Buzzards: a triptych of martyrs
Oct. 19th, 2005 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhAlright, by popular demand and because I am a bad person who really enjoys sharing this sort of thing: the opening scene of the organ donation fic. All missing words, absent commas and weird grammar are not typos (well, they're not my typos, at least).
"Ugh. Ever since the operation I've had trouble with these knees." If he'd said my knees, it would mean he claimed them and he didn't. More importantly it would mean he acknowledged my help, my existence, and he didn't.
I was sixteen when I decided to be a donor. I was invincible, smarter than my parents, and idealistic. I went in and passed my test for a driver's license and when they asked if I wanted to donate myself if I died, I said 'Yes,' patting myself on my back for being so generous and helpful. The day I died, well, after I died I should say, I found out what that decision meant.
"Did you have them both replaced?" Most nurses' patience was pretty obviously a part of the uniform and although she tried to be, this nurse was no different. She was helping the old man to his feet to take him to some back room where they would poke and prod at those knees, massaging them, careful to avoid the rigid and swollen scars.
"Yeah. They used some new moon metal." That's what his wife had told him. They used my knees, but she knew he wouldn't have gone for that. They used my knees and he didn't know it. And now she was dead and he doesn't know how I ever existed, much less helped him.
"Wow. My mother had one knee replaced, but they used cadaver parts." She didn't know it yet, but she was testing his reaction, calculating how much sensitivity the doctor would require to break the news of my knees to the old man.
"That some kind of metal too?" His voice and face were graveled.
"No sir," she paused, "It's a body donated by someone so that when they die their parts can help others."
"Ahh. That's a bunch of voodoo shit." That last word actually sounded like he could taste shit in his mouth. But she smiled at him anyways, wearing her patience, allowing him to grab hold of his cane so he cold without her help.
***
But then, I started the second story for today, and it turned out to be just as much fun. This guy can actually write; it's just unfortunate that he sounds like just finished reading the dictionary and is desperate to share the new words he learned. Every single one of them.
The poet wakes again with flies in his throat. It's hot- the sky like a vein scraped clean. A trio of buzzards brood thirty feet beyond, deadpan and apocryphal, each one a separate static genre of infinity. The poet lights his last cigarette and lies smoking in the dusty studying them; they are oneiric, more like silhouettes than actualities, and were it not for the severe unanimity of blinking eyes, a passerby might assume them such. Their fixity is primordial.
***
That's the opening paragraph. It goes on like that for twelve pages of small type.
"Ugh. Ever since the operation I've had trouble with these knees." If he'd said my knees, it would mean he claimed them and he didn't. More importantly it would mean he acknowledged my help, my existence, and he didn't.
I was sixteen when I decided to be a donor. I was invincible, smarter than my parents, and idealistic. I went in and passed my test for a driver's license and when they asked if I wanted to donate myself if I died, I said 'Yes,' patting myself on my back for being so generous and helpful. The day I died, well, after I died I should say, I found out what that decision meant.
"Did you have them both replaced?" Most nurses' patience was pretty obviously a part of the uniform and although she tried to be, this nurse was no different. She was helping the old man to his feet to take him to some back room where they would poke and prod at those knees, massaging them, careful to avoid the rigid and swollen scars.
"Yeah. They used some new moon metal." That's what his wife had told him. They used my knees, but she knew he wouldn't have gone for that. They used my knees and he didn't know it. And now she was dead and he doesn't know how I ever existed, much less helped him.
"Wow. My mother had one knee replaced, but they used cadaver parts." She didn't know it yet, but she was testing his reaction, calculating how much sensitivity the doctor would require to break the news of my knees to the old man.
"That some kind of metal too?" His voice and face were graveled.
"No sir," she paused, "It's a body donated by someone so that when they die their parts can help others."
"Ahh. That's a bunch of voodoo shit." That last word actually sounded like he could taste shit in his mouth. But she smiled at him anyways, wearing her patience, allowing him to grab hold of his cane so he cold without her help.
***
But then, I started the second story for today, and it turned out to be just as much fun. This guy can actually write; it's just unfortunate that he sounds like just finished reading the dictionary and is desperate to share the new words he learned. Every single one of them.
The poet wakes again with flies in his throat. It's hot- the sky like a vein scraped clean. A trio of buzzards brood thirty feet beyond, deadpan and apocryphal, each one a separate static genre of infinity. The poet lights his last cigarette and lies smoking in the dusty studying them; they are oneiric, more like silhouettes than actualities, and were it not for the severe unanimity of blinking eyes, a passerby might assume them such. Their fixity is primordial.
***
That's the opening paragraph. It goes on like that for twelve pages of small type.
