Not-Morphine by Kevin Smith (life books to read TXT) 📕

The horizon rose, revealing the top of the high nose and the clouded ceiling of the blindfold. The woman’s black head resembled a beetle in the distance. Why was I listening to him, why was I willing to adhere to his commands? What had they done to me? Was there a drug that could remove my will?

“Don’t move...can be very bad…very, very bad,” Doctor Lee ordered calmly.

Couldn’t move if I wanted – my mouth locked wide by fear, my butt cheeks petrified into twin stones, for the very same reason - wondering how bad, ‘very, very bad’ could be.

Latex pressed on my lips, rubbing against the tops of my lower teeth.

“Ahhhhhh…..!” I groaned as loud as I dared every fiber and ounce of sanity urging to do otherwise and scream the scream of the damned.

My muscles stretched, taunt to the point of breaking, as the doctor held his personal torture device, what I could only imagine. And of course, I imagined the worse. Suddenly, as if jumper cables were clamped to my nipples, my id took charge. A wave of frantic neurons sprayed like lightning down my spinal cord. My back jolted upwards, thrusting the ribcage outwards. Feet trembled under the woman’s seemingly inhuman grip. With eyeballs slipping further into the recesses of their sockets, a heart raced faster than it ever has, short, stunted breaths slipping out.
They hadn’t even begun to ask any questions and I was ready to tell them anything. Names, numbers, whatever they required. Anything to stop what could only be a blowtorch. But my kicking was ignored and other than the unfamiliar chirping, no questions were asked.

Through loud moans, mouse-like whimpering, and thunderous beatings of my own heart I heard, “Breath from nose, better.”

I did. Instantly, burnt flesh spat against unsuspecting nose hairs, triggering a horrible, but expected response in my brain. THAT’S YOUR FLESH YOUR SMELLING! Fight for your life! Break these binds! Give them nothing! Let them take your body, but never your mind! Put your hands in your mouth! Put your hands in your mouth! Now I knew why the poor children before me would do it.

Gurgling on my own melted flesh, boiling saliva, and whatever else was collecting in the back of my throat, I fought consciousness.

“Agh, Ugh, ah, ack, blahhh…” I managed, spraying bits of tonsil, gum, and accidentally singed lips outward.
The doctor pulled back, saying nothing. They were all talking, in Chinese or in English, I couldn’t tell. Only the beat of my heart and choking were all that wanted to be heard.

Eyes flushed with tears, I wept like a baby over something much more horrific than a spilled bottle of milk. A hard plastic straw hit my teeth and began slurping loudly, the vacuumed wet chunks reminding me of an extra-thick Wendy’s frosty sucked through a persistent child’s straw. Were they finally preparing for the interrogation? The searing pain returned as the blowtorch now morphed into a smoldering cigar was again shoved against my bare insides. My brain scrambling for a way to survive, it landed on one that I had no control over. I passed-out. But, it didn’t last. While not being doused with a bucket of ice water to revive me, the cigar had struck the inside of my jaw, striking yet molested flesh. My heart had become an alien-being and threatened to burst from under the chest plate.

“Done. Now we see,” the doctor stated without emotion.

See what? See what I know? They only need ask and I will sing the song of the republic itself. I will denounce all that I know and announce all that I don’t. I will…I don’t know what I’m even thinking. But mercifully the pain was gone. I took satisfaction in the momentary break, unable to register anger or fear, just relief. I lay in a drug-laden bliss.

“Okay,…one is done. Now other,” the torturer – I mean, doctor - said.

My bladder threatened to release hearing this report. Thankfully, it held.

“Ready for number two?” the doctor asked.

Number two? What was he talking about? Round two? A second session so soon? Weren’t they supposed to give their subjects a chance to answer before they proceeded? I tried to speak, but further pain was awoken in my mouth.

“Do not try speak now. Speak later, much time to speak later,” the woman at the end of the bed said.

“No...good…pain…want me-di-cine,” I coughed out, the pain near unbearable.

“Doctor says more may kill you,” she answered.

“Kill me? !” I tried to shout, but merely chirped.

“Okay, doctor agree, little more,” she answered.

Hoisted on my side, gown unceremoniously pulled up, boxers yanked down – I felt a needled pinprick. Hopefully it would deliver the relief I sorely desired.

I was quickly let down. The cigar, freshly lit and hotter than before was again lowered back into my mouth and pressed hard against the fleshy sides.
And, again – the pain, the smell, the tears, the gurgling. Drenched in my own sweat, I passed in and out of consciousness, all the while somehow managing to keep my mouth open for fear of singing off my lips with an errant swipe of cigar's cherry.

I’d always wondered how I would hold up during a torture interrogation and now I knew how – badly. I wanted death. I wanted to give up what ever I had. I was a chicken, a coward, a traitor! I began to wonder if maybe it was best that next time I slip under I should not wake-up. Would that even be so bad?

“Okay, we finish,” Dr. Lee said loudly.

The narrow vacuum was back in my mouth, simultaneously sucking out any bloody remnants of tissue and tonsil along with it the last of the pain.
The saturated blindfold was pulled back and I could see the woman at the end of the bed slumped over my feet, her face the color of the sheets. The pain was gone and so were all worries. I’d found love in ‘not-morphine’ medicine – just thought it was suppose to work earlier than after the surgery was completed.

“Look here,” Dr. Lee said.

Under his command, I swiveled my head to the right and saw what looked to be two small testicles that had fought a match with a blender and lost. Swallowing painfully, I reached for my own, but my arms were still bound to the gurney.

“These your tonsils,” he laughed under his mask.

An exhausted mind and body surrendered itself to a compassionate blackout.

I’d just had a tonsillectomy in the Middle Kingdom.
Imprint

Publication Date: 04-03-2010

All Rights Reserved