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Perceptions

September 23, 2022
Lily Lustig

Prologue: Blur I am a pair of slender, purple-rimmed spectacles. I make for simple mornings and effortless evenings. I offer color and clues. I am a sight and I am sight itself. (More literally, here in 2011, I am a 10-year-old girl with glasses and the author of this piece. But the first part is more important.) March 8, 2021: The Appointment (Part 2) (Gold Aviators) In the words of Les Misérables, “The time is now / The day is here.” My new optometrist has just returned to this bleak, grey-cloaked examination room. Dr. Joseph Isik defies everything that I’ve come to expect of an eye specialist: he can hold a conversation, trusts my judgment, and has the dimensions and radiance of a fluorescent lamp. He has revealed that I have a nevus on my left eye. He has gone so far as to compliment my irises, despite seeing dozens of them each day. (“They’re just hazel,” I mean to say, but his praise has transfixed me.) “Alrighty, the moment of truth,” he sings. Opening his palms like the magician he surely is, Isik reveals two teeny plastic cartons. I have spent months pining for their contents. I have spent a decade fearing them.. Do I fare well with any entities or substances coming even remotely close to my eyes? No. No. In fact, I react quite poorly in such situations. But it’s decided. I have committed to joining the mainstream. No more clouded vision. In order to turn a new leaf, I must cast aside my anxieties and embrace the subtle art of jabbing my fingers into my eye sockets. Passing me my first lens, Isik gives a brief demonstration of the task at hand. Appears easy enough. Perhaps, the doctor ponders, we can begin with a simple exercise: touching my index finger to my naked cornea. Sounds somewhat doable. I give it a shot. I nearly throw up. My squeamishness, it would seem, has not faded away as gracefully as I had hoped. But before I can apologize for being so shamefully sensitive, Isik has begun prying open my lids in an attempt to insert the contacts himself. It is a Clockwork Orange waking nightmare; it is the sincerest act of care. And though I lightly squeal and squirm, I certainly handle myself better this time around. Blinking profusely, I come to, glance around the room, and realize that I can see. September 16, 2014: Practice (Part 1) (Black Ray-Bans) They noticed that I was pretty good with my feet, so they made me field hockey goalie for the season. The whole thing reeks of desperation: their star keeper’s in high school now, whereas two years ago, after completing 21 shuttles of the PACER test (out of, like, 150), I started hacking like the victim of chronic asbestos exposure. I’m no athlete, and they know it. But they need a goalie on their roster. I’ve signed my name, and – to be honest – I’m more than a little jazzed to be part of a team. Today’s our first practice and here in the claustrophobic girls’ locker room, I’ve donned all the fetid, chunky, garish orange gear. (There are pads, quite literally, everywhere.) Only one component remains: the brain barrier herself, my helmet. And here she comes! She’s jet black, she’s heavier than a newborn baby, she carries the aroma of a dead squirrel. Oh, she’s just grand. Coronate me, coach! And as the crown descends upon my head, I wish my former self well, knowing that a new epoch has begun. Goodbye, horribly-cliché-13-year-old sob story, and hello – “You’ll need to take off your glasses.” Cue panic. “Oh. Um. But then I won’t be able to … see.” Nice one. “You have contacts, don’t you?” I do not. “I do not.” “Well for God’s sake, kid, how did you think this was gonna go?” Ahem, you came to me, remember? And if you don’t let me play, you’re screwed, lady. “I’m so, so, so, so, so sorry! I promise I can make it work! Can we loosen this? I’ll just cram the glasses underneath. See?” Breathing labored and frames askew, I have sealed my fate for the next two months. “Look, as long as your vision’s intact, you can do whatever you want.” Alright, I’ll take it. But just know that I will never, under any circumstances, get contacts. March 9, 2021: Practice (Part 2) Day 2 with contacts. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Yesterday, you wore them for five minutes, and you neither put them in nor took them out yourself. Today, you have yet to attempt insertion. Because you’re absolutely mortified by the prospect of it. But that’s why you’ve set aside 30 whole minutes before class! You cannot possibly take half an hour to do that which a normal person does in 10 seconds!! That would be downright ludacris!!! Crack open the first case. Scrub your hands until they sparkle. Now dry them until they burn. Place the lens on the very tip of your index finger. Look in the mirror but for the love of God, do not look yourself in the eye. Align your missile with your target. Ignore the faint ringing in your ears that suggests you’re losing consciousness. Ignore the faint taps of your housemate at the door – yes, you’ve overtaken the one shared bathroom, but dammit, she can wait. Allow your soul to leave your body. Aim. Fire. AND BAM! You’ve failed in the most pathetic fashion imaginable. Not only did your manic blinking block the contact from your cornea – it has also caused the lens to drop directly down the drain. And somehow, your unscathed eye still stings like an alcohol-dabbed wound. It’s fine. You have dozens more. Repeat the process. Repeat the process. Repeat the process and praise every otherworldly being for preserving this lens, no matter how averse it is to suctioning to your face. Repeat the process and WAIT, something’s happening here, blink blink blink, the contact’s not on your finger anymore, and now there’s a new kind of stinging, as if your eye has developed a tumorous growth, and you want nothing more than to expel this foreign object from your person but you fight the urge to perform the “Out, vile jelly!” scene from King Lear and would