. When I look at the date on the cover, I realise that I don't know what year it is now. The names of the towns in the ads seem familiar, but when I try to picture where they are, I can't; my sense of geography is wavy.
Goulburn
, I say to myself. Nothing.
Cooma.
Still nothing.

How did I get to this room? A fragment comes into my mind – a dreamlike image – of Anna driving and me vomiting out of the car window. Did this happen?

I turn to Anna and see she's crying quietly: her cheeks are pink; the rims of her eyes are red. I put my arm around her shoulder and pat her gently. ‘It'll be all right,' I say. She quiets a little. After a while I take my arm back and return to
Country Life.

Then a man in white appears, like a jack-in-the-box, out of a doorway. He calls out my name and holds the door ajar. It has an important-looking sign on it: ‘Clinical Initiatives Nurse'.

Anna and I get up and follow him in.

The man has a sense of energy about him. We sit down opposite each other, knee-to-knee. He brings his face, with intense, smiling eyes, close to mine. ‘Now, David,' he says. ‘Can you tell me what day of the week it is?' His expression is encouraging.

I think hard. ‘It's Wednesday … or it could be Thursday.'

‘Where are you now?' he asks.

‘Is it a hospital?'

‘What is the last thing you remember happening?'

‘I was playing guitar with my friend Nick. Last night.'

He asks more questions, but either I don't know the answers or can't remember the question by the time he's finished speaking. As he talks, his words appear in my mind slowly. They often disappear before I can get hold of them, as if they are in a line, each being jostled along by the next.

He tells me something that seems important but I don't catch it. Then he's gone.

A nurse shows me to a room. I'm about to sit on the bed when I catch sight of a long, horizontal strip of glowing orange, topped with purple and black, through the window. What is it? I stare and stare; I can't work it out. Then I realise: it's a sunset.

How could this be? It was just morning.

I stand and watch the orange glow become thinner and more
intense as the black above it grows. The lights in the room get brighter, and begin to sting my eyes. It must be night. Incredible.

* * * * *

This morning is different from yesterday. It feels as if I've woken from a dream. I'm sure now that I'm in hospital. I remember more clearly the night before I came in. I'd woken with a headache, taken a Panadol, and gone back to bed. That's the last memory I have before being here.

A nurse tells me that the specialist will be doing his rounds this morning and will discuss my test results with me. I'm keen to know what the results say.

The phone beside my bed rings, interrupting my reverie. It's my psychiatrist, Dr Banister. Anna has called him, he says. ‘What's happened?' he asks.

I tell him that I can't recall most of yesterday.

‘What do you think brought this on?'

I remember I'd had a huge panic attack the day before I came to hospital.

Dr Banister asks me what tests have been done. I mention a CT scan and blood tests, and say I'm waiting to discuss the results.

‘You may have had a psychogenic fugue: an episode of amnesia. But we'll need to see what the results reveal. I'll try and come in to see you. If it's a fugue, you could stay at my clinic, Seaview Psychiatric, for a longer rest. I can discuss this with your doctor.'

‘Okay,' I say. That does sound good.

Not long afterwards, the specialist comes in and stands by my bed, with a young female doctor. He asks me how I'm feeling.

‘I'm woolly in the head,' I say. ‘I've got a mild headache, too.'

He says that the blood tests came back normal, my heart is fine, and the CT scan did not show any problems with my brain.
He turns to his colleague: ‘It's not TGA.' He doesn't realise that I know what this is: transient global amnesia. A brief episode of memory loss, cause unknown. The psychologist in me is disappointed; it would be an interesting clinical experience to have. I tell him what Dr Banister said. The specialist says he will request a review by a hospital psychiatrist in case Dr Banister doesn't get in to see me. He'll order some new blood tests. He wants me to stay for another night so that they can monitor me. After this, if he's satisfied, I can go to Seaview.

* * * * *

It's dark when Anna and I arrive home from the hospital the following evening. The house is quiet and cool. With cups of Ecco, Anna and I sit down at the dining table. ‘What happened yesterday?' I ask.

‘I got up in the morning and you were wandering around the house. You had your business jacket on – that's the first thing I thought strange. And you asked, in a sort of dreamy monotone, “Anna, what am I supposed to be doing?” I said, “You're taking Emma to camp after breakfast.” A few minutes later, you asked me the same question. You were white and your skin was icy. I sat you down at the table with a heat pack around your neck.'

