O, Doctor

Huh? Am I awake? What's happening here?
BEEP ^ ^ BEEP ^ ^ BEEP ^^
I'm on my back. On a table. Gazing up a circular fluorescent lights like halos such a heavenly glow.
I look around. Four people dressed in blue medical scrubs. White surgical masks hide the faces but for the eyes. The eyeballs are busy. Looking. Analyzing. Busy. Working.
On me.
Stainless steel utensils are moving quickly. Back and forth. Quicksilver flashes.
These instruments are going in. Coming out stained with something red. The instruments are snipping. Cutting. Extracting. Inside me.
Surely my eyes deceive me. No. My abdomen is not open. Exposed. Gaping. No. Surely not.
Those aren't my guts hanging out like wires from a machine beyond repair. No.
My guts are spilled like milk. Red milk all over this sterilized white floor.
"No sense in crying over spilt milk, I guess."
The operators don't seem to hear these words.
"O, Doctor, what's happening to me?"
Her response is a stare like eyes to a bare wall. Did she hear me? Am I a hopeless case?
She is cutting. She is sewing. She is stitching. But not fast enough. Leaks are springing like explosions on a minefield covered with fog and crawling with lost soldiers. The soldiers are fleeing. The soldiers are panicked. The soldiers cry for Mother.
But she is calm. Clean and unmarked. Unscathed. Extracting pieces, objects, feelings, desires. She is undeterred. Her hands, fingers of porcelain are steady and defiant. She is a bomb technician diffusing a destructive device. She is the negotiator speaking soliloquies to the hostage taker. Disarm the man from his cold gun.
Disarm the damage.
Disarm the damaged.
Disarm me.
Repair me.
O, Doctor.
Replace my guts with something shiny and plastic. Something that won't fail me. Again.
O, Doctor.
Replace the red milk in my body and on this floor with something pure. Something saturated with nutrients and minerals and preservatives.
Tell me I'm worth preserving.
Tell me I'm worth saving.
Tell me you won't let me die on this cold table exposed in front of these strangers. No. Not like this. Please.
Don't give up on me, Doctor.
If you can repair me I promise to repent. I'll become a Shining Sun. Burning simply to shine. For you. For the world. For the wastelands. For the bonfires raging in the night. For the glorious. The refused. The broken. The obscene. The naked. The bloody.
O, Doctor. Please stop this bleeding. Don't speak truths colored false. Paint me a picture of hope that will sink my heart into holy water.
Your words are medicine. Medicate me. Fix me.
Don't tell me that it's too late.
But the red milk keeps pouring and my wound is a fountain.
She's trying so hard. She refuses to abandon this wound.
BEEP ^^ BEEP ^^ BEEP ^^ (getting slower now)
She's losing me. I'm losing the battle.
But I refuse to lose her.
"C'mon fight, you son of a bitch! Don't give up! Hang on! Just hang on!" I'm screaming. I'm pleading. I'm losing. She still can't hear me.
She's saying something. Her words are medicine. Sweet nourishing nectar from the most precious blossom. Her fleshy petals. I rub them against my cheeks of fire and fever. Her sweetest endeavor. To save me. To sustain me. The sweetest parasite to ignite the extinguished. The glorious. The refused. The broken. The obscene. The naked. The bloody.

Thank you, Doctor.
You saved my life tonight.

BEEP ^^ BEEP ^^ BEEP ^^ into infinity...


mc (for M...thank you)