Medical Intervention (Excerpt)
Bri felt she was a
map. She had never been a map before.
There were
travelers. She felt one moving from a continent of loss
to an island where
no man is a man. It tickled. To the South, icebergs
somersaulted in a
slow-motion that lasted years. They drew linguists
even though there was no language, and brilliant scientists
who could not be
trusted to cook or eat a meal, or refrain from smashing the plate.
There were similar
bodies of ice in the North,
but these were
prone to snapping; these drew a certain suicidal tourist type.
Her father was a
fjord in a Southeastern continent. Her mother
was a Baltic
country, insisting upon its borders, which deviated very little over
centuries.
She was a map, for
sure, but she began to suspect she was a planet,
for she burned
inside, everywhere. It was a wonder that the frail bodies of earth
with their frail
cities full of frail bodies were not all consumed in her blinding
center.
That water, let
alone ice, could rest on her crust.
In every inhabited
place, there were altars, statues, candles, bonfires,
none of which could
soothe the temperament of the elements.
The elements were
not at rest. Every once in a while, the wind would tire,
the ball of fire
would burn too hot, the seas would beg to lie down,
but this only
generated another event, which was known as a disaster
to those on the
periphery of the thing.
She was penetrated
and pierced in many places, she felt everything
from mild suction
to vicious drilling. Wildflowers spread
as a balm to recent
forest fires. Killing was done for nourishment, for harm,
and everything in
between. Species lived and died in a breath. Giant squid
inhabited the
lightless waters of the deepest oceans.
The first face she
saw was Jason's. She couldn't speak yet.
What a shame,
she thought, I was just learning how to make it snow.