Axis XII
“The leaf of the oak is crushed before the Liturgy of the Hours”
The sea of rats parted as Pierce was being rushed through the labyrinth on an old squeaky wheeled gurney. His body had been convulsing sporadically ever since the stabbing. The oxygen mask had been loosely placed upon his head so he was not getting the most efficient use of the tank that was loudly releasing air. The orderlies that responded strapped him down so tight that he could barely gasp for any breathes of air; the latent tinge of ammonia made it all that worse for him to inhale. The emesis was slowly bubbling out of his mask as Pierce turned his head to the side; the vomit formed a thick blood sponge cake on the gurney. They had begun pressing down on various pressure points in order to salvage what little blood was left in his pale body. His skin was beginning to blue as they rushed him through the many corridors; the blood was trailing them like a leaky radiator tank.
The young doctor had not lost consciousness yet. His eyes were affixed to the ceiling as the many lights passed overhead like white lines of a freeway. The eyes began fluttering like butterfly wings seemingly right along the syncopated rhythm of the flickering fluorescents above. Pierce tried to remain calm in the realm of panic even though he was slowly drifting away.
The ceiling lights came and went and they blurred to be all the same to the young doctor. They stopped and passed through many doors until they came upon one of the old commissary elevators that supplied the many wings of Westwood. The clanking gate was unlocked, opened then locked back up again. The whir sound of the elevator was charging up to their floor. Clank! The door slides open and they hurriedly stuff themselves in like sardines in the narrows of the elevator just before the door clanks shut once again. Then they descend and with each ding of the bell the doctor could feel he was falling further down through the hospital level by level; his body was astute to the slight change in atmospheric pressure.
The doors opened and the blood had begun to coagulate as there were no more trails from the squeaky gurney following behind them; the pressure points were working to stop the blood loss. From Pierce’s vantage point it appeared they were now rushing through the confines of the cathedral. The malodorous rats were in full concert on their gruel as the young doctor passed by. Their toothless grins shown not a pearl to the young doctor, they never minded him. They were too busy engorging themselves. They hummed the food lovingly into their foul mouths without haste. Only the few that had minded, laughed in scorn at the young doctor; one of their own brethren had gotten even that day.
They came upon another door and one of the orderlies was nervously fetching at one of his pockets to fish out his ring of keys. They jangled out of his hand as they hit the top of the gurney just within inches of Pierce’s ear. The orderly nervously scooped the wad of keys and had begun fumbling around for the right key. He was nervous as they all had become. In Pierce’s stupor he still reasoned it to be for a different door, for why they would plunge so effortlessly throughout the labyrinth of the hospital only to be upheld at this one door. As the door opened the young doctor hyper extended his neck back to see where they were going: the plaque above his head had read h377.
Pierce closed his eyes temporarily then placed his head back into its resting state. He opened his eyes only to find that the cones of his eyes were not functioning; he had become colorblind. The vision of the world he came to know had turned to black and white as he drifted back and forth into consciousness. The walls all around him appeared black as midnight and the ceiling was made up of grayscale globs that were interrupted with the occasional flickering light. The dim confines of h377 were straining on Pierce’s eyes indeed as he had begun to tear up from the constant refocusing of his vision. Pierce placed his head down to the side once again to spill some more emesis. He happened to notice they were travelling within the corridors at a quick pace as he had no time to read the oft shit encrusted poetic graffiti written all over the walls. The young doctor once again closed his eyes to give reprieve not only to his ocular muscles but as a way to ease his mind. He was in sensory onslaught.
All the while, the sounds of h377 had been coming from all directions. Laughing, screaming, yelling, all of this was shot through their ears; no one immune. The orderlies and the young doctor were being barraged from all directions by the many societal mutant inhabitants that roamed freely in this all but lost corridor of the hospital. Their nonsensical bitter rancor echoed all around them. The fingers and fists poured freely from these rats on the caravan; some were bloodied, some newly shit minted.
They stopped once again and came to another locked door. This time the key was entered with haste. The door flew open with ease and they slipped in with only a few mutant rats clamoring to get in with them as well. The last few rats were unsuccessful at their attempt due to the defense of the orderlies. The caravan battled back the door and secured it shut and locked it tight.
The lights suddenly flashed on very brightly all around them. They had made it to a sterile operating room of the hospital. The clamps of the restraints were released and it was as if the air had sunk into Pierce’s chest. His lungs were beginning to gallop shallow breathes.
“You thought you were very clever.” A voice from off in the distance of the lights had said. “I became aware of your ruse and I must say you almost completed your task.”
Pierce had thought it was a voice in the theater of his mind but reasoned it not to be. The young doctor had no strength to even communicate back but he was clearly hearing it aloud in this operating room.
