You are a well know hepatologist touring the West Coast for advances in treatment of hepatitis A to I. But while preparing to speak at an event you collapse at the cocktail hour. The sun sets in the vineyard and the next thing you know is that you are rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. You are still conscious and keep on wondering how first response could be there so quickly. This reminds you of Israel and its ubiquity of medical help and then it starts to make sense. However when someone tells you that a guest has used Uber to summon the ambulance, it makes perfect sense given the proximity of the company’s headquarters.

The hospital looks like it’s been dreamt up by Wes Anderson, with pastel hues and minute architectural details. It looks like a canto from the XVIIth century. Coincidentally, this is the soundtrack to the doctor’s diagnostic. He says : you’re an hepatologist and therefore it must be the liver. Actually, he rather sings the words. You’re trying to concentrate on the lyrics since your life depends on it. But it is hard as the doctor is a countertenor, showing off to the choir of interns.

I walk in the room, I am dressed in an old fashioned black dress, with a strange top hat, pointy at the top, larger at the base. There ! you know what I look like, I look like a physician out of a play by Moliere. This makes perfect sense again, as you can tell by my long winded speech that I am French, although my accent reminds you of something else you cannot quite name yet.

This is going to be good you think. I don’t sing. My words are single octave and my diagnosis is that « it is all in the head », and you’re left wondering, what isn’t ? Well, the first thing that is not in the head anymore, is the singing doctor’s sanity. He ends his song in a mock death, we are both looking at him in disbelief. The acting was a bit outré, and it is not possible that one could die in such a ridiculous way. The interns rush his body to the emergency room, i.e. they get out and back in the room as quickly as possible. It is a highly choreographed mess.

Given the diagnosis, you are discharged from the ER. Since it is Friday, I am off shift and we say the prayer on wine and bread in the parking lot, cars are honking to get out but we insist on the full version of God’s word. You say that you are tired and want to go home. I convince you with one question and one comment. The question is : « where is home ? », the comment is : « it is all in your head ».

We go back to the house where you were due to give your speech and a party is going on at full blast. The band plays very explicit songs and you jump on stage and blend into the group and you know what needs to be done in order to get better. You do as the outspoken doctor. You sing your speech about liver diseases. It was the cure all along, drummer and bass are struggling to keep up. When the song ends you jump off the stage, I carry you out of the room and you fall asleep in my arms.

When you wake up on Sunday morning, Saturday has either not happened or has happened in a blur. You think : no big deal, if I have not lived this day, I may keep it for later. I am calling your name from the bathroom and suddenly you know where my accent is from and it also reminds you of where is home. At this point you sit up because you have just heard a muffled noise coming from the living room of your Jerusalem home, thousand miles away : someone is ruffling with intent though the books on the shelves.

Someone is opening those books, turning them upside down, looking for something specific. You can see in your mind’s eye the unknown man holding a tour guidebook of Jerusalem opened at a picture of the Western Wall and in the crease of the book, there is a small folded white piece of paper. And then the man picks the piece of paper out of the book and throws the book away. He unfolds the note and on it, there is an equation related to information theory, an equation which explains how to beat the Shannon limit for transmitting information. You turn around and see me coming out of the bathroom with the guidebook and you realize that everything was a metaphor of itself and now, and only just from this moment on, you’re in love.

Image credit : Ryan McGinley – Wade Wave – 2004