#tma 122

The shirt and trousers Basira had tossed at him were practical and clean, with a just-out-of-the-plastic feel to them. He had retreated to his hospital room’s toilet to change, after a team of astounded medical professionals had finally stopped poking at him.

The sweatshirt was rust red and the linen trousers were a dull beige. The material felt cheap in his hands. He could tell they would be easy to move in, baggy enough to conceal things under, and appear business casual at first glance – perfect for an ex-police officer who wanted to keep on her toes.

Jon felt a pang of longing for the spare dress shirt and grey slacks he kept in his office. Basira still hadn't enlightened him as to what had happened to them.

He dressed quickly, trying not to look at himself as he did so. He slipped up almost instantly, catching glimpses of his desiccated legs, practically bone, and barely holding him steady. His arms were much the same, with the addition of a shining burn scar crawling up his left forearm. It had eaten at the pockmarks left by Jane Prentiss’ worms, making them look like he had been used as an ashtray.

There was a burn on his waist too, a broad span of skin creased and unnaturally stiff creeping all the way from his stomach to the small of his back. A souvenir from the Unknowing.

The rest of his torso fared little better. Glancing down, he could see every rib sticking out, as if they were trying to break free of his skin.

Raising a shaking finger, he poked one of the bones. There was no pain in the action, but the pressure was foreign and unpleasant. Jon was stuck by the bizarre thought that they should ring out like piano keys or a xylophone when he ran something up and down them. He swallowed a hysterical giggle as his hand fell to his stomach.

He had always been a slight man, but his gut was now practically concave. Evidently, the hospital hadn’t seen a need to keep him on a drip. He felt hollow, as if his insides had been scooped out. Hunger gnawed at what little was left. Now that he was looking at it, he felt that emptiness more keenly.

He was so Hungry.

Jon shoved the thought away with as much force as he could muster. He didn’t want to think about what had been feeding him for the last six months; what would sustain him when he left his sickbed behind. His mouth still tasted like long, restless sleep.

He shoved the sweatshirt over his head and pulled it sharply down. He swam in it, but the shapeless fabric hid his body and he was grateful. Out of sight, out of mind.

The trousers would need a belt if he didn’t want them to slip off when he walked, but he could manage with them for now.

Basira had neglected to provide socks or shoes- those would have to wait.

He straightened up and felt his hair catch under the collar of the shirt. As he tugged and freed it, he made the mistake of glancing in the mirror.

He looked...

Well.

He looked like he had just gotten out of a six-month long coma.

They had let his hair grow. It trailed in greasy strands past his shoulders and lay flat against his skull where the EEG monitor had been pressed against it for nearly half a year. There was so much more grey in it as well- his early salt-and-pepper locks giving way to waves of silver. He looked almost as old as he felt.

They must have shaved him periodically as his stubble was not as bad as it should have been. No-one had bothered to trim his moustache which annoyed him more than it should have. That was greying too, unruly bristle streaked near-white.

His skin was dreadful, as always, but at least on his face, he hadn’t seemed to acquire any new scars. He was washed-out from the sterile light above, almost as grey as his hair and, despite all his time in bed, his eyebags seemed to have gotten even bigger.

Jon dropped his gaze before he could look any further. His hands gripped the bathroom sink tightly. His tendons stood out against the marked skin. The nails were roughly clipped.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. The rush of oxygen only made him dizzy instead. He tried again, slower. In and out, remembering how to use his lungs once more.

It was only when he was uncertain the movement was unconscious again that he worked up the courage to look himself in the eyes.

They were wide, fearful -an all-too familiar expression- but more important than that, they were still brown.

Still the deep, rich colour he had been born with. A brown so dark it verged on black.

(Your father’s eyes, his grandmother had told him once, in a fit of rare nostalgia, You have your father’s eyes.)

Jon wasn’t sure what he had expected but he had thought change would be inevitable. He stared at them until his vision blurred. None of the terrible injuries inflicted on his frame made him tear up, but this had.

He blinked the wetness away, feeling silly. As he did, the movement in his reflection made him pause. It was off, just a touch. Something cold crept down his back as he leaned closer to scrutinise his eyes again.

Hunched over the porcelain, he froze. He forgot to breathe once more.

The irises were the same, yes, a family trait, and the whites of his eyes were as he remembered, yellowing and bloodshot. As his gaze darted to and fro, trying to catch what had disturbed him, those miniscule movements gave it away.

His pupils were broken.

It wasn’t the right word but he couldn’t think of anything else that suited it.

It was as if someone had taken a hammer to a CD. They still held an overall round shape but they were made up of jagged splinters, uneven fragments of black scattered over the eye. Some of the smaller ones had begun to smooth out into their own miniature pupils- free-floating specs of sight.

Jon barely had time to wonder just what was going on, before he Knew.

Polycoria, his mind supplied, A pathological condition of the eye characterized by more than one pupillary opening in the iris.

He knew the condition normally caused decreased vision. He knew it was congenital. He knew that there had only been two diagnosed cases of true polycoria within the last 51 years.

And he knew that he had never known these facts before.

There was no definitive cause for the condition but some posited that it was caused by trauma. Jon supposed that was true in his case.

It wouldn’t hamper his sight, he could already tell. He looked into his own eyes clearly. The pupils nearly faded into the dark iris but once he had seen them, it wasn’t possible to un-see them. His vision of something solid and unchanged vanished like smoke.

Letting him keep the colour he was born with was not a mercy, it was a mockery. His body was no longer his own. He was only allowed think so for a moment to torture himself.

Jon squeezed his eyes shut and knocked his forehead into the mirror. It was cold against his burning brow.

He took several deep breaths, kickstarting his lungs again. Each intake made his borrowed clothes shudder against his worn skin. Every brush of fabric lit up his sensitive nerves. The sight of his own broken eyes was seared into the inside of his eyelids.

The room span around him and he felt himself beginning to fall.

Two sharp, short knocks rang out from the other side of the door.

“Jon?” Basira’s voice was muffled through the wood, “You done yet?”

He came back to himself with a gasp. His crooked grip on the sink was the only thing keeping him upright. Taking a moment to gather himself, he called back.

“Just about!”

By some miracle, his voice was steady.

Heaving himself upright, he turned away from the mirror and picked up the few paltry possessions he had brought in with him.

After he had awoken, Basira had asked him if he was really Jon.

He couldn’t say for certain.

After they were called in, his medical team asked him if he remembered who he was.

He didn’t know what to say.

There were still no answers. Seeing himself had only raised more questions.

Jon wondered if he would ever be certain of selfhood again.

His bare feet were cold on the bathroom tile.

There was another knock.

“Jon?” Basira’s tone was riddled with impatience.

He bundled up those thoughts with his hospital gown. He wouldn’t learn anymore here.

He walked to the door and turned the handle. He didn’t turn back to the mirror. Jon was sick of reflecting.

Pulling it open, he stepped out into the waking world.