MINGLE - Post-Op(era) Recovery

[pumpkinhollow]

On this night we drink to the death of Sorrow.

After the Fall of Efrain With the Prince of Sorrow's Song dead and gone, the opera dissipates, spitting its victims out on the summit of Crane's Ridge where the Dance of Celestine was held some months before. It's getting late, and there is no one yet in town to run the train. Some will brave the trip home simply for the sake of collapsing into their own beds and achieving some sense of normalcy. Others will do so with the hope of returning with help. But many others will simply say "fuck it" and camp out on the mountain, still fitted with extra firewood from the festival and the means to build temporary structures in nearby storage sheds. The journey down will be safer in the morning, and there's solidarity to be had in a cool spring night spent under the stars.

Oh, look, there's even some non-perishable food and wine from the Dance. Combined with what can be hunted or foraged, as well as snacks and drinks stolen from the concession stand, there's plenty to go around. This might even be a little bit fun! Anyone up for another game of Never Have I Ever? Maybe a little Truth or Dare? Or perhaps you just want to chat and unwind with your friends. Whatever the case may be, have fun. This is your time. After darkness, there is a dawn. At the death of Sorrow, there is joy.

Comments

[tehilim127_1]

"Medical," she repeats, and a frown line appears between her eyebrows.

[lovethyneighb_or]

“Yes.”

…

“I’m not sure how much I can say before it becomes inappropriate. I assumed very little.”

[tehilim127_1]

"Maybe for right now," soft but steady, "let's put aside the question of 'appropriate,' and you can say whatever needs saying. If I need you to dial it back, I'll tell you. All right?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

… He wrings his hands. After a long, strained moment, he says, “… Okay.”

And takes a deep breath.

“The pocket world was, as I said, called the Village. It took the form of a small coastal town. It had many of a town’s amenities, including… including a hospital. Which. 2 used, to its fullest capacity, to… to—ensure. Compliance. With his imposed order.”

Shuts his eyes. Opens them again.

…

“Sedatives,” he says, “I have difficulty with. It’s a good thing I’ve never been treated on an operating table here yet; I don’t expect to be a good patient. Food as well. Being locked in a room, though that hasn’t been a problem yet. Hallucinations and, and being lied to—I am very, very bad with both. Especially because of the damage done to my memory.”

He has, of course, yet to describe anything that actually happened.

[tehilim127_1]

"I could ... probably make some guesses," she says slowly, "about what kind of treatment would be likely bring about those reactions. I don't think I need to tell you how much of a perversion of medicine that is."

[lovethyneighb_or]

“Mm. Being familiar with most of their tools and their proper use made it all the worse, in some ways.”

Another pause. He opens his mouth; closes it again; opens, closes. He goes to offer her the choice of what he ought to elaborate upon, then remembers she left the ball in his court. And there is so much besides what happened in the hospital. But the hospital is what they’re talking about now. And what does he want to say, and how does he do it without suffering some kind of collapse?

Quietly:

“… Being in a world that lacks the same technology as mine or yours can be difficult sometimes, but mostly I am grateful that electricity is far less prevalent.”

[tehilim127_1]

Zivia draws a sharp breath through her nose, and lets it out slowly. "Hell," she says very quietly, and then "I'm sorry. I'm glad you don't have to deal with that here."

cw discussion of medical violence/abuse

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Thank you."

Another pause. Another attempt to figure out what to say. "Whatever needs saying" is... all of it, honestly. He's got to pick and choose what's most important to get out of his head first, rush them out the door before he's inevitably shut up. Not to discredit Zivia or her generosity, it's just... there's simply too much for any one person to handle in a conversation.

(Nevermind the man who lived it.)

"It feels..."

He stares through the table, leaning on an elbow with his chin resting on his hand. Casually, carefully distant.

"It feels like a burning. I don't know if it's like fire, or the heated sting of thawing from feeling cold too quickly--I was always cold there, you see--but it's like draining. Scorching out the inside of a house. Keep the shell, destroy all of the, the pain, lethargy, and personhood, all the... it isn't just your head, either. At... well, I can't speak for actual... actual use cases. But what they did, you feel it in your whole body--it's fire. It's frozen. You feel the burn, but you don't feel the pain. You... you seize, I think. That's why they strap you down for it. You can imagine my memory of this is imperfect." A brief hand wave. "The humming. I remember the hum of the machine."