you look at that! Praise be! You’ve done it! Equipped with 20/15 vision, you have officially defied all odds. Revel in this moment for as long as it takes to regain your sense of awareness. Now use this mediocre eyesight to check the time, and thank yourself again for factoring in that healthy half-hour cushion. Squint. Let the clock come into focus. Class started 6 minutes ago. May 24, 2018: The Appointment (Part 1) (Tortoise Frames) In the words of Les Misérables, “The time is now / The day is here.” I’ve mustered up the courage to tell my optomotrist – Martin Newman, whose patients praise him online as “an older, relatively obese man who has absolutely no personality” – that I want contacts. I suppose “want” is an overstatement. But I’m ready for my big reveal, my Velma moment; the time when everyone who’s seen my face almost every day for the past 7 years will finally, truly, see my face. Newman’s making sure that my prescription hasn’t changed. The alarming proximity of our faces is made even more distressing by his severe breaths. They’re more a thunder than a wheeze; they resound straight through to my retinas. As he rolls away on his miniscule, one-moment-from-imploding-under-his-intense-and-highly-concentrated-weight stool, I make my own shuddering exhalation. Here goes nothing. “Dr. Newman, I was wondering if I might be able to get contacts today.” The word “contact” precludes him – in every possible irony – from meeting my gaze. “…Do you think that would be possible?” And suddenly two bratwursts (later recognized as Newman’s fingers) are tugging at my eyelids, while two more squeeze a chartreuse fluid into my now-gaping sockets. I go berserk. “EEEEEEEEEEERRRRGHGGGGGGGGGRGGGGGGGGRGGGGGGGGGHHHH,” squawks the incapacitated girl to her merciless assailant, flailing slightly and causing the liquid to fall like tainted, toxic tears. “If you cannot handle that, young lady, you cannot handle contacts.” Ah, how swell. I suppose now’s as fitting a time as ever to hit rock bottom. March 13, 2021: Driving Lesson This is My Year. I relinquished my “minor” status two years ago, but Today I am an Adult. Because I have Contacts. And before long, I’m going to get my Driver’s License. And right now, I’m Driving, training for my Road Test, while wearing – you guessed it – the Contacts that I put into my Eyes this morning with Relative Ease. Life is going So Well. So Well! Am I…the Best Driver Ever? The Most Independent Person? Whocaresthatmydadislegallyobligatedtobeinthepassengerseatrightnow? I have Matured. Kind of funky that my head is … Pounding right now. That the street sign a few feet away is … Illegible. That, upon closer consideration, my distance vision has … Gone Completely to Shit. Okay. It’s Totally Fine. Maybe if I just rub my eyes a little … here at this red light … Rubrubrubrubrubrub. Fuck. It appears that my Left Lens. Which is decidedly the wrong prescription. Has dislodged itself from my cornea. And found a home under the gas pedal. I Abhor Contacts. March 29, 2020: Fog (Part 2) (Blue Translucent Frames) To step outside is to be blinded. To take one breath is to envelope yourself in a weighty, pervasive cloud. To live through a pandemic is to become your most melodramatic diarist. What I mean is that glasses and KN95s do a great job of prohibiting each other from carrying out their basic functions. Even more simply: mask + glasses = major condensation. And yes, I’ll take foggy vision over risk of infection any day. And yes, this minor inconvenience is even more insignificant in the context of a global health crisis. And yes, there’s an easy fix to this minute hindrance. I’ve been rethinking my vendetta against contacts. November 15, 2018: Fog (Part 1) (Blue Translucent Frames) A passage from the first book of The Aeneid, translated today in class: “Venus surrounds the walking men [Aeneas and his friend Achates] with a dark cloud, and the goddess enveloped them with a great cloak of fog, so that no one was able to discern them, nor to touch them, nor to construct a delay, nor to ask the causes of their coming.” “Discern” is a potent word, states my Latin instructor. It means to see someone for who they truly are. It goes beyond mere sight. I would like to be seen. December 8, 2021: In My Eyes A planet drifts within each pool of milk. Their crusts are a stormy cerulean, their mantle a soft chartreuse. Their outer core is a rusty brown, their inner core an impossible black hole. I couldn’t distinguish such subtleties before; perhaps I hadn’t even tried. But no longer must I gaze through window panes, with their smudges and cobwebs and – figurative – bird droppings. Never have I observed life with such ease. Staring at a mirror, into my own pupils, I can discern a faint reflection. She’s hardly abstracted. She’s distant, yet she couldn’t be closer. I think she looks rather lovely. Epilogue: Blur It’s terribly odd to be recognized. Does my current image not differ from the one that exists within your memory? Have I not, in turn, transcended perception? In this choice, did I seek conspicuousness or invisibility? And what does it mean if I see differently and see myself differently and yet am (seen) just the same? Defining yourself by a flimsy pair of frames is a mistake. Electing to abandon those frames is psychotic. It leaves you with no choice but to build from scratch – to redesign and reconstruct your entire person. It’s the self-inflicted identity crisis that you thought you could hold off for at least a few more years. But what, then, does it mean to find comfort in this current state? And balance, knowing that you have not completely cast aside that other way of life and may switch between your two modes whenever you see fit? At my bedside, the gold aviators sit neatly in their case. Oh, please. With each metaphor, you dig yourself deeper into the world’s most shallow abyss. Sure, you switched to contacts at age 20. But when were you planning to tell them that you still can’t ride a bike?

