The Ghost of a Bird

Genre: fiction (short story)

Key words: death and dying, medical ethics, physician-patient relationship, Sacks Oliver, war

Summary: (Plot spoiler ahead)

“The Ghost of a Bird” is a 20 page short story (it reads faster than that) about a young British soldier wounded in June 1944 during WWII and recuperating in a hospital. It is the narrative of the physician taking care of the patient-soldier. The physician discovers that the patient, “Patient 39”, is in fact a 22 year old man named Gerald Gault, who published a short story about a young English soldier who dies in North Africa after discovering the body of a dead German with a photograph of girl named Sylvie. The patient suffers from quite severe traumatic brain injury with devastating memory issues, including the inability to recognize his parents who come to visit him. The only memories he does have are the fictional ones of Sylvie and the ambience of his short story. He has a fatal hemorrhagic stroke and dies.

Commentary:

This is a short story straight from the annals of Oliver Sacks type patients. If we did not already know better from Dr. Sacks and our own experience, we would say this story taxes our credibility. It reinforces, once again, the tenuous frontier between reality and perceived reality, and the contribution fiction has to contribute to such border disputes.

Author: William Boyd

Title of Work: The Ghost of a Bird

Title of Volume: Fascination

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf

Edition: 2005, pages 219-238

Place published: NY, NY

Miscellaneous:

Annotated by: Richard M. Ratzan

Date of post: August 19, 2011

Date of latest revision: August 28, 2011