scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

22.11.03

portrait

Her legs look like a recycled patchwork quilt: here there are stripes going this way, here there are small dots, here there are stripes going that way, all sewn together with bare white lines, and lumpier in some places than others. At least she can walk; two of the nurses were killed, and one can't move. She still thinks it's almost funny that the people who tried to stop her from preventing unwanted life (life that probably would have ended rather badly, and rather quickly, if it had been left alone) could have such messy consequences of their own: but of course, their consequences are justified and in accordance with morality and divinity. Her results are clean, not nearly as bloody or painful, and are kept in jars.

It had been her day off. She'd come in because Cindy had had a cold and they were all taking turns coming in for her: when your immune system is weak you can't push it like that. The day had started well above par, with only a few protesters outside the clinic: the children's crusaders. They hadn't even yelled, much. And then, the routine: woman comes in, woman is counseled, woman has procedure, woman is counseled, woman goes home feeling somewhat empty and relieved, but also very crampy and weak. Next.

She counsels Laura, whose parents still don't know, and then Helen and George, and it's nice to see his support. She counsels Shakira, who sobs a bit, but is sure of her decision. She counsels Trina. She counsels Kellie. She counsels Almira, the only one all day who can afford the procedure out of her own pocket, and welcomes the change of pace. She counsels Kate.

The clarity in her eye, the lack of fear in half a face that still moves with joy and empathy and change, the control in standing without leaning on anything at all when she testifies. "I've been blown up," she says. "I cannot be intimidated." She defines the assault, the people that day, the poor woman who had been finished, and relieved, but was suddenly dying with shrapnel embedded in her skull just as she was promising to be protected, to reform. Just before lunch, pounding, bloody, full. Cement dust in the air like so much spilled milk, and fire yellowing the other side of the door so she dragged Kate to the window and the ceiling falls on her legs and on, apparently, Kate. And then a space of nothing. And the hospital and the police, and more police, needy, forcing.

Kate was done and was smiling, was bellyaching, was going home to take a shower. She suggests a bubble bath, stress relief, time to relax, time. Kate agrees. I need that. I think so. Then the clinic shakes, and the wall rushes towards, and everything is.

She doesn't resent that it was her day off; she is glad of it. Cindy is much younger and would need her legs for longer, and would take more pride in her legs as they are than relined with used skin. She is proud of her legs: she has survived battle, and is victorious. Her legs further the cause, because they are strength, and strength is necessary in movements. Any movement. Her movement.

She was in women's health before: now, she is in women's beauty. Magazines extol her. Rebuilt. Walking. Successful in the permanently Darwinian sense.

The hospital wouldn't tell her anything. She's an RN, she should be allowed to know that her legs are studded with exploded building like a granola bar is with raisins. That yes, a lung has been punctured by various ribs. That yes, people are dead. That we're very sorry ma'am but it's routine to take skin from some places and transfer it, so that there is less visible scarring. They did explain, though, to her husband, that there was such a high risk of infection that he could only be with her for a few minutes, and even that is risky, so much skin, so much blood, exposed muscle.

The building is flat. The ex-building. There aren't weeds, yet, in the walk or the ex-flowerbed, where they had had marigolds. She sighs and wonders if being blown up is bad luck if you're looking for a job.

Labels: writing

scrawled @ 17:42