NOT-MORPHINE


Were you to ask three months ago if I would have accepted the assignment if I knew I’d find myself in a foreign land, prone on a gurney, a myriad of drugs coursing hungrily through my veins, nothing but a strange language chirped around my head, my final swan song, I would’ve given a resounding ‘NO!’

I was a product of the American suburbs. Similar to the boy from the one street town or the girl who’d known no more than corn fields and chicken farms I was thirsty to break the monotonous chains of Anywhere USA. We all knew there was a world beyond that of Reality TV and empty hangovers, but just never were brave enough or knew how to take that initial leap. Just a little bit of danger, all within reason for a kid from the suburbs of the Midwest. Smelling an opportunity that presented both adventure and potential danger, real or imagined, I slipped out of the nine-to-five yoke that I’d worn too long as a social worker and made the leap. What sacrifice was I expected to make: forsaking all that I knew, sacrificing both the ability to communicate as well as to understand as I traveled halfway around the world, where the strange would be the norm. I was on my way to China.

Lime green concrete walls and low-watt overhead lighting passed eerily as I was wheeled down a hallway. A lone person, stooped and withdrawn, their arms varicose and pallid, sat like a broken doll on a wooden bench. Opening a dry mouth, I began to speak, but unable to collect an adequate response, I remained silent. In the room that I had just been removed from, where I’d been stripped and made to put on a backless gown, I’d been unceremoniously turned over. A Northern wind blasted through the open window, leaving my backside a pale moon of goose bumps. Having been kept on a diet of tasteless porridge, I was unable to resist the injections other than weak protests that stabbed into my boney behind. After hearing a broken answer, ‘Not-Morphine’ they were able to reluctantly silence my muffled requests, face buried in a pillow, about what the injections contained. Left alone, time lapsed, but without a watch or a clock on the wall, I didn’t know how long. But, my ability to comprehend, to piece together how I came to this state was fading along with any hope I may have had.

I wasn’t being sent to a barren outpost on the tundra of Siberia or the sand-choking deserts of the Sahara, but at an exciting land with over 5,000 years history, where empires have come and gone, only recently on the rise again. The other assignments offered destitution and isolation. This one possessed a country that had built the Great Wall of China, invented the most destructive invention of all time, gunpowder and held the world’s largest population. It was going to be an adventure of a lifetime. It was going to be a one-year assignment in the South of China. The possibility of danger only magnified my desire and at the time it may have been just wanderlust, but one thing was certainly clear now, the danger was very real.

My body leaped as the gurney struck a steel door frame. Once inside I was assaulted with bright florescent lighting. Even with a winter-chilled nose, the sterile scent of latex crept up my nostrils. A strange medical chemical was tasted on the tip of my tongue. A rough hand lifted a wrist that had grown frighteningly thin over the past couple of weeks. What must have been a dull pulse was checked. My head was gently placed back onto the gurney. If the dead could see, this must be what they witness as the coroner plies his trade. I closed my eyes and remembered.

Daydreaming of acrobatic lions, kung-fu fighting, and oriental maidens left little time for the linguistics classes I should have invested more time and money in. And I told myself that a blind sense of adventure may be the best way to experience the unexpected. What I came for I’d had previous training in and it came natural. I’d been a social worker for four years - getting people to reveal their secrets was half the job. And the more I could get the local population to open up, the greater chance of success I would have at doing what I came to do.

A high-pitched chatter, similar to a cage of parakeets, fluttered next to my ear as twin nurses, left emotionless as only their eyes were visible, carried on in a conversation I understood not one word of. ‘How shall we do it?’ ‘Does he know what trouble he’s really in?’ I could only guess. And up to now, my guesses were beginning to terrify me.
The chirping stopped. And the twin nurses that had materialized out of nowhere, flanking gurney’s sides, obedient to their master, the ‘doctor,’ took hold of my wrists. One pulled my arm under the gurney. The other was quick to follow. First starched whites, then narrow eyes dipped below the bed. A rough cloth was wrapped around my wrists and they began to tie them to metal rails beneath the bed. I groggily tried to resist, but whatever they’d injected into me earlier added to my weakened state.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t making progress. I’d even made contact with the locals, from those that I met through the school to others. Some had even come to discussing daily life, local politics, and more. But, I noticed they seemed to pull back when anything sensitive about their country came up. I had even been questioned by some local Communist Party lackeys who were easy to spot after just a few of their interrogating questions. I thought I’d been so smart.

Cold, clammy hands clasped around my bare ankles, dropping the already icy room a few more degrees. A finger on each rubbed miniature circles along the insides of my ankles. The kind, possibly not realized gesture made me assume she was a female. One that may have cared. I hadn’t looked, but wondered, was it her?

