A World for Dreams
Chapter Eight
Mist and Cobwebs
(Reed)
My treatment afterwards is exemplary.
I'm wheeled away and washed. If it mattered I could notice that a medi-scanner is passed rapidly across my belly and nods of cautious optimism are exchanged. There are different fluids in the bag that is hooked up to the ever-present drip beside me, and presently movement is generously allowed to return – within the usual limits, of course, which are not exactly large.
Even Phlox's air of the conjurer who has succeeded in producing an entire shuttlepod out of a very small hat passes almost unnoticed. He doesn't matter enough for it to register more than the faintest, briefest flicker of awareness. Nothing matters. I'm so stunned that it feels as though every neuron in my brain has stopped firing. I don't think. I don't want to think. Thinking will be beyond bearing, and so I refuse thought.
This may be something to do with the chemicals now being flushed into me, though it doesn't feel as if it is. Maybe it's what's left of my self that pretends to have that much control, the only control that remains to me. I can choose not to feel. I can choose not to think. I can choose not to understand.
So I do.
Tucker visits, of course; some mechanical matter crops up that requires his professional expertise, and he takes the opportunity to let me know he finds my predicament amusing. He knows about The Procedure. Everyone knows, apparently. I'm the only one who doesn't.
He grins down at me. "Kinda reminds me of an old classic they ran on Movie Night 'bout a month ago: 'The Devil Wears Prada'."
The lackeys think it's hilarious. By the way he watches me, he's expecting some kind of reaction. I don't acknowledge the gibe. Actually, I don't even understand it. I'm made of mist and cobwebs, and as I stare back into his face I think I even glimpse what looks strangely like an unwilling flicker of pity as he turns away.
Time was when even the suggestion of pity from Tucker would have eaten at me like acid. Now only a vague puzzlement stirs the cobwebs before they settle again.
Hours pass. Days pass. I no longer count them. Even my grasp of the identities of those around me starts to drift.
One morning the odd-looking doctor scowls, and there are looks of disappointment and anger on the faces of those who attend to me. I have apparently done something very bad. They fasten absorbent pads on my belly and I think someone may hit me, but nobody does. After a while the pads are no longer required, and there is some debate about whether the chemicals were too strong, or not strong enough, but anyway they argue themselves into some kind of decision and presumably a change is made. Then one day they wheel me out of Sickbay again. There is pleasure followed by pain, and I am not at all sure which of them makes me scream, but I am still screaming when I'm brought back to Sickbay and they sedate me quickly because this amount of agitation is not good for The Procedure.
The sedation and the chemicals and someone they refer to as The Patient do not agree with each other. There follows a period where I laugh and snarl and try to bite people, but nobody comes close enough to me for that, and I alternate between feeling intense loneliness for physical contact and intense dread of it. Now and again I glimpse a female with whom I associate 'testing functionality' – the phrase eddies out of the cobwebs and seems horribly significant for some reason – and it takes several sessions of hasty readjustments of the chemicals before they make the connection between my howling and her arrival.
After that I don't see her any more.
Hours pass. Days pass. I know this because different people look at the readings above my head and pass the medi-scanners across my belly, and talk about The Procedure. I begin to understand that whatever it may be, The Procedure is very, very important. The odd-looking doctor certainly seems to think so. He becomes very tense as time goes on, and so do I, because if I do something wrong for a second time it's even more likely that someone will hit me and then afterwards there will be screaming again and it will be me doing it.
But time goes on, and a stealthy sense of hope begins to pervade Sickbay. People smile when they look down at my belly and this makes me very relieved, because if they are pleased they won't make me scream again, will they?
Will they?
I'm afraid of daring to hope. I try to breathe as slowly and shallowly as I can, so as not to upset The Procedure, but this becomes very difficult the day the two people whom I associate with the screaming come into Sickbay and look at the box on the wall above my head and then at my belly. I find my breath coming in terrified little gasps, and the doctor (I think he's a doctor) does something to the chemicals hanging beside my bed and then suddenly I feel calmer, though my heart is still kicking with fright.
Fortunately the people go away again quite quickly when the doctor tells them about it. For a while there is a kind of muted consternation around me in case all this may have affected The Procedure, but apparently it didn't. The doctor is definitely very happy about this, and I am able to relax again. One day I overhear him talking into a little box and he says The Patient is progressing excellently; I'm not sure who or what The Patient is, but if this chap's a doctor presumably he's trying to help The Patient get better, so that proves he's nice, doesn't it? Armed with this certainty, I smile hopefully at him next time he comes to look down at me. He looks so startled I feel guilty for not smiling at him oftener. To my surprise he pats me awkwardly on the shoulder, which feels so lovely / horrible / wonderful / awful / soothing / terrifying that I hear myself making whimpering, choking sounds and water runs out of my eyes. This is evidently not good for The Procedure, for he makes more adjustments to the chemicals and soon I stop and everything is calm again. He's such a kind doctor that he doesn't pat me any more, which makes me very grateful to him. We don't want anything to go wrong with The Procedure, because that would mean ... that would... Something stirs among the cobwebs and I shudder. I don't want to look there, and fortunately someone is at hand to look at the box above my bed and adjust the chemicals accordingly so I forget again.
=/\=
Time passes.
Presently I become aware of discomfort low in my body. It's not much, but I feel ... odd. Heavy. Especially when people move me to bathe me, when they seem to take extra trouble to lift and turn me very gently. They rub stuff into the back of me and put down thick pads of soft material for me to lie on, which feels very comfortable when they put me down again.
There's a butterfly in Sickbay. I'm surprised the doctor should allow such a thing, because it probably isn't very hygienic, but in the meantime it's company for me so I don't mention it to anyone. It sits on my belly. Obviously I can't see it, but I can feel it fluttering, which is a companionable sort of feeling.
Later on, I twig that the butterfly must be a pet of some kind. I mean, it's not possible that nobody notices it, because it flaps away like a good 'un down there, and it's not just when there's only the two of us about. Now and again it arrives when somebody's looking at the box over my head, and everyone makes delighted noises. I'm sure I don't know why everyone should get so excited about a butterfly, but if they're happy, I'm happy. At least until the day when They reappear; I'd almost managed to forget about Them altogether, but one glance up into blue coins and everyone starts rushing about, colliding with each other in their haste to get the chemicals changed. Fortunately somebody manages to get it done and the butterfly stops screaming – hair-raising noise, that, I'd never have thought anything that small could make such a racket. After that the doctor shoos everyone out, and for a while the lights go down and the butterfly and I are left to tremble ourselves into quiet.
=/\=
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