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GWOT III - Consequences
GWOT III - Consequences
I tried to take stock of myself. This was really, really difficult.
There's me - the person. Most people, most of the time, are getting some information from their bodies about what's going on. HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Thirsty. Tired. Awake. Minor aches and scrapes you may or may not notice unless you pay attention to them. Feelings, sometimes reflected in bodily sensations. You know, the usual.
Then there's the operational environment. Indoors, outdoors. Furniture, colors. Stuff and our relationship to same.
And then there's other people, if any. Most people are gregarious, they enjoy or at least need and tolerate the company of other people. I have always embraced my inner "Go Fuck Yourself" and enjoyed any time I could be alone.
So the first operational fact I have to confront is that I'm functionally blind and lying on a concrete floor. The former is because of the massive bruises and swelling that I am presently using in place of a face. The latter is sucking heat out of me at an accelerating pace, because I'm on concrete so cold I suspect it of being chilled.
The second operational fact is that I'm not in a cell with which I'm familiar. I tested this by moving arms and legs. I can't come into contact with a wall or the concrete bunk or the metal toilet, so I'm not in a standard cell.
The third is that I'm at long last alone. Because a boot has not thumped me in the ribs, the limbs or the ass for the temerity of moving, however involuntarily. I am still alive because kicks to the head are prohibited to Homeland cell extraction teams.
I'd better get some part of my body out of contact with this concrete or I'm going to keep losing body heat until I freeze.
I can't move. It's not just pain, not just searing agony. It's lactic acid and extensive bruising.
What I can do is start flexing muscle groups to try to pump some of that lactic acid and other byproducts out of the major ones. I can also use the floor under me as a convenient ice pack, especially for my butt muscles. I took at least one full force lift-suspect-off-ground strike from a riot baton against the back of my right thigh. Anywhere else on my body it would have broken bones.
I rotate about thirty degrees. It's the most that I can do.
Fluid is leaking from one side of my face. It's not blood, that would have clotted by now. Tears? Retinal fluid? Eyeball chunk?
There's a drill for that. Take your motherfucking hands up to your fucking face, 18, and spread your swollen eyelids apart up and down so you can see how many eyeballs you have left. You hear me, punk? You've seen people defenestrated, evicerated, lacerated and amputated. You can handle a measly eyeball pop. You'll look good in an eye patch, you pirate piece of shit.
It takes forever to get my right hand and thumb and forefinger up to my right eye. Then I discover that neither thumb nor forefinger are in a cooperative mood. Certainly the left hand is hors de combat. On top of the existing fingernail injuries and many, many slaps and slams and steps-on, it starts screaming the moment I take it off the concrete floor.
So it's going to be my pinkie finger and my fuck-you finger. Very well. Fuck yourself, 18. Go on, show Daddy how you like it. Oh my God that hurt.
But I can see out of my right eye. It's blurry from sweat and lack of focus.
If I had a mirror, I could check pupil dilation and PERRL. If I could focus, and had a mirror, and a way of changing the light.
The only thing suckier than being a casualty sometimes is being a casualty with some medical training. I know how fucked up I am.
Speaking of which. I can see my middle finger's intact fingernail, nice and swollen. I push down on it with the edge of my screaming thumb. Well, I'm screaming, not the thumb, but I either sprained it or dislocated it.
I lose focus and can't tell if the fingernail either turned slightly white, or refilled within the standard two seconds.
So I do it again.
Then I realize that my time sense is so fucked up that I have no idea whether it was two seconds or two minutes.
I don't need to pee. That could be very good, or very bad, depending on what color the results are when I finally do.
Box this bitch. Take a breath. Oh god that fucking hurt. Hold it, two, three four. Breathe it out slowly. Hold empty, two three fuck. Breathe in, NO, not like a prom queen giving a suck job to the vice principal, take your time, sip that air don't swallow it! Box. Four seconds. Do the box.
Some time later, I have enough time sense left to do half a box. This allows me to check cap refill. I may be in shock, but I don't have sufficient internal injuries to fail the two second rule.
Triage. Respirations. Well, I'm not panting and I'm not slow. So good on that. Perfusion, just checked. Mental status? Alert? God I hope not. Oriented. No. I'm wandering and wavy. But I have good and bad moments, and I start working the good and waltzing the bad.
Does the subject have a head injury? I got hit enough times in the head. I've got black eyes like saucers, I can tell. How's that left eye. Rotate, scream on the concrete, let the new cold work new muscles, tighten the ones no longer on concrete, bring right hand to left side of face. Check eyes.
