Creatober day7: Fracture
They wheeled me into the operation room. They hadnāt sedated me, and they werenāt going to. They had only paralyzed me. I would be awake, for all of it.
People werenāt forced to join the military anymore; there was no draft. But they had to get disposable bodies somehow. They called it a āprocedureā, they acted like it was going to help. In reality they broke you into little pieces, put your pieces in metal skins and sent you off to wherever they needed you. They told us, āYou will only have to give an hour of your time to save the country!ā They told us, āNo real people will have to get hurt anymore!ā They presented it like a miracle. It wasnāt.
I had to be awake for it, mentally at least. Some fancy jargon about brain synapses and conciousness. Not stuff I understand. It was only going to be an hour. Surely I could last an hour? But it didnāt feel like an hour, it felt like days, or weeks, I honestly couldnāt tell. They found pieces of me- in memories and dreams- and took them out, giving them their own life. A six year old me crying about a broken toy: the memory was suddenly gone but I could still hear the crying. Twelve years old, getting my first kiss: gone- but I could still feel the butterflies. One me came from a dream, this one was clad in purple armor, ready to fight sea monsters (it was a weird dream) and then I couldnāt remember it anymore but I could still feel the adrenaline. This went on for a timeless length. Each one getting closer to the me I am now, and the closer to me it got the more painful it became. Until I was in agony, unable to cry out, unable to clench my jaw, unable to shed tears of pain, unable to do anything but lie there.
Then it was over. I wish I could say that was the worst of it but that was just the beginning. After the procedure I thought it was all done with, I gave so much of myself- literally- to protect my country. But then I was deployed. Well, not me, but the other meās, the-the pieces, or memories, with their metal skins; were deployed. Have you ever been to war? Have you ever known somebody who has? I used to be able to answer no to those questions. But now I donāt only live my life as me, I live as that six year old, that twelve year old, and every other version they took from me. In my dreams I see myself battling and cries from the real people I fight echo in my mind. They carnage and the empty pain that comes with a fallen comrade, all became seared in my real memory. Then it started happening while I was awake, I would suddenly not be at work or school or home anymore; I would be on the battlefield. Although I saw myself moving through my eyes as the other me, the real me would be paralyzed as I was during the procedure. Stuck between two realities, two timelines, two lives but unable to control either one. The longest āepisodeā , they called them, had lasted an hour. It was terrifying.
Then one of me died. Or was lost. Or stopped working. I donāt know what you want to call it but it wasnāt there anymore. And when it stopped, that version of myself I had been was taken with it. I forgot that part of who I am. And I changed- how can we know who we are or who we want to be unless we know and understand who we used to be? I began to feel lost. Then another one of me stopped and it only got worse. I canāt even remember most of my life now. I donāt know who I was and I donāt know who I am. Itās impossible to live life fractured.
I was the sum of my parts, I feel like we all are, so when you take away all the parts what are we left with?