“Unfortunately these many events have gone on far too long with you and with much consequence. We have tried to help you in any way that we could.” The voice paused with thought. “For decades the many physicians attended to whatever you wanted and needed, within reason of course. Why must we continue in our pursuit of healing? Our limited pharmacology does not clearly work for you let alone the countless sessions that seem to go nowhere. This I’m afraid is the last resort though it is with much hesitation.”
The young doctor had begun to look around and really focus. His eyes were adjusting to the bright light. He was surrounded by a few people adorned with surgical attire. His left arm had an IV securely attached that was feeding his distal vein. One of the masked clones had been slowly injecting an anesthetic into one of the many ports. The anesthesia slowly worked into Pierce’s system and he had started to drift to slumber.
Pierce also saw Paige on a neighboring table. Her bruised eyes had stared lifeless into his. Ominous as they were they just stared deep without even blinking; they were crying. He tried to speak aloud in her theater but no answer was ever reciprocated.
“This is it.” Again the voice in the distance of the operating room had begun to speak aloud. “This is the end. In time the world will see a much different person than the one before me. Thus the world will welcome you back with open arms. It’s ironic. As you become disconnected from all of this you get reconnected to a new pathway, a better pathway I must admit. It’s a shame that after all of this the only person you could save was yourself and not Blaesilla.”
As Pierce drifted, he had started seeing several different superimposed visuals come into focus. Paige was projecting again. One was of Stanley and several orderlies having their way with that of a zombie like Paige. Pierce could clearly look into her empty eyes as they each took turns penetrating her in the horrors of the night. That visual kept repeating over and over. He saw another superimposed visual with that of Paige spitting out a bloody chewed off nub of Stanley’s penis and smiling at the aftermath. He also saw another layer of her pawing at Pierce’s own pant leg, grazing his right hand. Yet another depth of visual came into focus with that of Paige scribbling feverishly in one of the young doctor’s composition books. The last layer that came into focus was a point of view visual of running through a very dense mist with a last look at the morning glory entrenched walls of Westwood, then back again running into the remote eternity.
He looked down and saw that he was wearing the paisley dress as the anesthetic finally took full effect.
He smiled as his eyes shut.
The clones finished their work.
The bright lights of the operating room were shut off.
The clones disbanded.
The door… relocked.
Caged we gather but I long for flight…
Tabula Rasa
It was so hard to see in this “office” due to the fact the maintenance shop had lag bolted a temporary half inch steel plate over the entirety of what was left of the window. Stanley had begun to do the task of wrestling up some of the pieces of broken glass that had rained all over the makeshift office. The bloody splinters were everywhere. He was left in charge to clean up what was left of the scattered belongings; glass, blood, papers, you name it. He was a self proclaimed perfectionist and it was only fitting that he do the work himself. He swept all of the shards into a nice neat little pile in order to scoop it with a dust broom. He then meticulously dumped the jangled glass onto to the old squeaky wheeled gurney; finite particles of fiberglass shooting into the air just missing his face. Stanley pushed on bringing out a bucket of soapy water to begin the process of wiping up all of the little bits of bodily fluids and tissue left behind from the aftermath earlier that day making it new again.
After he finished cleaning, he then came upon the few books and files that were laying about the room. He had gathered all those up and stacked them into a neat little pile at the foot of the gurney. This was no small task as some of the patient files had taken on more weight from all of the blood that had soaked through their massive volumes. Some toppled back onto the floor while others just ended up being splayed all over the head the gurney.
Stanley then started to grab the rest of the belongings and noticed that a few of the composition books had been left just below the now steel plated window; these were blue in color. He had begun to skim through the pages and see all of the different hand written entries made by two distinctive writers. One of the authors used all capitals and the other wrote exclusively in cursive. Some of the passages intrigued him enough to possibly keep one of the books but thought otherwise. He buried the temptation on top of the other toppled books. He came upon the last of them and threw the last few books that were scattered up onto the gurney and took one last look in the makeshift office to make sure he had not forgotten anything. He then went to proceed to make his way to the commissary elevator. The gurney made its way through the labyrinth, to the supply elevator on down to its way to the cathedral then on through h377; the final approach was to the boiler room. He parked the squeaky wheeled table right up to the door of one of the old running oil boilers that fed heat throughout all of Westwood and all of the evidence was slowly shoveled in.
The last of the lot to be thrown in was the composition books. The pages danced around in the flames for a good while before dissipating into shards of silky ash. The many pages flickered around the chamber as they broke free from the cheaply pasted manufactured spine. Some of the embers still carried the echoes of words; some even visible to Stanley. He made out the last words of the lot:
Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.
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