Perfect Bliss
"You understand, Mr. Gwenn, there can be no reversal past this
point. If you decide to continue with the procedure, it will be
irreversible."
The man in the operating chair massaged his chest along a
well-worn path that stood out, red and raw, against the rest of his
skin. "Do you think I shouldn't do it, Dr. Judd?"
The doctor crossed his arms behind his back. "Has your pain
submerged any?"
"No. It seems worse." Gwenn passed his hand across his chest
again.
"If I were you, that would be answer enough. Whatever your
decision, please decide quickly. This operation is still technically
illegal at this point and I cannot risk the Clinic for any one
patient."
The man in the chair let his fingers dance across the arm of the
chair. Irreversible. Dr. Judd of course had told him that at the
first consultation. He had known for the last three months that there
was no going back. But now, in the present, with the nurses and
technicians just a wall away, setting up the equipment...the pain
came hard and sharp again. His hand automatically went to his chest.
Pain made life unbearable. Anything was better than this. "All
right. I'll do it."
Dr. Judd nodded briskly. "Excellent. Let me check in the
operating room. I'll be back in three minutes."
Gwenn laid back in the chair, watched the door close on the
doctor and then turned his eyes on the ceiling. What was it going to
feel like after? It was impossible to imagine; he shouldn't even
try. Dr. Judd had told him so on his second consultation. "An
entirely new state of consciousness as to self-identity and
interactions with other subjects." He remembered that much but that
really didn't make it any more knowable. He glanced at the atomic
clock on the wall, its twenty-four faces each ticking with precise
rhythm. It would be a little bit like that--cold and precise and
perfect and logical. But what would that be like? His hands
began to perspire as his fingers started dancing across the chair
arms again. He looked at his hands, nostalgia creeping into his mind.
They would never do that again.
Each second hand on each face ticked to twelve; Dr. Judd entered
the room, a human cuckoo bird. "It's time," he said simply. Two
nurses and an orderly came in behind him. The nurses took position,
one on each side of Gwenn while the orderly made himself ready at the
back of the chair. Each nurse ran a tube into his radial arteries and
began the compressors which leered down on either side of the chair.
Their quiet pumping was drowned by the orderly bringing the chair's
wheels down from the undercarriage, locking them in place and raising
the chair's central cylinder up. All three looked at Dr. Judd in
unison. "Ready."
Dr. Judd opened the twin doors. Gwenn was rolled into the hall,
the nurses keeping perfect time with each other and the chair. Gwenn
began to feel the sedatives take affect, loosening limbs and turning
bones to jelly. His mind began to wander in twelve different
directions by the twelve different things that his rolling eyes took
in: another nurse with long blonde hair (very pretty, have to ask her
out); a spectrumscope being rolled away (what poor bastard needed
that?); the row of lights down to the end of the hall (how long was
it?); an empty computer monitor (looks like a square eye)...
His eyes fixed on assign which hung from one of the doors. Three
smiling people, young and beautiful, looked out at everyone in the
hall. Below them was announced: THE AURORA CLINIC: 100% SUCCESS.
A hundred percent success. He tilted his head forward. "Dr.
Judd...Dr. Judd?"
The doctor fell half a step back. "Yes Mr. Gwenn?"
"How'se..how many people have done this?"
"More than you would first think. People
are finally starting to realize that half-life is whole life if the
half-life is more bountiful than the whole life. Not everyone is in
the exact same situation as you found yourself, Mr. Gwenn, five
months ago; how could they be? Everyone is different. There are as
many different reasons for having the operation performed as there
are successful cases." Dr. Judd crossed his arms behind his back.
"To put an actual number on it, 65,382 have undergone the operation
with more and more people daily learning of it for the first time and
deciding that it is the way to reclaim their stolen full humanity.
That is why although it is technically still illegal, the fates and
time are against it."
A pair of doors opened and the party entered. In the center of
the room, a glistening, stainless table lay prone to the unblinking
gaze of the hovering saucer which hummed its own song in its own
language to the machines which encircled the table. They, in turn,
answered the saucer, with their own subdued symphony. The only light
came down from the periphery of the saucer, leaving the rest of the
room to the different shades of grays and black.
Gwenn felt himself become very much afraid. He could almost smell
his fear as it oozed out of his hands, beating back the sedatives. It
slithered around and inside his brain, chewing up his frontal cortex,
burrowing back to his middle brain and into his brain stem, weaving
between the hemispheres. The saucer noticed him and began to hum more
quickly.
"Put him on," Dr. Judd ordered. The nurses and orderly
transferred Gwenn from the chair to the table. Gwenn stared up at the
saucer, his fingers sluggishly running on the table. The saucer
stared back. Gwenn blinked.
"Up the dosage eleven percent," Dr. Judd's voice said. The
sedatives raced through him, fighting the fear for dominance. His
vision swirled and darkened, the saucer taking on different
contortions to its ever-changing mood. Dr. Judd looked down, faceless
on him. "Begin."
The darkness took Gwenn through a winding tunnel. Lights exploded
in fourth of July brilliance around him; voices and faces garbled and
mingled together in a cacophonic blanket. So many voices..."Yes,
I'll sing to you again tonight"--that was his mom, would he
still have her afterwards--hadn't thought of that..."Tag!
It!"--Kathy--when was the last time he had talked to her.... "I
have to tell you."
That voice boomed across and around the tunnel. He focused on
that particular voice. A fire flower opened up in front of him and
the darkness and spacelessness of the tunnel retreated before the
perfect summer day in Sotoros Park. He was by the pond, the light
reflecting off of it to make a million diamonds like the one that sat
heavy in his pocket. Xandra was facing him, still as beautiful as he
had remembered her. "What are you saying?" he asked.
"Please try and understand, Philip. I'm not saying that I
don't care about you anymore. I'm just saying that I'm not
ready for such a big change. I know I'm not. And maybe you aren't
either."
"We've been together for two and a half years! That doesn't
even count the fifteen months we knew each other before we started
going out. Why now?"
She shrugged, her dark hair falling off her shoulders. "It's
just a feeling that I've been having for a while now. I told you
that when I'm at peace, I know that what I'm doing is right."
"So you're not at peace about us anymore? After everything we
planned and dreamed?"
"Yes. We have to be adults about it--"
The light of the sun turned red. It began to pulse, a huge organ
pumping diseased red light throughout the world. Xandra was still
talking, oblivious to the light. "...we're going to
be...be...be...alright, Phil. And I'll always be there...there...for
y--ou...you..." She started to shimmer in and out like a mirage.
The sun pulsed horribly. Red light exploded, obliterating the park
and Xandra. The tunnel closed around Gwenn again.
Gwenn blinked once outside the massive face of the clinic. Dr.
Judd had released him with a full bill of health, as expected. The
operation was always successful. He detected a sensation of hunger.
The closest location for nourishment was two blocks west. He started.
A car horn honked. Breaks squealed. A small voice screamed. Other
voices began to panic. Gwenn looked to his left. Between the passing
bodies of the gathering crowd, a little boy stood sobbing over the
squished body of a puppy, a broken leash in hand. A woman had her
arms around the boy trying to comfort him. Gwenn kept walking. He
needed nourishment.
The boy's screams faded. Didn't he know that attachments
always caused distress, ruining happiness and humanity, ruining
perfect bliss? He looked down at his chest. The pain was gone. He ran
his hand over the healing scar where they had taken his heart. He was
ready to start his whole life.
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