I am still.

Posted on 22 Jul 2012 @ 3:01pm by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren
Edited on 02 Feb 2013 @ 7:30am

1,113 words; about a 6 minute read

The following is an excerpt of Lilou Peers' writing, set down following her release from the ICU.

Location: USS Algonquin - Peers' Quarters
Timeline: Early 2387 (a little over two years ago)


[ON]

I have no eyes and so am blind to the sightless ceiling. I know it's there. Waiting. Hovering inexplicably. I am a skull connected to a sacrum by thirty-three bones, fifteen slabs of cartilage, and an intertransverse ligament. I am a collection of two hundred and six bones. I lie, immobile, on the collection of boards and springs, cloth and metal, that make up this thing called a bed.

I am

Lips swollen, I drool, as glands awake with my senses, spilling their clear gooey mess out through the cracks in my jawbone. A hitch-my tongue grows like a weed from a seed, filling, roiling, working with muscles that struggle to life to work that moisture down, down, downward. It winds itself through my broken ribcage into the empty space above my lingering spine and the weed bears fruit: vulnerable masses with functions for life. Life. I am nineteen squelching bits, a wringing wormlike tube, open at both ends, connected to two hundred and six bones. I lie, expelling, in the collection of plastic and machines, cloth and wood, that make up this thing called a room.

I drip

I feel those thick, rounded cords that hold my lazy bones together twitch, stretch, wind. They pull those screaming muscle groups to me like steel splinters to an electromagnet. A shock, a featureless wince, and there I am- recognizable to a trained eye. A pulpy, leaking mass: sanguinary. Watch carefully the seven thousand separate contractions that spell my pleasure with this state. Platysma, check. Deltoid, check. I feel them shifting on me, into me, around me, like beaten rats through a cage. Sore and squirrely; nervous at being thought of, let alone seen. Twist, squeeze, slide. The tiny tendons are the last to stretch out and extend. Fingers flex. Toes curl. Body jerks. Lids squint over little puddles of various and sundry fluids. No drought today. I am six hundred and thirty nine active muscles awakening over nineteen parts of an internal tube system, coating two hundred and six bones. I lie, convulsing, inside the collection of gears and optical data networks, metal and deuterium, that make up this thing called a ship.

I flex

Air. The space within my ribs inflates and I am filled with it. Then another wrenching sensation followed by-thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump. The muscle builds pace, steadily throbbing behind, inside, echoing and jarring the bones, the bare bones, the beginning. Tubes thrust themselves out and around, through and into. For a moment, I am waiting. This time, maybe- It pours- one and a quarter gallons of hot, scalding, sticky liquid out of me, through me, drenching my useless pulpy state. I am a mass of muscles beating one hundred and thirty times and inhaling and exhaling sixteen times every minute within six hundred and thirty nine other muscles that convulse over nineteen parts of an internal tube system, which coat two hundred and six bones. I lie, bleeding, below the collection of lights and plaster, paint and stipple, that make up that thing called a ceiling.

I breathe

Pop pop. Pads of fat swell and begin their orbit within the pools of my skull. From them, the slippery slidey snakes of nerves wiggle their way back, filling my empty head with three pounds of jelly. Feelings swell and I feel my new heart shift and groan in response to them. Terror, fury, love, concern, hopelessness... Memories filter through my eyes, flickering like a drive-in movie screen, and I am full of them. The jelly spits out long tendrils that reach and reach, worming their way through the pulp and muss out to the edges of me. I am three pounds of grey gelatin, twelve delicate ocular muscles, and twenty three long nerves that push impulses up to two hundred and fifty miles an hour to a heart beating one hundred and thirty times, two lungs breathing sixteen times, every minute-all within six hundred and thirty nine muscles that convulse over nineteen parts of an internal tube system, which coat two hundred and six bones. I rise, oozing, from the bed and see the gory mess of my slumbering state and stand on this collection of planks and carpet, cushion and fibers, that make up this thing called a floor.

I think

Squelching, dripping, throbbing, and thumping, I make my way to the collection of wood and metal that makes up a chair and lift the smooth sack. A little over eight pounds of flesh, lined on either side by the trail of spots that stretch from heel to head, my own personal barcode. I stretch the strangely sloping sack around each thing called a foot and the skin alights with sensation as it brushes nerves and muscles, twitching and shifting itself into place. I draw the sack on, piece by piece, until the slurping, pounding, mushing sound is encased and hidden away, press the twitching muscles and rolling eyes into the smooth and shapely face. I reach to my spine with my brand new fingers and draw up the long metallic tab of the zipper: up, up, up. Until the only sound that is left is the wheezing of old air between new lips and the soft and tinny grinding of metal against metal as my skin is closed completely. I stand, completed, in front of the collection of metal and glass, silver and glue, that make up this thing called a mirror.

I feel

I am eight pounds of skin covered in light spongy hair surrounding three pounds of gray jelly, twelve delicate ocular muscles, and a twenty three long nerves that push impulses out and around to a heart and two lungs that work steadily inside six hundred and thirty nine muscles that convulse over nineteen parts of an internal tube system, which coat two hundred and six bones. I lift my bruised arms to the paint and stipple ceiling. Fifteen healing facial muscles contract and the zygomatic major muscle is stimulated. My epiglottis half closes my larynx, forcing irregular air intakes and creating a sort of gasping sound between my lips. The tear ducts activate while my mouth opens and closes, sending blood rushing beneath my skin to redden it and seeping saline from the corners of the flesh that surrounds my eyes. I laugh, leaking, beside the springs, above the engines, beneath the plaster, on the carpet, before the glass, that make up the things that are mine.

I am

still.

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