Oh. This one can see.
I'm in an isolation cell. Concrete floor. Concrete walls. They don't seem to care if I beat myself to death against the walls.
And I'm not body restrained. That's just sick stupid. No arm restraints, no leg restraints, no belly chain, no ankle loop. No straightjacket or KED or four-point or six-point.
So when I start to recover, the cell extraction team will get back in here, thump me a bit, and apply some of that shit.
Now live, on Candid Camera or should I say Closed Circuit Tele Vision, Echo 18, proudly presents, Suspect Who Got The Shit Beat Out Of Him.
So I should look more fucked up than I am. Definitely.
But what I am going to need is water. If only the cell had a sink-toilet. It has a drain in the floor instead.
No bottle of water, and I'm not asking for one. See above under application of restraints.
I can't make out the door. I can't get up to check the walls. So there's ... oh.
This may be a mistake, but I roll over on my back.
There's a grid. And there's Homeland guards walking above me, on the grid. And any cameras must be on the high, high ceiling far above with the klieg lights.
What is really interesting is what amounts to a kid's slide, if it was made of plywood by the lowest bidder with no guardrail, leading up to three feet below a metal hatch in that grid.
Take prisoner, drop down hatch, prisoner slides down. Feet first, probably unhurt. Head first, fuck him.
There is a red line around the slide area. I already know about red lines.
My right eye starts to settle down and I start to get binocular vision back. Everyone takes it for granted until you get hit in the head a lot.
The guards are carring long arms on shoulder slings.
That's paranoia. Locked a floor below, under metal gridwork, and they are walking around with the rifles? What is this, a Far Side cartoon horse hospital? *BLAM*
Wait. There's a hopper above, not below where the magazine should be. Paintball guns. More likely, pepper ball. An annoying non-lethal that doesn't kill you but hurts to breathe and is kind of discouraging.
I am guessing that Homeland does not waste its best, or even its third best, on this particular duty. I've seen their Special Troops. These are the ones who couldn't make that cut.
So I sit up against one of the walls.
"PRISONER AWAY FROM THE WALL!" booms a voice from above.
Pop-a-pop-pop-pop and I am covered in powdery choking dusty which hurts to breathe and is kind of discouraging.
Assholes. I fall away from the wall and crawl clear.
Only then do I see the red line painted at the base of the wall and on the wall, specifically to keep prisoners from you know, resting against the wall.
I check the floor with a hand.
Maybe it actually is refrigerated.
I am wearing rather less than nothing. It may tell you a lot about my life experiences that this was nowhere near the first fact I took stock of when I woke up.
This is going to hurt. But I need my right hand for what little medical care I'm going to get. So I start wiping pepper powder off of myself with the injured left hand, gently except when I lose control and bang it into myself or the ground and scream.
No posted rules on the wall. No rule against screaming.
Above, there's someone with a clipboard leaning down, looking at me.
Taking notes.
###
"Subject took steps to render self-care immediately upon regaining consciousness. Subject regained situational awareness in minutes. Subject is now staring at me, having realized he is being observed. Even if subject had not committed the violent acts for which he is now confined, I would classify this subject as EXTREMELY DANGEROUS."
###
What does he know, that I don't know?
Oh. Yeah.
I smile. Broadly. Shit eating grin.
I killed that son of a bitch. Beat him to death with his own empty gun. Temple shots, eye shots, and then when I knew for sure he had bone fragments in his brain, rearranged his face for shits and giggles until a moment before the cell extraction team came rushing in.
I'd had handcuffs on. Oh yeah, picked him. They must have taken the right cuff off for me. Nice of them.
They should have gotten me with chemical restraints. Butt cheek prick. Haldol, the psych ward and paramedic's best friend. My ass was so pounded I couldn't tell. Not my asshole, mind, it had been three days since my last date with Biko and his chair.
Failing that, they should have gone for the straightjacket, old school. Or the wet pack. Wet the sheets, wrap tightly around torso, wait to dry. Too busy trying to breathe to give the nurses shit.
Leaving my legs unfettered had already cost them a hard casualty.
I started stretching muscle groups again.
Let's see how many more of these motherfuckers I can kill before they wise up and sidewalk me.
It might take time, plenty of time, but I've got the time.
It might take money, lots of spending money ... to patch up all the Homeland staff I'm going to mangle.
It might take patience and time. But I'm going to do them right.
###
EXTREMELY DANGEROUS !!!!!!!!!
