GWOT - F--- S--- Up

[drewkitty]

GWOT Fuck Shit Up

[This is a third party perspective.]

My world is agony. Pulsing agony.

I feel the bright hot golden pain of my knees. Oh fuck oh shit oh gawd my knees.

I don't feel my left arm. I know I lost it.

I can't see. Actually my eyes don't work. I don't know why.

I can breathe. But every breath is its own bell curve of agony.

###

How did I get here?

When the bombs came down, I went to my friend's house. And that's how I joined the gang.

Once I killed a cop, they told me I was in. That hadn't been hard - a couple dozen of us, two of them. Pigs died hard, I'll tell you that.

The partying was fun. Surrounded by desperate people, I could have all the money and liquor and food and pussy I'd ever dreamed of.

But if you tried to leave. Oh, Jesus.

I saw one guy with his guts pulled out and tied off to a rail, and shoved down the stairs. They laughed and laughed and laughed as he screamed and tried to crawl back up his own entrails.

###

The only brief relief from the agony - and it is brief - are drops of alcohol on my tongue. I count each one, nothing left for me to do. At least thirty. Sometimes as many as fifty.

###

I hear two people arguing.

Contralto: "Why can't we just let him die?!?"

Bass: "Because you need the practice. And it's the right thing to do."

Contralto: "This is medical torture!"

Bass: "Your point?"

###

I realize to my horror that I can smell. I can't really hear, things are usually fuzzy, but I can smell. And what I can smell is the same as when we pushed that guard down the stairs.

But it's from me.

My bowel is open to the air.

###

I am burning up. Not just the pain from my knees. And my gut. And my head. And the blowtorch pain of my upper left arm below where Frank tied the tourniquet just before his head exploded.

They are dripping water into my mouth.

I try to spit it out.

They are wiping my forehead with water.

I would weep, if I had the strength.

###

Contralto: "Why are you spending time on him?"

Bass: "I have questions. He has answers."

Contralto: "So ask!"

Bass: "He can't reply. He has to recover enough strength first."

###

The tiny hardly felt prick of a needle entering the veins of my right arm. I can only feel it because it had been the only part of my body that wasn't hurting.

Flowing water.

Contralto: "You didn't!"

Bass: "I did. It's mine, I brought it."

Contralto: "Do you know how many people have died because we didn't have any?"

Bass: "Yes. Eighty three. But we have enough for everyone now."

###

Someone is changing my colostomy bag.

It's Bass.

His fingers are quick and deft.

###

Contralto: "If we do this, we might lose him."

Bass: "If you leave it surfaced, we will lose him. It's time. He's as strong as he's going to get."

###

I can feel every cut and every stitch.

They have paralyzed me. I can't scream.

But I can feel.

###

I am sitting up.

I am tied to a half-reclining bed, a repurposed athletic bench with plywood panels to widen it.

To be specific, there are two straps securing my pelvis and ribcage, and Velcro wrapped around my right arm pinning it to the bench.

There's no need to secure my left arm. I already know I don't have one.

There is a clipboard at my feet.

Where my feet should be.

There are two stumps.

I pass out.

###

I wake up again. It is daytime. There is a little reflected light from a mirror.

Someone is sitting some distance away from me.

Water.

He holds my head and helps me sip from a plastic cup.

So. Good.

The water is a taste of heaven.

He leaves to go get someone.

A doctor.

When she speaks, I know it is Contralto.

"Well, this is a surprise. I didn't expect you to ever wake up."

I moan weakly.

She examines me like a piece of meat, like a housewife deciding whether to risk the discount bin.

"Looks like you get to talk to Echo 18."

###

Bass has pulled up a chair. He checked me over, carefully but with that same disassociated quality. Like he was a vet and I was a dog soon to be put down.

"Good afternoon. My name is Echo 18. I am in charge of the security here. You are a prisoner."

Figured. That. Out.

"Very good. So, I have some information for you, and then some questions."

Bass explains the rules of being a prisoner here. Touch a weapon and I die. Try to escape and I die.

"Of course, not very likely in your case."

Ass. Hole.

"So. You said some interesting things while you were out."

Do. Tell.

"About someone pushed down some stairs. A him. The victim I saw was female. I'd like to know more about him."

Who.

"Your boss. The one who pulled out a woman's bowel and shoved him down a flight of stairs."

Huh. Thought it was a he.

"He, she, shim, sheeme, I could care less. It's the method of execution that has me curious."

I had been in so much pain for so long, and so bored, that it never occurred to me to do anything but talk.

###

Bass is ... kind. Understanding. He gives me water. He waits for me to speak. When he asks questions, he is so roundabout and polite.

"So, my friend, what's your name?"

I give it.

"That was my last question. Now I'm going to give you a choice."

Huh.

"Taking care of you is very labor intensive. We can do the best we can for you here, or we can transfer you to a hospital."

Hospital.

"The problem is, we don't know if they will actually take you to the hospital. I propose to use you to find out. But it's risky either way."

Huh.

"I am a big believer in choice. You chose to pick up a weapon and attack this site. You chose to join a gang. Now you choose. Stay here or go to hospital."

Hospital.

"OK. We'll make the arrangements."

###

The doctor goes over me one last time. Looks at my stitches. Has notes prepared, as they bundle me onto a padded backboard with pillows.

Load me in the back of an ambulance.

The roof has a smiley face.

I get it. If you are looking up at the roof of the ambulance, you are having a bad day.

The ambulance stops. Not very far. Only a few blocks maybe?

I hear arguing.

The back doors fly open.

I am roughly jostled out of the back and put down on the ground.

"Doctor, look away."

"No! I won't let you do this! Guard, give me that radio!"

"No ma'am" someone says in a terse monotone.

"Look. Away. Not you."

Something cold and circular is pressed against my left temple.

###

My prayer is answered.

Pain.

End.