Most Recent

Most Recent

A Few Impressions

Juliet Corwin
November 6, 2025

– CT, left wrist – I drove to Connecticut to get my first tattoo. The studio, smaller than its parking lot, was tucked away in a gray fold of Stamford. It had been a drizzly morning, and clouds sighed as I walked to the entrance. Timidly, I leaned against the door so it wouldn’t slam shut and scanned the space for a pair of eyes to meet mine. It was my first time inside a tattoo studio, and it showed. Two feet in front of me, a woman lay on her side in a shirt, underwear, and Doc Martens. She chatted with her artist, who hunched over a spread of ink covering the woman’s thigh. The walls were covered in overlapping sketches and prints. Sitting by the only other station in the room was a large man with a permanent frown and huge biceps. I gathered that he would be my artist, and moved toward him. His frown deepened when he saw me. He spoke in short sentences, his voice low and quiet. I showed him the tattoo I wanted and presented my wrist to draw on. Opting for a purple marker, he splashed the design onto my skin way too big. I asked if he could make it any smaller. His eyebrows lifted, but he rubbed away the first drawing and drew it again, a bit smaller. I looked at him pleadingly, too nervous to ask him to change it again. He took the hint and resized it once more. It was tiny, barely a quarter of an inch in height and width. I smiled, and his mouth flattened into a straight line. He prepped the ink and the tattoo gun, and didn’t wear gloves. It took about five minutes to ink the design using the thinnest needle he had. He wiped the excess ink and a few drops of blood from my skin, and I could see the little lines now adorning my wrist. It was perfect. He explained to me that he typically asked clients to pay upwards of $100, but for this he wouldn’t charge more than $40. I paid him $60 and thanked him again. He nodded and pressed one of his sketches into my hand. I had been admiring it while the needle dragged along my skin. It was full of color and soft lines, a warm swirl of tones. As I stepped out the door, I saw that the woman getting the leg tattoo was now eating takeout with her artist. I walked back to my car, watching the clouds inch lower. My wrist stung as I spun the steering wheel home. – MA, right ear – For one of my later tattoos, I filled out an online appointment form for a studio in my hometown in Western Massachusetts. I got matched with an artist named Ian. The space was big, with a lower level for tattoos and an upper level for piercings. There was a waiting area with high ceilings and tons of plants. Ian emerged from his studio and greeted me with a warmth I trusted. He was bald with a long, white beard and eyes that crinkled when he spoke. Ushering me into his studio, he told me to hop up on the table and rolled his chair over to join me. The design I had chosen was simple, and I wanted it to sit behind my ear. He used a disposable razor to shave the edge of my hairline. As the blade scraped at my scalp, we chatted about tattoos I’d gotten in the past. We sized down from the first print he had made, and then he carefully peeled a purple outline onto my skin. He handed me a small mirror that reflected into a big mirror on the wall so that I could see the placement. I told him I liked it. He instructed me to stretch one arm out past my head and rest my cheek on it, lying on my side. The tattoo took forty minutes to ink, and he spoke the whole time. He asked me about myself, about school, about the tattoo’s meaning. I tried to answer in a calm and steady voice despite the pulsating needle bouncing against my skull. Several times he praised my composure, saying that most clients who got tattooed behind their ears can’t sit very well. It wasn’t hard to understand why. When he was done, he told me to take my time getting up. I ignored his advice, pushing up fast and immediately regretting my choice. The sudden absence of vibration on my head left my vision blurry, and I felt lightheaded as I walked back to the waiting area to pay. The person at the register was bubbly and asked loudly if I loved my new ink. I did, and told them so, paid and tipped Ian. I walked out onto the streets of my childhood, my new ink still buzzing quietly. – MN, right hip – My favorite tattoo was inked in Minnesota. A cold Thursday night in December, I arrived at a brightly lit studio in Minneapolis. I was a few minutes early, and sat on a very hard bench in the waiting area. My artist was finishing up with another client, so I pored over the design I’d asked for again. The appointment didn’t start for another forty minutes. When my artist