it starts with a call, a call from his mother. sophia says “come quick, macgyver’s been hurt. he was just on his way home from saving the world again, he got jumped by some kids, he went down, now he’s dying.” so i threw on my coat an ran out the door, sped through the night to the old hospital, where the doctors said to wait, so i camped in the ward, watching the clock as it haemorrhages time so slow. and i’ve lingered here so long. the air in here so cold. the shallow breath so quiet. the shibboleth of macguiver laid bare, flat on a table, blackened by bruises he couldn’t explain. and there was nothing he could build to save himself out of biros and blue-tack. they opened up his cavities in the operating theatre, but the doctors couldn’t find a heart, his lymph glands running motor oil. his calloused fingers lie inert, their intricate ability punctured by the god-shaped hole in adolescent consciousness. he couldn’t build a bomb to mend the splinters of his broken heart. his home-made radar couldn’t find a way to make his weapons art. macgyver bleeds out all of his rationalism. isaac newton, your lever is not long enough. the scottish enlightenment a sinking ship. so i left the hospital with the bleep of life support machines a memory.