Strangely Carved Forms
an excerpt

Strangely Carved Forms

I feel pain.

I feel pain, but it doesn’t hurt. Something has disconnected my brain. I know the pain is there; it’s like a beast in the room. I can hear it breathe, I can smell its fetid breath, and most of all, I feel its presence. But I don’t care.

Nope. Pain is here, and so what?

Let’s take an inventory, I say to myself.

Feet? They hurt.

Legs? Yep.

Hips? Hurt.

In that way, I go through my entire body, bottom to top, and everything hurts. That’s never happened before. Before, if something hurt, it was a skinned knee, or an acid-scalded esophagus, or a broken arm. This is different. All-over hurt, guts and skin, arms and legs, hurt, hurt, hurt.

It doesn’t hurt more when I breathe. It just hurts.

Again, I try to find some energy to care. It’s just not important. Oh well. Move on.

Sight? I see something. What is it? Not sure. Shapes, mostly still, some moving. There is life here. Animal life, or just trees moving in the breeze? Not sure.

Sound? Mechanical sounds, along with the panting of The Beast. Footsteps. Voices? There are people here. Family? Friends? The hurt. Maybe enemies. Be careful. Hide.

I stir. I can move. It doesn’t hurt more, because it can’t.

Leave? I wish I could. I make the thought: legs. Let’s go, legs. Feet, don’t fail me now.

They fail me, all right. The legs move, but just a little.

Someone is near. Someone is saying something cool and smooth and sweet, like chocolate mousse.

I smell her. How do I know it’s “a her”? Her smell. Smell is what I want. The other senses fail me. Smell gets to my brain. Smell makes me feel something. I’ll catalog smells.

I smell burned flesh.

I smell some sort of antiseptic. It’s got an undertone of Pine-Sol, but without the Pine. Just Sol.

I smell blood.

I smell cotton, clean cotton.

I smell her. She smells nice. I latch onto that smell, and in my addled mind, it mixes and blends and whirls with the smooth voice and the cool hand. She’s touching me. That’s the only part that doesn’t hurt.

Doesn’t hurt. Expand. Move it out from there. Let it grow.

A voice says, “Don’t touch it.”