--------- --------------------
I tried to take stock of myself. This was really, really difficult.
There's me - the person. Most people, most of the time, are getting some information from their bodies about what's going on. HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Thirsty. Tired. Awake. Minor aches and scrapes you may or may not notice unless you pay attention to them. Feelings, sometimes reflected in bodily sensations. You know, the usual.
Then there's the operational environment. Indoors, outdoors. Furniture, colors. Stuff and our relationship to same.
And then there's other people, if any. Most people are gregarious, they enjoy or at least need and tolerate the company of other people. I have always embraced my inner "Go Fuck Yourself" and enjoyed any time I could be alone.
So the first operational fact I have to confront is that I'm functionally blind and lying on a concrete floor. The former is because of the massive bruises and swelling that I am presently using in place of a face. The latter is sucking heat out of me at an accelerating pace, because I'm on concrete so cold I suspect it of being chilled.
The second operational fact is that I'm not in a cell with which I'm familiar. I tested this by moving arms and legs. I can't come into contact with a wall or the concrete bunk or the metal toilet, so I'm not in a standard cell.
The third is that I'm at long last alone. Because a boot has not thumped me in the ribs, the limbs or the ass for the temerity of moving, however involuntarily. I am still alive because kicks to the head are prohibited to Homeland cell extraction teams.
I'd better get some part of my body out of contact with this concrete or I'm going to keep losing body heat until I freeze.
I can't move. It's not just pain, not just searing agony. It's lactic acid and extensive bruising.
What I can do is start flexing muscle groups to try to pump some of that lactic acid and other byproducts out of the major ones. I can also use the floor under me as a convenient ice pack, especially for my butt muscles. I took at least one full force lift-suspect-off-ground strike from a riot baton against the back of my right thigh. Anywhere else on my body it would have broken bones.
I rotate about thirty degrees. It's the most that I can do.
Fluid is leaking from one side of my face. It's not blood, that would have clotted by now. Tears? Retinal fluid? Eyeball chunk?
There's a drill for that. Take your motherfucking hands up to your fucking face, 18, and spread your swollen eyelids apart up and down so you can see how many eyeballs you have left. You hear me, punk? You've seen people defenestrated, evicerated, lacerated and amputated. You can handle a measly eyeball pop. You'll look good in an eye patch, you pirate piece of shit.
It takes forever to get my right hand and thumb and forefinger up to my right eye. Then I discover that neither thumb nor forefinger are in a cooperative mood. Certainly the left hand is hors de combat. On top of the existing fingernail injuries and many, many slaps and slams and steps-on, it starts screaming the moment I take it off the concrete floor.
So it's going to be my pinkie finger and my fuck-you finger. Very well. Fuck yourself, 18. Go on, show Daddy how you like it. Oh my God that hurt.
But I can see out of my right eye. It's blurry from sweat and lack of focus.
If I had a mirror, I could check pupil dilation and PERRL. If I could focus, and had a mirror, and a way of changing the light.
The only thing suckier than being a casualty sometimes is being a casualty with some medical training. I know how fucked up I am.
Speaking of which. I can see my middle finger's intact fingernail, nice and swollen. I push down on it with the edge of my screaming thumb. Well, I'm screaming, not the thumb, but I either sprained it or dislocated it.
I lose focus and can't tell if the fingernail either turned slightly white, or refilled within the standard two seconds.
So I do it again.
Then I realize that my time sense is so fucked up that I have no idea whether it was two seconds or two minutes.
I don't need to pee. That could be very good, or very bad, depending on what color the results are when I finally do.
Box this bitch. Take a breath. Oh god that fucking hurt. Hold it, two, three four. Breathe it out slowly. Hold empty, two three fuck. Breathe in, NO, not like a prom queen giving a suck job to the vice principal, take your time, sip that air don't swallow it! Box. Four seconds. Do the box.
Some time later, I have enough time sense left to do half a box. This allows me to check cap refill. I may be in shock, but I don't have sufficient internal injuries to fail the two second rule.
Triage. Respirations. Well, I'm not panting and I'm not slow. So good on that. Perfusion, just checked. Mental status? Alert? God I hope not. Oriented. No. I'm wandering and wavy. But I have good and bad moments, and I start working the good and waltzing the bad.
Does the subject have a head injury? I got hit enough times in the head. I've got black eyes like saucers, I can tell. How's that left eye. Rotate, scream on the concrete, let the new cold work new muscles, tighten the ones no longer on concrete, bring right hand to left side of face. Check eyes.