finally came over and said she was ready for me, she seemed annoyed. I showed her the design and she scowled at me, snatching up her iPad and scribbling. She asked me if I had drawn it myself, which I had. After some more silent drawing, she held the iPad toward me. She had taken my (admittedly unskilled) design and created a much better tattoo. Her lines were clean, the shape gentle. I thanked her, she sighed. I wanted the tattoo on my hip, but because of the weather I’d worn sweatpants over my shorts. She rolled her eyes as I took off my sweatpants, pointing out that I could keep one of the legs on if I wanted to. I took the suggestion. When we sized the tattoo, she gave me three options. I picked the middle one, and she placed the outline on my hip. I walked, half-sweatpantsed, to the mirror and watched how the design moved with me. I loved it. I got up onto the table, lying on my side as she instructed. She inked in silence, except for a frustrated question about whether I was holding my breath. I had been, without realizing it, and tried to slowly exhale without annoying her further. When it was finished, my new ink looked delicate and natural on my skin. It is still the best tattoo I have. I carefully pulled the leg of my sweatpants back on over the wrapped ink. As I walked back into the Minnesota snow, my hip pinched with each step.

Two-Day Trip Home

Elaine Rand
November 6, 2025

There’s a new fence in the yard where the trellis once kissed the ground, a padlock on the gate in the alley left by an admirer or a forgetful biker. The front door of the house is newly painted navy blue, but the latch still sticks. An assortment of sunscreen bottles, displaced from the back porch, live in the garage alongside the dead dog’s bed, which has been inherited by my parents’ new one. Sunscreen spread on skin, bug spray interrupted by the sound of barking. I throw the puppy a ball, and she runs around the periphery of the yard, still chasing something invisible long after she has caught it in her mouth. Once, we pitched a tent here, but the pea popped up beneath my back. The tent’s been lost for a decade now. Dirt on the lawn chairs, dirt under fingernails, plastic sacks of mulch stacked tall. A smear of Indiana soil on the back steps to be powerwashed come next year. Inside the house, hairballs nestle in the gap between the refrigerator and the linoleum. The countertop is home to packets of tuna, a plastic Brita pitcher covered in hard water film, recalled pistachios yet to be thrown away. On the wall hangs the prim calendar, which still reads “March” in June. On the floor, WD-40 and Clorox wipes share real estate with cans of wet food and salmon dog treats for brain health. I can hear the nettles rattling outside. They’re strewn along the berm so the puppy can’t romp without getting her short legs caught. Through the window, there’s the redbud that sprouted where the garden patch used to be, more tenacious than the tomatoes. It towers over the ghosts of withered vines, the home-farming love fest brief and barely remembered. There is honor in an intact ear, one without the cartilage pierced—my mother said so long ago. But is there honor in an ear that burns? Both of mine turn bright when someone’s grandma asks me if I’m single. She showed my picture to her son. Lucky that breathing fire with a closed mouth leaves the tongue’s flames extinguished. I smile and deflect, teeth thick with ash. Tomorrow, I will drive away, “Wide Open Spaces” on the stereo. No flat land precipice to fall from anymore. The voices haven’t changed. No new timbres, no unexpected inflections, only the occasional quiet indignity. My shadow informs the conversations. Hello to the teenage neighbor I babysat when she was three and I was 12. Hello to my best friend’s brother, who has forgotten my name. Hello to the photo of great-aunts Elaine and Madeline on the mantle. Goodbye to the swimming pool by my elementary school; I used to leap into the water again and again. Goodbye to the cornfield, razed to build a strip mall, and the strip mall, minced and bulldozed to make room for a high rise. Goodbye to the uncertainty that once roiled inside me in the neighborhood where I used to live. I’ve juiced every drop I can from this place. When I take a sip, I taste only the dregs. Two days ago, I boiled soba noodles and cut hot peppers and cilantro for lunch, snapping carrots in half as men sprayed the dead trees outside with red paint and ran the chainsaw. Today, the radio on the porch plays a couple seconds ahead of the one in the living room, the sponsorship message echoing as it sings: “Committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.”

