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It was really chilly in here this morning, and it got me to thinking
about being much colder yet.
Let me know if you want me to continue this, or to shut up now..:-)
Richard
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"Overdid the buzz a little last night," Braen thought, as he slowly opened
his eyes. "Left the light on, too." This was the worst Braen had ever
felt after a night carousing. His eyes wouldn't focus, he ached all over,
he couldn't move, and he was cold. Cold like he'd never felt before.
So cold his bones hurt.
But he couldn't shiver. In fact, he couldn't move at all. "Keep calm"
he told himself. "I can feel myself breathing, that's one. I can kind
of make out shapes, so my eyelids work. I don't smell anything, whatever
that's worth. Well, they say smell is the most primal sense, hmm. Back
to work. I can make out shapes, so at least some of my optic nerve is
intact, as well as a large portion of my central brain. I'm thinking...how
can I think when I'm SO DAMN COLD! Well, I think I'm thinking, so my frontal
lobes must be at least partially OK.
"Let's save brain functions for later. Let's see, smell, sight, temperature
(I think), that leaves hearing, touch, taste, motor control, time sense, and
balance. All I can hear is this silly ringing. Sounds like a 60 Hz hum and
a 1 KHz whistle. Funny, I didn't notice it a minute ago. Maybe I'm waking
up. Can I open and close my eyes? Yep. Still no focus though. Gawd I'm cold.
"How 'bout taste. Hmm, I can't move anything, but concentrating on it, my
mouth tastes like a catalytic converter smells first thing in the morning.
It's so cold. If I could move I'd set myself on fire. Hey, I'm shivering!
So much to testing motor control. Do I remember what I'm thinking about?
Yeah, if I'm alive or dead, or dying. Time sense, well at least memory,
is starting to work.
"What's that I smell? Smell? Maybe I'll open my eyes again...No, too tired.
I'll just go back to sleep and die."
*** *** ***
"There's that smell again. Dammit, just when the dream was getting good!
It's cold again, too!."
"Don't just lay there, start movin', you bunch o' barbaric bargylls!"
Braen thought he heard a strange voice shouting at him. "Must be part
of that wierd dream-within-a-dream thing," he thought. "Probably some
after-effect of that new stuff I tried last night. Might as well wake
up now and get moving, shake off some of this cold." The man tried to
stretch his arms and emit his customary welcome-to-the-world good morning
sigh. All he got was a healf-hearted moan.
"If you don't get movin, there won't be enough of this tub left to drag
back for scrap; and you'll be with it!"
There was that strange voice again. "Oh well, lets roll out and see
what's going on."
Braen was used to strange voices in the middle of the night and early in
the morning. The crowded flat he shared with six other people, two couples,
who all had different schedules. Not that it much mattered. The church
took care of all their needs, so most of their time was spent attending to
the service of the Great One, wandering, partying, reading, and sleeping.
Just as Braen was about to move, the whole world shook with a deafening
roar. People all around were screaming. Braen fell almost a meter onto
cold steel. Something sharp momentarily tugged at the inside of his right
elbow. Something else was gripping his face. He groaned softly and tried
to look around. His head barely moved. Everything went black.
*** *** ***
This time the smell was different. So was the voice. Braen did not even
try to understand the words; it was obviously some kind of drug-induced
hallucination. He'd heard those kinds of nonsense syllables before. He
was cold again! "Dammit, I just gotta get that heater fixed," he said to
himself. His mouth still tasted terrible, his ears were still ringing and
he still couldn't move. Braen opened his eyes. Although fuzzy, the image
was clearly a woman standing above him. There was that strange language
again. She reached out and gently closed his eyes.
"Wow, what a dream. I gotta write this one down and tell our confessor.
It could go in the Records." His left arm started feeling very warm. Wherever
the warmth went pain was quickly following. The fuzzy woman touched something
very warm and very wet to his lips. "I'm finally in heaven," Braen whispered.
The woman, tall with golden brown hair said something strange again. Then
she said something almost normal-sounding, then something really queer and
odd-sounding.
"Are you talking to me?" Braen asked, again just a hoarse whisper. "Can
I have some more to drink?"
"Do you understand me now?" the woman asked. Braen's face felt like it was
working, felt kind of like someone else feeling astonishment. It was
beginning to get warm and was smarting all over. She smiled. She slipped a
small tube of some strange texture into the corner of his mouth. "Sip on t
his verrry slowly," she said, stretching the word almost to tomorrow.
"Rest now," she continued "while we thaw you out. Doctor Llewllyn will
want to talk with you soon enough." The warmth was slowly flooding his
chest now and the pain, while not severe was becoming really annoying.
Despite his efforts to stay awake, he really wanted to rest, just like the
fuzzy woman with the nice voice said.
"What a nice place," he thought. "What a woman. She's almost hypnotic.
Hypnotic! Why the..." but he was already asleep.
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Chapter 2: Braen Awakens (if you decide you want it...)
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Richard Johnson
FPS Computing, Beaverton Oregon
Standard disclaimers...
(with apologies to the Moody Blues)
"travelling is the best way to think"