Inertia (1051 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crap:non-fiction
Rating: 1.89 on 30 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle_muse.at.hotmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-08-17 08:20:20 EDT
She sleeps. She looks like hell - her face is pale and drawn, the waist length hair she was so proud of is lank and uncombed and spread around her head on the pillow like a parody of a halo. The high, pregnant swell of her belly is incredible, unreal; it's almost impossible to believe that one life still exists inside this silent, sleeping shell, let alone three. The mother and the girls she bears are attached to machines, sensors, drips, and the clear hollow tube that sits in the hole in her throat, pushing air into the lungs that won't work. She sleeps. She is peaceful.
(I don't remember coming here. This is a party... people are drinking and laughing, and I'm sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. There is something wrong here. The laughter sounds hysterical and forced and the faces are like masks, painted on, hollow and insubstantial. I don't remember coming here. I don't remember... anything. I know I wasn't always here. There is something I need to do. I need to go. I need to not be here. I push myself up, out of the chair, and rise a scant foot before I'm stopped by the straps at my wrists. The party stops. Heads turn. A girl, tall and cruelly beautiful, walks over to me. She leans down and says "You can't go. Not anywhere. Not ever. You're here." There is a fire in the corner and there are children burning and people are screaming and I don't know how I got here.
And then there is something else. Not... here, not at the party, not in the nightmare, but above me and inside me. There is... whiteness. Clean. I can hear soft voices and a steady beeping noise and feel a dull ache in the backs of both hands. With sudden, heartbreaking relief, I realize this is a dream. This party isn't real, the fire isn't real. I can wake up. I PUSH, hard, against the thin ceiling that keeps me here. I can feel myself rising and I want to cry with relief. Almost there, so close...)
"Is she waking up? Sweetheart, can you hear me?"
"She's just stirring. She can't wake up, she's down too deep for that. We'll just adjust the dose... there you go."
"Can we take the straps off her arms? Just for a few minutes?"
"We shouldn't. She could pull out the drips again. She's fine. She doesn't know anything about it."
"...do you think she's dreaming?"
"No. We can't tell for sure, of course, but it's unlikely. She's oblivious."
(I am in a corridor. People drift past with an unearthly gliding step, too fast for me to see their faces. I try to speak, but my voice is lost. I can't make a sound. I step out, into the flow of people, to stop somebody and ask where I am, where I'm supposed to go. I'm knocked to the ground. The people move faster and faster, until they're blurring past me in a multicolored stream and I can't make them out anymore. I crawl to a corner and huddle there, hands over my ears, sobbing. I'm lost, hopelessly, terrifyingly lost, and I don't know how I got here. I don't know how to get out.)
"She's so peaceful."
"The rest is doing her good. Her lungs are clearing and the infection is dying down."
"Oh.. I can see the babies moving.."
"Yes. The tests came back fine. Those girls of hers are tough."
(They're trying to kill me. I'm strapped to a table and they're trying to kill me. They poke at me with knives and scalpels, cut off my air, and toy with me. They're hurting me. They won't let me up and I can't speak to them. I can't move, oh god why can't I move, why can't I wake up? I'd give anything to wake up. I fight so hard that I'm exhausted, but all I'm doing is batting against that thin ceiling like a bee. I can't wake up.)
"Does she wake up for the tests?"
"No. We just increase the dose to keep her under. She doesn't know anything about it."
"Is she ready to wake up yet?"
"Not yet."
(I'm in a desert. I've been stumbling here for days, weeks, years, forever, three seconds, I don't know anymore. I'm exhausted beyond reckoning but I can't stop. There's something I need to do, somewhere I need to be, something... I'm somebody...I'm so thirsty. I'm going to die of thirst. The sun beats down on me and I'm so weak and tired that I can barely drag myself along the burning sand. I'm crying again, sobbing, mourning for something I don't remember.)
"Her fever has spiked again."
"I thought she was getting better.."
"She is. But it'll take a while."
"It's been three weeks.... when can she wake up? Her lips are dry... can't she have water? Something? Can she feel it?"
"She can't feel a thing. She's deeply asleep. She's in no danger of dehydrating. The IV is taking care of that."
"Can I do something for her? Please... she looks so alone there.."