A Barely Legal Guide to Seasonal Waitressing

On restaurant work and gender relations
October 31, 2025

During your first shift, you will be sentenced to folding silverware into napkins. A test to see if you’re cut out for repetition, the practice will soon become ritual. Take refuge in this menial task on days when your coworkers commit to telling and retelling their recent sexual escapades. There’s no earthly reason why you should know that your middle-aged boss has a penchant for older women. Innocently enough, a bartender at your restaurant may slip you gifts: kombucha, a work of bell hooks, a bracelet—your relationship will meander into allegory. Proceed with caution. When asked how he filled his day, the same bartender might tell you that he “sipped espresso, smoked a cigar, and watched a snail eat a leaf.” When retelling the story to your friends, you will have to insist through giggles that the quotation is direct. Don’t tell them the other things he said. If your manager is acting a little erratic today, he is likely on the come down from an unsavory adventure he took after closing last night. Watch for signs including an increased volume of arguments with the kitchen, palpitating eyelids, and a lowered physical inhibition. He will spill while clumsily showcasing how to pour a margarita with one hand, but beam at his tricks, and he may tip you out of the bartender’s pool. You have precisely one week to get in the good graces of the kitchen staff. Spark conversation in whatever broken Spanish you can eek out. Laugh at the jokes that translate awkwardly into English. Take pride when the head chef calls you “mija.” First uneasy at his kindness, you will soon determine his intentions unsullied. Soldier through incessant teasing along the lines of Hey, remember me? It is best practice to lie and nod. Apparently, the type of men who take their dates to upscale patio bars are also the type to flirt with their barely legal waitresses right in front of them. A hairball sensation will begin to fester in your gut, one that you will fight back into your esophagus when you laugh at his unfunny jokes and nod when he makes no sense. Don’t cough it up. The new 20-year-old chef may slyly pull you aside during rush and ask for a shot of tequila. You will for once find it pathetically endearing—the bartenders will not. He will be fired within three days, and you will feel inexplicably at fault. He wore star patches to cover his pimples, patterning his face with innocence. As the months progress, you will notice a disturbing, albeit useful, pattern. Some days you find yourself crunched for time, hair frizzed from bike rides and lake dips in the summer warmth. Other days, you will bask in the silence of your sun-spotted car—curls tamed, lips painted, cheeks expertly flushed. Take a moment to rehearse a well-placed smile in the rearview mirror. On these evenings, customers will be much more forgiving when the kitchen is running behind. Bat your eyelashes for an extra 5% and don’t think about Gloria Steinem. Whiskey, sugar, bitters, rock, twist. After countless slow hours spent leaning against the bar, you will learn through osmosis to make an Old Fashioned. Carajillo, Sex on the beach, Negroni, Lemon ball: your new party tricks. You never touched the bottle. You never crossed the line. You never would. As the paychecks roll in, guilt will thaw into acquiescence. Exhale your bitterness as the hairball in your stomach softens into the lining. You will exit the summer with an outlook half empty, but a wallet half full.

