January 17th
Today, I was measured in places I didn't even realize I had. They're making me a pressure suit, a garment I'll need to wear for a year, maybe two. It's designed to control the growth of scar tissue, something they've been concerned about over the last few days.
It seems that my body, bolstered by good diet, exercise and reasonably natural sleep, is trying rather too hard to heal my skin. The doctor's worried that if this progresses I will grow inflexibly thick areas of scar tissue that will completely ruin the range of motion that I've already worked to attain.
The suit, complete with pressure socks and pressure gloves, will take care of my body but what of my face? Not to be left out, I had the singularly unpleasant experience of breathing through a straw for twenty minutes while a cast was taken of my rather battered features. Lucky me, I get a pressure mask as well. I even got to choose the colour, so I opted for white. Phantom of the Opera, here I come.
January 18th
They say that I should be discharged next week, provided I don't suffer any setbacks. Nurse Claire asked where I was planning to go and I had to admit that I didn't know.
I have no identity, so legally I don't exist. If I have a family out there, I don't remember them. Without an identity, I can't get a job, not that anywhere is likely to hire someone in my condition. I really don't know what I'm going to do for money.
The one thing I've managed to rationalize is that I don't imagine anyone's looking for me now. If they were going to find me, surely it would have happened in the first few days after the fire. I know at least one person saw me emerging from my cell, at least one person knows I made it out of there alive. Missing, presumed dead I suppose. Hell, even if they do ever find me, they'll have fun trying to ID me. I shall avoid the police as best I can, but I daresay I could walk right past Rossiter in the street and he wouldn't be any the wiser.
January 19th
Imagine jumping into a swimming pool and just before you hit the water, realizing that you can't remember if you know how to swim or not.
Physiotherapy was in the pool today and me being the over-excited idiot I seem to often be these days when confronted with something new and fascinating, took a running jump into the deep end. Fortunately it transpired that I do know how to swim, but I couldn't keep my mind off the experience for the remainder of the hour's physical therapy.
How many other things do I know how to do, but don't know that I know?
January 20th
Claire said it was sunny today and suggested we take a walk in the grounds. She brought a blanket for me to wear around my shoulders and was even considerate enough to find me some sunglasses. I seem terribly sensitive to light these days, the harsh fluorescents outside my room often giving me a headache if I linger too long within their glare.
The cold air made my skin tingle, the freshness assaulting my lungs most pleasurably. My sense of smell seems to slowly be returning… I don't really know where it went or why, but it's coming back gradually and the smell of damp grass was most intoxicating. It reminded me of my garden at Larkhill, once again being the scent of potential freedom.
Claire held onto my arm for the entire journey and I welcomed her support. Simply being outside for the first time in almost 3 months was strange enough, but what frightened me was the prospect of being seen by other human beings.
Revulsion, I can deal with. I feel the same way every time I see myself in a mirror, so I can understand those who look at me and immediately look away, disgusted by what they see.
Fear upsets me. I've seen so much of it in the small amount of my life that I can actually remember. I know how fear feels, I hate to think that I'm inflicting that feeling on others simply by being.
Pity is the one that gets me. I do not want to be pitied. Not for the way I look. By all means, pity me for the fact that I was abducted from my life, pity me for the torture I have endured, pity me for my missing past cruelly taken from me for no reason that I can fathom. But do not pity me because I am a burned man. That was my decision and I do not ask for anything other than acceptance.
January 21st
My second skin arrived today. A one piece affair made from a mix of lycra and neoprene, it is approximately flesh coloured with a hood and its own feet. A zip down the front allows for entry and exit, whilst another zip allows for calls of nature to be dealt with without the need for complete disrobing.
Two pairs of gloves, one with full fingers, the other half-fingerless for when one requires precision use of their digits.
The technician who had created the suit assisted me with the first donning. A liberal dusting of talcum powder is required to actually get it on, and it is so tight that it makes one stand very stiffly. It's almost as if I could relax my muscles completely and the suit would hold me upright regardless.
Once fully zipped up, he spent some time poking and prodding various parts of my anatomy before having me half-disrobe whilst additional padding was stitched into certain areas, namely under the arms, an area which is apparently very tricky to get right.
When fully zipped up again, he turned his attention to the hood, mercifully liberating my relatively undamaged ear by cutting a hole in the neoprene. On the other side, where there's really very little left of my right ear, he made a smaller hole so that I could hear better but would still benefit from the pressure on my skull.
Apparently scientists have grown a human ear on the back of a mouse. He was of the opinion that I wouldn't have to wait very long until I could have a living replacement. I just felt sorry for the mouse.
The final piece of the outfit was the hard mask. It's white with a fairly matt texture facing the world, a smooth resin surface on the inside. Eye holes, a prominent nose and a slot for the mouth. Completely blank and expressionless, it looks a little like a hockey mask. I held it against my face as he pulled the two elastic straps tight around the back of the hood, where they are held in the correct position with a patch of Velcro.
Yet again, I looked in the mirror and did not recognize myself.
As I write this entry, I've been wearing my new outfit for several hours. It's strangely tiring, being pressed against unrelentingly for so many hours. I have a terribly sore head, unlike any other I can remember, but I am persevering with this diary in the hope that I become tired enough to fall asleep wearing my new face.
In the late afternoon, I ventured into the hospital grounds again and found the reactions of passers-by hasn't altered much. I had hoped that with the mask hiding my ruined features, the looks of revulsion would stop, but it seems that the human imagination is quite capable of summoning up the horrors that must lurk beneath. If anything, it seems to dehumanize me even more – they seem to find it easier to stare at me when they can't see the effect their staring is having. Others just blanked me completely. I don't look human therefore I am not worth acknowledgement.
I didn't stay out there long, returning to the solitude of my room where nobody judges me.