No Man’s Land – pt 125 pt 2
– “bastogne”
– Chapter 23
– jack
– Top – 09/13/1 (25)
– – –
– – We worked a twelve hour shift.
– Well, they did, I didn’t. I’d only got there by ten o’clock and I’d left surgical theatre observation with Samson at eleven.
– So, I did about nine hours.
– I was shown how to read the hospital layout maps which were very very very …
+ + No, they weren’t.
– … very accurate.
+ + Oh.
– – Oh, ye of little faith.
– The floor had simple icons in it and so did the maps; at-the-ends and in-the-forks of corridors there were icons or pictures or sculptures of icons; it was easy to read.
– There was an evacuation procedure and areas to assemble outside the building.
– I’ll let you think about that one.
– The admin recept giving the tour told me that they didn’t expect to have to do any-thing in the event of an emergency but it was always best practice to have a plan and to practice that plan. They had had drills.
– I mopped-up and I served food and then I mopped-up served food.
– I sat and talked with the patients at times but they were in an altered-state of mind; they all believed that they were dreaming.
– I got to shadow a team as a patient was released; wheel-chair and box-of-stuff.
– We took him out through the “airlock” doors at the vestibule, he got-up out of the wheelchair (wheels locked) and …
– Whoosh!
– He was gone.
– At Esteban-Shane, we had had patients dumped on us by the authorities with no papers; they had suffered “missing-time”.
– I sat down for evening dinner with Susannah and “Ralph”; Doc had to go. I knew that he was due back at Baby-Boom.
– But, apparently, time … Time ran differently here.
– Wasn’t that real cheating?
– “We have many theories about the nature of Time but not one single scientific one,” Doc said, “and, all those theories are all dressed-up common-sense notions of Time. The visitors can work around our beliefs as much as our technology.”
– I had to agree with him. Sometimes, talking to him was like talking to my dad … or to myself.
– I had noticed little things about how Sue and Ralph interacted; there was an under-statedness to Sue’s behaviour with Ralph that was nothing like how she had jumped me. I saw her admiration for him.
– “You don’t know each other once you’re out,” I heard myself say.
– Sue nodded.
– “We met for the first time here. Once I’m out, I just know something … is missing from my life.” Doc said.
– “Tattoo?” I said.
| “We tried. I did one on my forehead. Got it done in backwards mirror script … Oh, we also have a full cosmetic surgery department with all the trimmings, too.”
– “But, when we leave here, They just scrub us clean everytime,” Doc said.
| “When you leave, when you get back, the food in your gastrint-tract will become an indistinguishable nutrient supplement.”
– “Damn, but that was hard to figure out. I checked my gut when I was back out and realised something must have happened. So, yeah, to answer one of your favourite questions it looks like They do have the power to mess with our heads. But, it seems to be a separate ability to the rewind.”
| “They can ‘lacuna’ our memories. Imagine a secret lagoon that you have to know where it is to visit. That’s what They do to us. So, it’s not a total brain wipe.”
– “Unless this … hospital wide translator is more than just a translator,” I said thinking myself clever.
– A cloud of smokey fur landed in front of me; I nearly filled my tights …
– (Oh, I had slipped into something a little more comfortable: A middle-venziglo style female nurse’s outfit in europaische style. Well, no one was going to remember!)
c “Surely, tis so,” said the smoke.
– “Hi, Nurse Sheba,” I greeted her.
c “The cap for us is almost like a pair of optical lensed glasses for you oumons. Only it holds the higher functions and memories of those functions. Sans mon chapeau, I am just a cat who knows how much she enjoyed … hunting with you for those curious problems within you.”
– Sexy, sexy voice.
c “Why merci beaucoup, M’mselle Jack.”
– Oh, yeah! She could also hear my thoughts. I resisted stroking her. And, I tried not to think about stroking her.
– She brushed her body along my right arm and I took it for what it was; I stroked her veterbrae lightly once, till her tail ran through my fingers. She knew how much I appreciated the gift of her affection and how I enjoyed the sensation of her touch.
– Doc and Simmonds were watching us.
| “Lezza,” Simmonds commented.
– I wondered if this rudeness was normal for her.
– “I’m not gonna remember you Sue, or Nurse Sheba or Captain Tibbles.”
– Sheba made a lusty yowl at the name.
– I smiled. I understood that.
– “Your husband!?”
– She purred.
c “One of them, yes,” she vibratto’d.
– “I won’t remember what Doc just told me.”
| “No. But, you know how you can be thinking about a problem and you eventually figure it out? That still happens. Maybe the two of you will figure it out sometime once you are back there?”
– I clinked glasses of water with Doc.
– “I live in hope,” I said.
– –
quangobaud 