A pause.

"I don't know how long this in particular went on for. I... I believe they promised a three-week treatment. I cannot remember if that was truly the case or not. I remember going to them repeatedly about it. I was insistent that they'd lost track. I had been there for too long. But their records and the dates, what they showed me... I don't know. And afterwards, when I was released to my cottage, I don't remember much of anything, except that I... I don't know. There were worried people. I couldn't cook or dress myself for a time, I believe. This period comes to me in faint images. They're more feeling than visual."

He inhales. "We were all forced to use numbers instead of names. I strongly believe that if I hadn't hidden mine in coded writing, I would have forgotten it completely."

[tehilim127_1]

"Numbers instead of names," she murmurs, looking down at her hands clasped around her teacup. "Hence ... Forty-Eight, or whatever Powell was calling himself. You wouldn't think --"

She cuts herself off. "I'm sorry. I don't ... know if you want my feelings on any of this."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Fifty-Eight."

(Is it instinct, is it honesty, is it reflex, who knows.)

"I... I think I would. I want to hear... anything, from someone outside of that place, who is sane. Number 2 certainly was not, and everyone who was sane knew that they couldn't afford to be."

[tehilim127_1]

"All right." And she takes a long breath, and focuses on keeping her hands lightly closed around the teacup, on the feeling of smooth warmed china under her fingers, and does her best to speak calmly and evenly.

"I'm finding myself exceedingly angry on your behalf," she says to the tabletop. "What you're describing is a, a profound violation. A series of them. Harm under a pretense of ... responsible authority. I don't think swearing would help anything right now so I'm trying really hard not to."

She looks up at him. "Is there anything specific you'd like an outside perspective on?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

He stares at the table in thought.

"There is an answer, I'm sure. But there is so much that I have mentioned and even more that I haven't, that I find myself at a loss of what to pick first. I suppose we can go with 'anything that comes to mind' for now."

A thoughtful beat. "Well. Ah. Back at the opera, I had realized something. I'm well aware that the Village in its entirety was one massive violation of privacy and... self, in general, I suppose. But when... when you'd mentioned the opera as another one specifically, I'd... I knew that, but I hadn't... realized, that, that my privacy being exposed did not mean that it was now forfeit. I'd turned myself belly-up. Like I had to confess. I was ready to. I still am, if I'm being honest. I don't know why I did that. I prefer to think that I wouldn't have, before."

[tehilim127_1]

She takes a long drink of her tea, as he's thinking, and then finally sets down the cup long enough to break off a piece of sweet roll.

"I think ... we can get used to things. People, I mean. We adapt. And sometimes that's really good for us, and sometimes not so good. I think a lot of the time when we do something and don't know why, it's maybe because that something was useful, or even necessary, in adapting to another situation. Or seemed like it was. And we're not in that situation anymore but our brains haven't caught up yet."

[lovethyneighb_or]

He hums as he thinks on that answer for a while.

“Sounds like the sort of thing I would hear about battle fatigue. Although in that case the man’s not exactly ‘gotten used to it.’ Not that anyone should, I mean.”

[tehilim127_1]

"Yeah. There's a term they use in my time, PTSD -- stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't remember whether that's what they call battle fatigue now or if there's a different term, but it's related, I think. People who go through some really bad," editing out the word shit on the fly, "experiences, and who after the experiences are over, are still reacting to them."

A pause, as something else comes to mind. "One thing I read about that, about what makes it likelier to be a lasting reaction ... is what kind of reactions people around you had, during and after the bad parts. Whether or not you felt like anyone else recognized that you'd been through something really awful. If it was done to you by other people, whether or not anyone else acknowledged that what those other people did was wrong."

[lovethyneighb_or]

...

"We are such hopelessly social creatures, aren't we."

Mulcahy is... quiet again, fingers pressing curious indents on his sweet roll.

"It's rather clear in any case that... loneliness, and being surrounded by enemies, will have a lasting effect on a person, but... hearing that from you is... giving me a few things to think about. A number of things make more sense, now."

...

"When I wasn't in the hospital, I was surrounded by friends who didn't approve of the situation any more than I did. But our ability to speak was... heavily moderated. As well as monitored. I have no doubt that they would have commiserated with me if they could, as I would've liked to do for them, but as it was, often the best, uh, we could do was... hm. Polite disappointment."

(Which, it should not go amiss, is the same thing he's doing now.)