Her name was Angel. We were taking part in what was guised as an ‘English Corner.’ I played my role as protagonist, the ‘students’ the antagonists. But there was one I had not seen previously. She was coquettishly shy and had a lovely, demure smile. I was struck immediately. When her soft brown eyes met with mine, the year long mission began to look that much more promising. But, my dear Angel was now beyond my grasp, as the Devil seemed to have taken the reigns.

The gurney’s unfeeling metal pressed against the inside of my arms. My own hands, fingertips numb, palms wet with their own sweat were clenched, my fingernails digging into its palms. The faceless woman at the end of the bed stopped her gentle massage and transformed into talons, clamping tightly around my ankles. Strangely, as if she was the one strapped to the gurney, she whimpered weakly. Was this possibly not her first time? This potential insight that one of those involved could hardly bare what was about to take place only increased my fears.
I hadn’t realized that my eyes had remained closed. Self-deception perhaps? Terrified, but unable to resist, my eyes slowly peeled open. The bright overhead light shocked them shut. Once the light that had temporarily infused itself onto my eyelids had been blinked away, I opened them slightly, this time careful not to look up. I could see the nurse whose whimpers foretold what I yet knew at the end of the bed. Her head was down so all I could see was black hair and a small yellow hair clip. It struck me as unusual, if not a bit cruel to allow a color of warmth into such a sterile room. Her hands, slightly chubby, no rings or bracelets to add to her persona, trembled as they held. Other faceless people shuffled back and forth around me. Various machines suggested pain and most certainly, fear.

“Ah, you see, yes?” a short, round-faced ‘doctor,’ who I took to be the leader asked. He’d introduced himself as a Dr. Lee. It seemed convenient that he chose one of the most common family names in China.
“Cannot have you see. No good see. At least not yet no good.”

I wasn’t sure, but I believe I saw the sides of his mouth curve upward just before he lifted his surgical mask back in place. The two obedient nurses stood by his side, ready to provide him with the tools he required. He chirped excitedly and one of the nurses rushed to the side of my head. She was holding a strip of white cloth. Were they going to bind my head to the gurney as well I wondered? But, as she leaned over me, her starched top and simple short bob conveying a sterile, no-nonsense attitude, she gripped the cloth with both hands. I remembered his words, “No good see….”

The cloth folded once, was brought over my eyes. Another set of hands lifted my head. I went blind as the cloth was pulled tight and cinched behind my head. The knot pressed into the back of my head as they laid it back down. Terrified without my sight, I wrinkled my nose, wishing it to grow hands and push the blindfold higher. And as if it seemingly had, the blindfold mercifully raised a quarter of a centimeter.
I watched half bodies, nurses and doctors – clinically stripped to inhuman beings behind blue masks and puffy smocks – shuffle before me, bringing their tools of dementia closer, each machine to serve a more sinister purpose than the last.

The black head at the end of the bed lifted as if she could feel my eyes. Wide eyes revealed a dark brown. They seemed wet with tears. I tried to connect with those eyes, but wondered if she could even see my own.
Keeping her eyes focused on what must be my own, she croaked, “Because his nose too high on his face, he can see.” She was visibly uncomfortable. And while I do not know if it was concern or fear that had her say this and not really understanding it, the fact that her English was quite good gave me further hope.
“Nose too high….nose too high…” she uttered quietly as her head slowly dropped back down.

“Wait, wait don’t….” I began before the doctor interrupted.

“I say, you see?” Doctor Lee asked again.

“Yes..I...no,” I slurred, coherent, but disoriented.

“No see is good,” the doctor said before yanking the blinders back into place. Only a thin red horizon, no larger than a pinky nail - the reflection of pink skin upon the blindfold – was visible.

“Why’d yooouuu tie my haaands downnnn?” I heard myself slur.

“Children put their hands in their mouth, no good!” the woman at the end of the bed snapped.

Throat already dry, I gulped again, trying to push down non-existent saliva as I thought, ‘They’ve done this to children too?”

“When you want speak, kick. Understand?” Doctor Lee asked.

I kicked. The woman grimaced, her hands no more relaxed.

“Good. It is time. Open mouth now,” the doctor told me.

Not sure what they had given me, but I lifted my head and opened as if I was under his hypnotic spell. My ‘high-nose’ sent the blindfold another quarter of a centimeter higher. The horizon rose, revealing the top of the high nose and the clouded ceiling of the blindfold. The woman’s black head resembled a beetle in the distance. Why was I listening to him, why was I willing to adhere to his commands? What had they done to me? Was there a drug that could remove my will?

“Don’t move...can be very bad…very, very bad,” Doctor Lee ordered calmly.

Couldn’t move if I wanted – my mouth locked wide by fear, my butt cheeks petrified into twin stones, for the very same reason - wondering how bad, ‘very, very bad’ could be.

Latex pressed on my lips, rubbing against the tops of my lower teeth.

“Ahhhhhh…..!” I groaned as loud as I dared every fiber and ounce of sanity urging to do otherwise and scream the scream of the damned.

