The Face of a Borg

  It's dystopian speculative fiction, although this segment could easily happen anywhere.  

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Faint, scratchy sensations filtered into the fog of my perception. An obnoxious glare shone blazing into my very brain, and with it permeated the thrum and lull of distant sounds, and changing pressures on limbs that felt not my own.

A vague chill swept its way through me, followed by a burn, and an icy thrill. I could feel electricity rushing through my veins.

My eyes opened, lights blazing into my bleary eyes that throbbed as they ripped open. I gasped, sputtered, realizing the suddenly overwhelming pain that wracked my being. Alarms were blaring into my ears, air harsh and cold with the edge of antiseptic in my lungs, bitter across my tongue.

I tried to speak, my tongue clumsy in my mouth, my lips stiff and dry, cracking as I tried to form words.

I made a strained sound, fighting the overwhelming pain and torment of the flood of stimuli—

Then a red-hot stab came, its force overwhelming the urgency inside me, and laxness overtook my body. Laxness and the mauve vagueness of unawareness.

Next I knew, a spot of intense light entered my eyes. Some sound, like a voice from underwater— it came into focus.

“Can you hear me? Blink once.” It seemed to echo.

My eyelid fell without my bidding.

“If you can hear me, open your eyes.”

With monumental effort, I strained to peel them open again.

“Good, very good. See? I told you his exam was looking good. You gave him too much norepi before. Nearly made him stroke out!”

I coughed weakly.

My mouth moved wordlessly. I realized suddenly, the air wasn’t moving through my nose or mouth.

Rather, a whooshing from somewhere on my neck—

“Don’t try to speak, soldier, you were wounded. You’re at the military medical institute in Ganshon.”

I groped at my neck frantically, feeling something hard, plastic poking up, gauze, straps, and the rubber of tubing.

“You’re fine now, just recovering in the SSU. There’s a tube implanted in your throat. You can’t talk. ”

I made a face as confusion and weariness overwhelmed me.

Exhausted from the exertion of attempting to understand and communicate, I let my eyes fall closed, back into the drifting world of sleep.

The next day, sometime toward afternoon, I awakened to see a nurse in my room.

“It’s time to take your tube out,” she said. I made a face, trying to communicate the concern I couldn’t voice.

“Relax, it’s easy.”

She unfastened a strap from my neck, and reached for a piece of gauze on a procedure tray that was set up beside my bed. With it, she grasped the tube, and with a tug—I now felt a slight burning—began to remove it from my airway. There was a slight suctioning sound as it popped out the hole.

“See? Easy. Now I just have to bandage the incision. Then you’ll be able to speak.” I nodded wordlessly.

She took a swab from a dish on the tray, wiping around the hole in my throat thoroughly. “It’s a dressing with epithelial solution and antibiotics in it. It should help your wound heal faster.”

Then she placed a piece of gauze, which was also saturated with a similar solution, and placed it over the wound, which she topped with a large, silicone bandage.

“There,” she said, smiling. “That’s about it. Why don’t you try talking?”

I took a deep breath, then sent air out my mouth, breaking into a huge grin as a raspy sound came forth. I coughed a couple times, then tried again. This time it was a bit louder, an odd feeling, but incredible.  

“Well, might take some practice. You’re probably a bit rusty,” she said, now turning to remove the tray, which she pushed away on its wheeled stand in front of her as she left.  Whatever had happened, whatever was happening, I was at least healing.  I could breathe on my own now, and now I could try to speak.