‘I don't know if it was a dream,' I say, ‘but were we in the Tarago and I … vomited? Does that make sense?'

‘Yes. On the road to Lismore, you let down the window and almost threw yourself out while you vomited. We were doing a hundred kilometres an hour. I think you would've ended up on the road if I hadn't grabbed your shirt.'

I'm amazed.

After I retire for the night, the only sound in the house is Anna as she goes about doing things. I settle into the quiet, with the darkness closing around me. My body lets go, muscle by muscle.

Then, the pieces of the puzzle begin to join and a picture emerges: I've finally lost it. I've had a mental breakdown.

* * * * *

The next morning, Anna and I arrive at Seaview. Anna is wearing her business lipstick: the deep crimson. Her wonderful smile is hard to imagine now, her face is so taut. We sit in silence in a quiet, carpeted corner beside the reception desk.

There are four doors leading off the waiting area. On each, above the word ‘psychiatrist', is a doctor's name. With the location of their rooms, at the bow of this elongated building, these psychiatrists are like captains of the ship. Eventually the door nearest us opens, and the long figure of Dr Banister appears. He's wearing his trademark tweed jacket. ‘Come in,' he says, looking concerned.

We follow him in.

‘Tell me what happened … before you took David to hospital?'

Anna begins. Almost immediately, it becomes clear that I am superfluous to their conversation. That's okay with me. The rise and fall of their voices becomes the sound of summer insects – an aural backdrop as I explore the corners of the room. I notice that it has five unequal sides, like a warped pentagon.

I'm still not sure if I'm dreaming, or if what's happening is real. I might be Alice, and a white rabbit will appear at any moment.

Dr Banister asks me a question, yanking me back to reality. ‘David, what do you think brought this on?'

I really am in a psychiatric establishment.

* * * * *

Three weeks later, it's a Friday and I'm in a fold-up chair under the pandanus palms on the bay's main beach. I've been coming here most days since my release from Seaview.

I seem to have regressed since leaving. My thoughts get jumbled, like clothes in a washing machine. My brain is in a fog most of the time. Here, the world is simple and doesn't demand things of me. The shushing of the waves and the sticky brush of the sea air soothe me. I'm happy to be alone.

There is another strange thing. Wherever I look, a persistent dark cloud hangs over my vision, as if it is about to rain.

I'm reading Elizabeth Gilbert's
Eat, Pray, Love
when my phone rings. ‘David, it's Dr Franklin, Dr Banister's colleague from Seaview. I'm sorry, but I've got some unfortunate news. We made a mistake. The result of the brain MRI you completed yesterday shows that you've had a stroke.'

‘Oh.' My brain is slow to process this information.

‘I'm sorry it wasn't picked up earlier,' he says. ‘It's affected the occipital region – the vision area of your brain – with some minor bleeding in other parts. Have you noticed any disturbances in your visual field?'

‘I don't think so,' I say. I've forgotten about the dark cloud. ‘What do I do now?'

‘Well, it's been three weeks since the stroke. If something else were going to occur, it most likely would have by now. But you should see your GP straightaway.'

‘Okay,' I say, and we finish the call.

Later that day, the GP, upon hearing my story, says stonyfaced, ‘You'll need to exercise vigorously, get your heart rate down to 50, and lose weight.' It sounds drastic. He refers me to a specialist. The consequences of this stroke are growing by the hour.

* * * * *

Over the weekend, I digest the news. I do an internet search and find that following a first-time stroke, one in five people die within a month, and one in three within a year. I'm still within the critical period to have a second stroke. Shit. I could keel over at any moment, or become paralysed, or be unable to speak – be trapped in my body!

The more I research the consequences of my stroke, the more my mind becomes flooded with questions. Should I be taking blood thinners? Should I be resting or exercising? Is it all right to read?

Come Monday, I can't stand it any longer. I decide to call the specialist's rooms. Dr Small is surprised when I explain how little I've been told so far; he hadn't realised that because I'd been misdiagnosed in hospital, I haven't been given specific instructions. He says that I should be taking up to 300 milligrams of aspirin daily, and that I most likely would have had another stroke by now, if it were going to happen. When we meet he will review my medication. He doesn't think anything will change until then.