Mummified Queen

[elflocks]

Yesterday, the MRI. As I was being pulled into the great machine I thought, “It’s like a sarcophagus.” And so I thought of how the whole process was like being mummified, your body is filled with cold fluids, through your mouth and pumped into your veins, you are given blue raiments that have not been worn before and will not be worn again, you lie down and a man put plugs in your ears, a woman puts these great plastic breast plates over you, weighing you down, and you are carted in the chamber, the chamber that takes the images of your organs. The air in the machine smelled like a spaceship, and the famous noises were pleasing to me, like I was listening to a nice experimental ambient album. I have found, since all this hospital business, that I fall into what I call empress mode when I am in more vulnerable medical situations, the more I am tended, wheeled around, drugged, and prodded, the more regal I feel. Yesterday I was a queen in a futuristic tomb, mingling ancient and scifi fantasies. It took a while, long enough I got drowsy as I shivered in the cold machine, almost near to dreaming, that meditative state of visions, things that crossed my eyes that cannot be recalled now, in the waking world. I felt thoroughly pampered having the chance for the experience, some of the uncomfortable bits aside.

 

I looked up the word sarcophagus. It comes from a Greek phrase that means “flesh-eating stone.” Lovely!

 

After the scan I had some hospital sushi, and a brownie in the afternoon, my last huzzah in case I should be having surgery. And this morning, a call, the results looked good, so yes, I will go to the hospital tomorrow. Now I am staying in, getting things in order, taking two bottles of magnesium citrate and twelve antibiotic pills, and an enema in the evening, and clear liquids only, so my guts will be clean enough, and I am feeling the longing for a bit of buttered toast. Even a glass of milk. I have been reading the No Longer Human manga, since sometimes it’s soothing to be reminded of suicides. I’m scared and all, but fear is just another thing among all the things.