Buried Alive – Screams of a Stifled Voice

Ava Satterthwaite
October 23, 2025

10:32 AM: drilling, grinding, sawdust coats my tongue. i am watching a film – a monochrome mouth moves in silence. a man shouts through the static, his words foreign, unintelligible. the reel flickers. barbed ribbons of cornflower blue obscure the scene, coiling around cranes and metal hooks, colliding with rubber-gloved hands, cutting between construction men in blue. is this show… interactive? i’m in the viewing room, on the table. back and forth and back again. 10:33 AM: the drill closes in. i am concrete: jaw locked, limbs tethered to the table. unable to move or breathe. unable to scream or flail or convince the construction men i am still alive. an entire orchestra of stars shine above me, humming a metallic shrill and showering me inan ostentatious sterilized haze. the conductor calls, “instruments sterilized… bone saw….” screeching. more shrilling. a sudden stabbing sensation, a teeming mouthful of metallic crimson. i flinch – this band sucks. i smack the cold leather below me; the curtains close on cue. 8:29 AM: “No allergies to medication? No food since 12 AM? OK, good… Well, I recommend a Vidocin waiver… She’ll have some soren— no? Fine. Insurance card, please.” I sink back into a tattered cloth chair, gaze fixed on a 1980s Wheel of Fortune rerun. Between Sajak’s comb-over, the wooden TV stand swelling with matted wires, and the stiff faux cactus in the corner, I feel like I've fallen into some neon-crazed, cobwebbed wrinkle of time. Mom offers the card and sits beside me, muttering under her breath as she scribbles a second, third, fourth signature on various forms. 8:47 AM: I take shallow breaths, clammy hands trembling as I scan the waiting room. Phrase: Five Words, 21 Letters W A _ I N G _ P F R O M A _ A D D R _ A M “Ava, come follow me.” How fitting. I walk toward the nurse and exhale as Sajak’s laugh and the dense smell of mildew dwindle into oblivion. Soon, I’ll be dreaming, then delirious with a mouthful of gauze. Soon – it’ll all be over. 9:00 AM: The door creaks. A man in starch white enters – his tall, refined frame harsh amid cartoonish bunnies and fields of flowers sketched on the walls. His smile is courteous, if stiff. “Morning, Ava. I hear you’re our wisdom teeth case today. Junior in high school?” Still scanning the sallow sunflowers behind him, I nod: “Yeah… starting college visits soon.” “Big milestone! License too, then?” He stretches into some latex gloves with such vehemence I wince. “Hopefully. I keep failing the parallel park.” “Ah, double freedom,” he retorts, voice now muffled behind a creased blue mask, “It’ll come.” I hesitate, then: “Um – one thing. I’m a natural redhead, and I read we sometimes need more anesthesia? I think I do, after all the cavities and root canals I’ve been half-numbed for.” I smile sheepishly, tracking cracks in the tiles beneath my swinging legs. “I don’t want to feel a thing.” More amused than concerned, he snickers; “You want the good stuff, huh? Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” A feverish flush overtakes me, knuckles whitening as my fresh French manicure claws into the armrests. I purse my lips to nothing but the echo of crinkling paper and suffocating smell of antiseptic; the door slams before I can mumble another word. 9:05 AM: The room is heavier now – harsher. Even the fluorescent overheads seem fiercer, like electrified clouds infested with hail, enshrouded with an acute sense of dread. I half-expect the bunnies to flee the fields and burrow somewhere warmer, somewhere sheltered from the commotion. The storm brews swifter as I look down to two cold hands – mottled with bruises and blue veins like marble – still fastened to the vinyl-covered armchairs. I was Rose in The Titanic: the bitter Atlantic circled on all sides, but by God, I would hold on to that drifting wood, that stiff vinyl. If this room was a hailstorm, these armrests were my wreckage: a connection to the concrete, to solid land – a lifeline averting an ocean of fear from swallowing me whole. “They’re professionals,” I reassure myself, “trained doctors who do this all the time. I’ll be OK.” I’d identified five items I could see (bunnies, sunflowers, Purell hand sanitizer mounted to the wall, some knives and hooks on a steel, cafeteria-esque dish – the scariest school lunch you’ve ever seen) and two of four items I could touch (the torn sleeves of an old, moth-eaten sweater and the vinyl film on the armrests, of course) when a nurse knocks. She heads for the Purell and asks for an arm. I feel a quick prick, intentionally averting my eyes from the needle to resume the senses’ ritual (two more items to touch… could I fiddle