Oh. This one can see.
I'm in an isolation cell. Concrete floor. Concrete walls. They don't seem to care if I beat myself to death against the walls.
And I'm not body restrained. That's just sick stupid. No arm restraints, no leg restraints, no belly chain, no ankle loop. No straightjacket or KED or four-point or six-point.
So when I start to recover, the cell extraction team will get back in here, thump me a bit, and apply some of that shit.
Now live, on Candid Camera or should I say Closed Circuit Tele Vision, Echo 18, proudly presents, Suspect Who Got The Shit Beat Out Of Him.
So I should look more fucked up than I am. Definitely.
But what I am going to need is water. If only the cell had a sink-toilet. It has a drain in the floor instead.
No bottle of water, and I'm not asking for one. See above under application of restraints.
I can't make out the door. I can't get up to check the walls. So there's ... oh.
This may be a mistake, but I roll over on my back.
There's a grid. And there's Homeland guards walking above me, on the grid. And any cameras must be on the high, high ceiling far above with the klieg lights.
What is really interesting is what amounts to a kid's slide, if it was made of plywood by the lowest bidder with no guardrail, leading up to three feet below a metal hatch in that grid.
Take prisoner, drop down hatch, prisoner slides down. Feet first, probably unhurt. Head first, fuck him.
There is a red line around the slide area. I already know about red lines.
My right eye starts to settle down and I start to get binocular vision back. Everyone takes it for granted until you get hit in the head a lot.
The guards are carring long arms on shoulder slings.
That's paranoia. Locked a floor below, under metal gridwork, and they are walking around with the rifles? What is this, a Far Side cartoon horse hospital? *BLAM*
Wait. There's a hopper above, not below where the magazine should be. Paintball guns. More likely, pepper ball. An annoying non-lethal that doesn't kill you but hurts to breathe and is kind of discouraging.
I am guessing that Homeland does not waste its best, or even its third best, on this particular duty. I've seen their Special Troops. These are the ones who couldn't make that cut.
So I sit up against one of the walls.
"PRISONER AWAY FROM THE WALL!" booms a voice from above.
Pop-a-pop-pop-pop and I am covered in powdery choking dusty which hurts to breathe and is kind of discouraging.
Assholes. I fall away from the wall and crawl clear.
Only then do I see the red line painted at the base of the wall and on the wall, specifically to keep prisoners from you know, resting against the wall.
I check the floor with a hand.
Maybe it actually is refrigerated.
I am wearing rather less than nothing. It may tell you a lot about my life experiences that this was nowhere near the first fact I took stock of when I woke up.
This is going to hurt. But I need my right hand for what little medical care I'm going to get. So I start wiping pepper powder off of myself with the injured left hand, gently except when I lose control and bang it into myself or the ground and scream.
No posted rules on the wall. No rule against screaming.
Above, there's someone with a clipboard leaning down, looking at me.
Taking notes.
###
"Subject took steps to render self-care immediately upon regaining consciousness. Subject regained situational awareness in minutes. Subject is now staring at me, having realized he is being observed. Even if subject had not committed the violent acts for which he is now confined, I would classify this subject as EXTREMELY DANGEROUS."
###
What does he know, that I don't know?
Oh. Yeah.
I smile. Broadly. Shit eating grin.
I killed that son of a bitch. Beat him to death with his own empty gun. Temple shots, eye shots, and then when I knew for sure he had bone fragments in his brain, rearranged his face for shits and giggles until a moment before the cell extraction team came rushing in.
I'd had handcuffs on. Oh yeah, picked him. They must have taken the right cuff off for me. Nice of them.
They should have gotten me with chemical restraints. Butt cheek prick. Haldol, the psych ward and paramedic's best friend. My ass was so pounded I couldn't tell. Not my asshole, mind, it had been three days since my last date with Biko and his chair.
Failing that, they should have gone for the straightjacket, old school. Or the wet pack. Wet the sheets, wrap tightly around torso, wait to dry. Too busy trying to breathe to give the nurses shit.
Leaving my legs unfettered had already cost them a hard casualty.
I started stretching muscle groups again.
Let's see how many more of these motherfuckers I can kill before they wise up and sidewalk me.
It might take time, plenty of time, but I've got the time.
It might take money, lots of spending money ... to patch up all the Homeland staff I'm going to mangle.
It might take patience and time. But I'm going to do them right.
###
EXTREMELY DANGEROUS !!!!!!!!!
--------- --------------------