My muscles stretched, taunt to the point of breaking, as the doctor held his personal torture device, what I could only imagine. And of course, I imagined the worse. Suddenly, as if jumper cables were clamped to my nipples, my id took charge. A wave of frantic neurons sprayed like lightning down my spinal cord. My back jolted upwards, thrusting the ribcage outwards. Feet trembled under the woman’s seemingly inhuman grip. With eyeballs slipping further into the recesses of their sockets, a heart raced faster than it ever has, short, stunted breaths slipping out.
They hadn’t even begun to ask any questions and I was ready to tell them anything. Names, numbers, whatever they required. Anything to stop what could only be a blowtorch. But my kicking was ignored and other than the unfamiliar chirping, no questions were asked.

Through loud moans, mouse-like whimpering, and thunderous beatings of my own heart I heard, “Breath from nose, better.”

I did. Instantly, burnt flesh spat against unsuspecting nose hairs, triggering a horrible, but expected response in my brain. THAT’S YOUR FLESH YOUR SMELLING! Fight for your life! Break these binds! Give them nothing! Let them take your body, but never your mind! Put your hands in your mouth! Put your hands in your mouth! Now I knew why the poor children before me would do it.

Gurgling on my own melted flesh, boiling saliva, and whatever else was collecting in the back of my throat, I fought consciousness.

“Agh, Ugh, ah, ack, blahhh…” I managed, spraying bits of tonsil, gum, and accidentally singed lips outward.
The doctor pulled back, saying nothing. They were all talking, in Chinese or in English, I couldn’t tell. Only the beat of my heart and choking were all that wanted to be heard.

Eyes flushed with tears, I wept like a baby over something much more horrific than a spilled bottle of milk. A hard plastic straw hit my teeth and began slurping loudly, the vacuumed wet chunks reminding me of an extra-thick Wendy’s frosty sucked through a persistent child’s straw. Were they finally preparing for the interrogation? The searing pain returned as the blowtorch now morphed into a smoldering cigar was again shoved against my bare insides. My brain scrambling for a way to survive, it landed on one that I had no control over. I passed-out. But, it didn’t last. While not being doused with a bucket of ice water to revive me, the cigar had struck the inside of my jaw, striking yet molested flesh. My heart had become an alien-being and threatened to burst from under the chest plate.

“Done. Now we see,” the doctor stated without emotion.

See what? See what I know? They only need ask and I will sing the song of the republic itself. I will denounce all that I know and announce all that I don’t. I will…I don’t know what I’m even thinking. But mercifully the pain was gone. I took satisfaction in the momentary break, unable to register anger or fear, just relief. I lay in a drug-laden bliss.

“Okay,…one is done. Now other,” the torturer – I mean, doctor - said.

My bladder threatened to release hearing this report. Thankfully, it held.

“Ready for number two?” the doctor asked.

Number two? What was he talking about? Round two? A second session so soon? Weren’t they supposed to give their subjects a chance to answer before they proceeded? I tried to speak, but further pain was awoken in my mouth.

“Do not try speak now. Speak later, much time to speak later,” the woman at the end of the bed said.

“No...good…pain…want me-di-cine,” I coughed out, the pain near unbearable.

“Doctor says more may kill you,” she answered.

“Kill me? !” I tried to shout, but merely chirped.

“Okay, doctor agree, little more,” she answered.

Hoisted on my side, gown unceremoniously pulled up, boxers yanked down – I felt a needled pinprick. Hopefully it would deliver the relief I sorely desired.

I was quickly let down. The cigar, freshly lit and hotter than before was again lowered back into my mouth and pressed hard against the fleshy sides.
And, again – the pain, the smell, the tears, the gurgling. Drenched in my own sweat, I passed in and out of consciousness, all the while somehow managing to keep my mouth open for fear of singing off my lips with an errant swipe of cigar's cherry.

I’d always wondered how I would hold up during a torture interrogation and now I knew how – badly. I wanted death. I wanted to give up what ever I had. I was a chicken, a coward, a traitor! I began to wonder if maybe it was best that next time I slip under I should not wake-up. Would that even be so bad?

“Okay, we finish,” Dr. Lee said loudly.

The narrow vacuum was back in my mouth, simultaneously sucking out any bloody remnants of tissue and tonsil along with it the last of the pain.
The saturated blindfold was pulled back and I could see the woman at the end of the bed slumped over my feet, her face the color of the sheets. The pain was gone and so were all worries. I’d found love in ‘not-morphine’ medicine – just thought it was suppose to work earlier than after the surgery was completed.

“Look here,” Dr. Lee said.

Under his command, I swiveled my head to the right and saw what looked to be two small testicles that had fought a match with a blender and lost. Swallowing painfully, I reached for my own, but my arms were still bound to the gurney.

“These your tonsils,” he laughed under his mask.

An exhausted mind and body surrendered itself to a compassionate blackout.

I’d just had a tonsillectomy in the Middle Kingdom.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.04.2010

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