by Alison Irvine

Renowned Harley Street specialist Malcolm Hargreaves-Peach adjusted his glasses with the kind of precision that suggested he’d practised the gesture in a mirror. He sat across from his patient, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties. She wore a calm, observant gaze, and her hands sat peacefully on her lap.

“So, Ms Elmwood,” he began, lacing his fingers together, “what we’re looking at is a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. That’s a minimally invasive surgical procedure to remove the gallbladder. Quite routine, really. We make a few small incisions, insert a laparoscope—essentially a camera—and then we excise the gallbladder using specialised instruments.”

He paused, smiling as if expecting a short round of applause, then glanced downward, checking her professional background. His secretary’s note said: computer industry.

“I’ll try to put this in simpler terms,” he added, leaning forward. “Imagine your gallbladder is like a malfunctioning USB drive. It’s not storing bile properly, and it’s causing system errors—pain, nausea, that sort of thing. So, we’re going to unplug it. But instead of yanking it out, we use a robotic arm—well, not literally robotic, but you get the idea—to gently extract it through your belly button. Like threading a needle, but with organs.”

Ms Elmwood blinked and slightly raised her left eyebrow. “I… think I follow. So, the gallbladder is like a USB drive?”

“Yes!” he said, delighted. “And bile is the data. When the drive corrupts, the system—your digestive tract—starts to crash.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay. But what happens to the data—sorry, the bile—after the drive is removed?”

Mr Hargreaves-Peach frowned. “Well, the liver reroutes it. Think of it as cloud storage. The body adapts. It’s all very elegant.”

“I see,” she said, though her tone suggested otherwise.

“Still unclear?” he asked, his smile tightening. “Let me rephrase. Imagine your gallbladder is a faulty satellite dish. It’s supposed to beam bile into your intestines, but it’s misaligned. So, we decommission it. The liver, being the clever organ it is, takes over transmission duties. No dish required.”

Ms Elmwood tilted her head. “So now it’s a satellite dish instead of a USB drive?”

“Well, metaphors are flexible,” he said, waving a hand. “The point is, it’s a straightforward procedure. We’ll have you in and out in a day.”

She gave a patient smile. “Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate the effort, but I’m still a little confused about the rerouting process. Does the liver increase bile production to compensate? Or is it more about timing and flow regulation?”

Mr Hargreaves-Peach blinked. “Ah. Well. That’s a bit technical. You see, the hepatic ducts—think of them as… um… plumbing conduits—adjust their flow rate. Like a smart faucet. They sense the absence of the gallbladder and recalibrate.”

Ms Elwood nodded again, slowly. “Right. A smart faucet.”

There was a pause. He cleared his throat.

“Out of curiosity,” she said, gently shifting the conversation, “where did you study medicine?”

“Oh, Oxford, of course,” he said, puffing slightly. “Graduated top of my class, with honours. I was even part of the famous ‘illustrious eight’, you remember? Made the TV. The ones that went on to win the …” Her completely blank stare told him she had absolutely no interest in rowing. “But why do you ask?”

“I work at Oxford,” she said. “In the quantum computing lab.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Oh! Well, what a coincidence. I’ve been having some issues with my laptop. It’s been freezing, not responding to commands. Do you think it’s… quantum-related?”

“Unlikely,” she smiled, “unless your laptop is entangled with another in a parallel dimension.”

He chuckled nervously. “Right. Joking aside, it’s just not listening to me. I click, it ignores. I restart, it sulks. Any idea why?”

“Well,” she said, folding her hands, “it could be a matter of decoherence. In quantum systems, information is stored in qubits, which remain in a superposition state until measured. But classical systems—like your laptop—operate on binary logic. If your commands are inconsistent or your system is overloaded, the processor might enter a state of pseudo-chaotic latency, where instruction sets queue inefficiently, leading to perceived disobedience.”

Hargreaves-Peach rarely struggled for words, but a blank stare, an audible gasp, and a slightly adjusted jaw told her she’d made a point.

“Alternatively,” she continued, “you might just need to clear your cache.”

He blinked again. “I… see.”

She smiled kindly. “It’s a bit like your gallbladder metaphor. If the system’s clogged, the flow suffers. But if we can find a shared language—one that respects the complexity without overwhelming the listener—we can solve the problem.”

He nodded slowly, a sheepish grin forming. “Touché.”

“I think we both suffer from the same affliction,” she said. “Over-explaining in the name of clarity.”

He laughed. “Guilty as charged.”

There was a moment of mutual understanding, a quiet truce between two minds trained in different dialects of complexity.

“Well,” he said, standing, “I’ll make sure the surgical team is briefed. And I’ll try to keep my metaphors to a minimum.”

“And I’ll try not to bring up quantum entanglement during recovery,” she replied.

As she left the room, he glanced at his computer, which had just frozen again. He sighed.

“Maybe it really is entangled,” he muttered.