Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Mover: Episode VI

            “Our heart is truly a magnificent machine,” Mrs. Enriquez declared, “It is responsible for the perpetual movement of the blood which transports vital nutrition from the food we eat and distributes it to various parts of our body. The blood is also responsible for carrying the crucially needed oxygen to our individual cells. It also delivers waste out of our system. Without the heart, the blood would not serve its function. It is unlike any other muscle in the body. It doesn’t stop beating, because if it did, we would die.
“Now, what causes the heart to stop?” she asked rhetorically, “Different kinds of heart disease is one of the main causes,” she professed while raising her forefinger, “In some cases, when fatty tissues build up and clog one of the arteries feeding oxygen to the heart, it would literally suffocate it and the patient would experience what is commonly known as a heart attack. But that event doesn’t necessarily stop the heart dead on. Sometimes it would still continue to beat faintly but if left untreated for a long period of time, cells of the heart that was deprived of oxygen would die and may cause the entire organ to fail.
“There are also a number of external factors that could cause the heart to stop,” she continued, “One obviously is when you get shot straight through the heart,” she expressed flippantly just to break the ice because the class seemed to slip away farther and farther every second. It made the class chuckle for a little while and then vanished when she carried on with her discussion.
“Another is when a person is electrocuted. When the electric current is strong enough, it will cause the heart muscles to fibrillate or in other words—individual muscle fibers will twitch uncontrollably, acting without coordination from each other. This would ultimately lead to cardiac arrest.
“Another external factor that would cause the heart to stop is when air bubbles somehow enter the bloodstream. This condition is medically known as an air embolism. There are a number of ways for air bubbles to find its way into the bloodstream. One of the most common is when scuba divers experience decompression sickness.
“Scuba divers breathe pressurized air which is normally mostly nitrogen. In high pressure environments, such as underwater, nitrogen is absorbed by the body instead of exhaling it. This is actually just fine unless when the diver’s ascent to the surface is too fast. The pressure drops rapidly and the nitrogen begins to form back into its gaseous state and creates bubbles in the bloodstream. It’s kind of like when you shake a bottle of coke. The air inside the bottle is pressurized so gas bubbles won’t form, but when you open the cap and release the pressure, we all know what will happen. These bubbles will then find its way to various parts of the body and cause different kinds of complications—clogging vital arteries, including arteries supporting the heart. In most cases, these bubbles will find its way to the brain and deprive its supply of blood.
“But the most bizarre external factor in my opinion that could stop a heart would be when air enters the bloodstream through a syringe. If the air bubble is big enough, it would lodge itself to the heart—stopping the normal blood flow. Similar to a vapor lock in a car’s engine, and it would eventually stop the heart from beating.” The bell rang right after she said the last word.
“So class, I hope you will have a nice weekend and don’t forget that the project is due this Monday,” she said persistently with a forced smile while some of the students were packing their things and the rest were already leaving the room one at a time.
In the past few days, Henry had kept on asking Ian to use his ability to do some pranks. Especially pranks involving pretty girls with short skirts. One of the most absurd was to touch Henry’s partner, the one that was sitting at the back wearing short skirts on the first day of school, in her most private parts without physically doing it. But Ian kept his head and refused to every one of Henry’s perverted requests.
When the both of them finally got outside, Henry went on ahead for his next class. Ian waited for Ava. But after several minutes passed and no one seemed to be coming out of the room anymore, Ian began to wonder where she was. He looked inside the room and it was empty. Strange—he thought, maybe he just didn’t notice her go out. He took a few steps backward and decided to look for her elsewhere. He turned around and the sight of beautiful Ava startled him.
“Looking for me?” she asked simply.
“Yes I was,” his voice tense, “we need to finish our project.”
She smiled, “Come over to my house tomorrow. I’m going to be busy later this afternoon so I cannot help you with the project today.”
It was unusual and he felt surprised, never has any boy been invited to her house, except in special occasions or in special matters wherein her mother would have visitors or something. For all he knew, only her friends, who were all girls, were the only people personally invited by her inside the house. Though this was for an important project, it was the first time that she had invited a boy in. It was definitely something that was worth writing down on his imaginary list of peculiar things that Ava has been doing lately.
“I’m not exactly sure where your house is,” he said even though he knew exactly where it was. It was some stupid statement that slipped out of his tongue as a result of his astonishment.
Her smile widened, “It’s near the Parish Church, beside the house with the great big black gate.”
“Oh I see, I see,” he nodded his head hastily.

Ian felt uneasy as he walked with his eyes to his feet. He was excited but nervous at the same time. Carefully, he plotted out in his mind how he should behave inside the house. The fact that he knew that her mother would most definitely be there didn’t help him calm down.
He was nearing her house as he continued to tread on the sidewalk. It was a nice day. The wind was blowing gently and to his right was the Parish Church. Large trees concealed most of the majestic structure. But he traced in his mind the shape of the building. The trees waved softly, as if dancing in concert with the wind. The top of the structure showed the silhouette of the white cross erected on the edge of the rooftop. Behind it was a clear blue afternoon sky with the sun a bit farther to the right.
He looked on ahead and noticed a bit of a commotion in front of a mini-convenience store. Five intoxicated adults were having a drink at that time of day and Ian saw that they were picking on some girl trying to buy something from the store. It was Ava.


The Mover Episodes


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