Watchmaker
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 4: The Relentless Foot
The relief she might have felt when the plaster was removed didn’t matter now. She was asleep, unconscious under general anesthesia, her body entirely still while Dr. Kopp worked.
He approached the foot with quiet intensity, gloves snapping into place. The skin beneath was pale, mottled, swollen — angry in color, hot to the touch. Tendons and small joints stiffened into unfamiliar angles. The calcaneus had begun fusing incorrectly. Tiny misalignments threatened to throw off her balance permanently. The talus had partially collapsed, and the metatarsals had shifted slightly. Scar tissue held everything in a cruel, rigid embrace.
Hours passed. He moved with meticulous care, adjusting bone fragments with delicate pressure, inserting pins and plates with the precision of a watchmaker. Every screw, every micro-adjustment had to be exact. A millimeter too far could cost her mobility.
The operating room was quiet except for the hum of the imaging machine, the faint tick of monitors, and the controlled rhythm of his breathing. Sweat gathered at the base of his neck; his eyes never left the X-ray images, never left the foot.
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