with the IV line? brush the ribbed adhesive at the insertion site? no, that’d be weird). She smiles, gaze flickering to my still-trembling hands, “This’ll calm you down a little, sweetie, OK?” I offer a grateful nod. 9:10 AM: 28. In five minutes, I’d watched the monitor sink from 102 to 83 to 65 (Goldilocks’ zone, breath looser and mind mellower) to the headache-inducing 40, mind-bending 34 (when the bunnies stirred and a breeze made the sunflowers dance – ears smothered in the sound of a million little teeth munching on grass), further and further down until 28 BPM. At 28, neon snow bathes the bunnies, the room an old screen obscured in static. I envision the cactus, the Wheel! of! Fortune! theme, a crinkled People magazine (June 2000 edition, Jennifer Aniston on the cover) and mourn the naiveté of 30 minutes earlier. The tiles teeter as the room tornadoes around me; I seize an armchair with such force the whole chair rocks. Screw Rose, I am Jack: watching myself drown from the hail-ridden clouds above. I sob in slow-motion as my frostbitten hands unfetter from the armrests – Jack’s wooden door unreachable. I am desolate. I am defenseless from fate. A handheld mirror lies slanted on the counter beside me. I search its reflection for what seems like hours. I search this ashen face I once knew for some shred of life – a sniffle of the nose, a curl of the mouth – but to no avail. For a second, I wonder if I’ll die in the smeared reflection: a finale akin only to Narcissus’. After all, 28 isn’t so far from flatlined. Then, 28 climbs back to 33, 34, 42, the sacred 65. I’m not sure what time it is now – or whether it’s been hours, weeks, decades, seconds. I sure as hell am not calmer, though. 9:12 AM: The nurse returns. I ask her the time, what’s in the IV, “will I be under soon?”, each word clear and well-articulated. She’s startled – horrified: this, apparently, was not the desired result. “Wow! I’ve never seen someone so lucid on Midazolam. I– I must’ve halved the dose somehow.” Before I can remind her I’m less reactive to sedatives – before I can tell that snobbish doctor I told you so – she rushes over. “Well, I guarantee this one will work. You’ll be knocked until it’s time for home and ice cream.” She hastily injects another needle, “Count from ten for me.” 10… 9… 8… 7…. Curtains close. A POST-OP REPORT: Recorded 10/02/2022, 11:51 AM EST Patient Ava J. Satterthwaite, 16F, experienced intraoperative awareness and partial temporary paralyzation during wisdom teeth extraction. At 10:32 AM, Dr. Smith [real name omitted] observed REM, increased heart rate, breathing rate, and sweating. Additional anaesthesia was administered at 10:33 AM. Prior to operation, patient expressed concern of a potential need for additional anesthesia. Patient reacted unusually to pre-operative conscious sedation, appearing tense and alert rather than lethargic. Patient was administered a typical dose of anesthesia for her size and exhibited anticipated reaction in due time. There is no explanation as to why this dose was not effective throughout the procedure, but patient has not mentioned recollection of said episode – we do not intend to inform her or her mother, to ensure smooth mental recovery post-procedure. Patient exhibited minimal post-procedure reaction, displaying an immediate spatial awareness and producing well-articulated speech. Patient refused a wheelchair and walked to car without swaying or difficulty… indicating provided anesthetic dose may have been insufficient. Quick metabolization of anesthesia was recorded on her chart for future reference. NOV 05, 2022 | 3:02 AM: I am thrust awake, rattled for the third time this week with the acute sensation of suffocation. I feel smooth silk bedsheets crowded in clusters between my clammy hands and exhale. It’s 30℉ outside – bedroom window adorned in chromatic streaks of snowflakes and steam – but I am sweltered. A dense bead falls from my drenched forehead onto the satin. I drink water and stare into the darkness until my shallow breath has thickened. I’ve been buried alive. Again. This ritual started somewhere around mid-October. Initially, I attributed the nightmares to the stacks of wool and fleece and fur I practically drowned myself in every night. So, I switched to silk. For a week, I dozed under one thin linen blanket to the cadence of chattering teeth, waking still at 3AM, smothered, violently shivering. Sometime close to Halloween – when the evening’s installation featured a cornflower blue man and two matted bunnies – I connected the dots. I have lived in fear of doctors since: terrified to miss a stair, catch a cold, drink too much soda – terrified to live.

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