"She's fine. You can swab her lips with water, though. Nothing to drink. She needs to sleep."
(I don't want to be here.)
"She's really okay?"
(Please, please god, let me wake up, just let me open my eyes.)
"She is. Trust me. We just need her to sleep a little longer. We - "
(Please.)
" - can bring her out of it anytime."
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-18 04:04:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-12-15 22:58:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Phone line elves are all gay.
That means they are an endangered species, be happy.
Submitted by dodahdave (user info) at 2005-05-27 15:20:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn you're good.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-05-27 13:26:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Goddamnit! I thought I had read them all.
Fuckity fuck fuck.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-02-28 23:50:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant.
Submitted by Naery (user info) at 2004-08-18 00:14:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Definitely good. I liked the image of the ceiling, very... tangible. However. There was something lacking. Maybe it was the lack of the passive voice. When everything is direct transitive verbs, it becomes a bit difficult to read. English isn't designed that way. That being said, you still kick ass.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2004-08-17 16:06:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Melodrama doesn't do it for me.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2004-08-17 12:55:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
There are three options open to me here. I could shower you with praise, bestow you with some constructive criticism or I could just type the word 'flaps' and leave it at that.
Flaps.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2004-08-17 12:08:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You just made my day.
Great use of dark imagery. Your descriptions are vivid and moving.
Submitted by Caulaincourt (user info) at 2004-08-17 11:27:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I hate to burst your bubble but I really don't care about some sow on the internet. I just didn't think you deserved a #1, maybe a #29 at best.
Good post though.
Submitted by Vengance (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:35:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sorry Circe. I didn't realize it was an account of events...in that case +2. Sorry about that.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:27:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
1.21 - no, not really. It was more the 'A body at rest remains at rest until acted on'... it seemed to fit with the fact that I couldn't wake up until they woke me up, no matter what I did.
Submitted by 1Point21Gigawatts (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:23:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This makes me reminisce about Metallica's "One."
Your title got to me a bit, because of the more formal definition of inertia and the goings on of your content. Then I found the following definition of "inertia" which I did not previously know about:
3. (Med.) Want of activity; sluggishness; -- said especially of the uterus, when, in labor, its contractions have nearly or wholly ceased.
Is this the meaning of inertia you were going for?
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:18:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Could be worse, at least he didn't mention the "Kill Bill" coma plot twist.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:02:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Vengance - it's very, very hard to put a plot twist in an actual recollection of events. This happened.
Submitted by Vengance (user info) at 2004-08-17 10:00:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I think I just wanted it to go somewhere else. It reminded me of a cross between a Soap Opera, the movie 'Jacob's Ladder', and the Metallica video for "One", which was based on the movie 'Johnny's Got His Gun'. I was kinda expecting them to deliver the babies while she was in her coma, and have her go thru the facsimilie experience in the dream...Then I was expecting them to pull the plug on her and then we see her subjective experience as she fades to nothing...
This was well written and was still good. I guess us Americans are so used to wild plot twists and blockbuster explosions...(I blame my culture.)
I am sorry for ruining your streak. I didn't want to, but I wanted to be honest. You rock Circe!
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:39:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Lojo, you stole my comment.
Circe, I love you more. I swear it.
Submitted by drky (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:36:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:13:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I love you.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:12:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No comment.
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:07:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You just get better and better
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:06:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
indo - It wasn't a major operation, which is the wonderfully ironic part. It was a 'routine procedure' that simply went all kinds of wrong.
Submitted by I_Have_a_Kristen_Fetish (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:04:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by indigogecko (user info) at 2004-08-17 09:02:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow - hope I never have to have a major operation!
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-08-17 08:46:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes. Yes I am.
Submitted by funk_boy (user info) at 2004-08-17 08:44:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
splenidido
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-17 08:42:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Impassive - I don't know. I have very strict criteria for elopements. You have to be able to answer 'Yes' to the following extensive questionnaire:
Are you human?
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2004-08-17 08:34:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2004-08-17 08:29:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The offer to run away with me still stands.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2004-08-17 08:25:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Damned elves. Sorry about the multiple posts.
Oh, who am I kidding? It's me. I'm a screwup.