To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine.
[Late afternoon of Thursday, February 18 (day 263)]
[Basement of the Sagert residence]
With the miserable weather, I do not expect that anyone would have been interested in stopping by anyway, and so I was quite happy to leave the shop closed. Although I admit the weather is a slim excuse. I do believe this is the second (possibly the third?) day this week I have left the windows shuttered.
I should go out soon, I know, but I have been distracted. Quite pleasantly so. I should go out and see her, or more prosaically I should go out to replenish the cupboard, but...
I finish cleaning and polishing my tools, and set them down. In the corner, the man makes a moaning sound, but I am quite sure it is of no consequence. He is deeply drugged, too much so to begin struggling, and I have high hopes for the ankylosis. (That is another reason to go out, I think; it is so difficult to restrain myself, and I know that there is only so much he can tolerate, but the visions are coming so thick and fast... His jaw is still healing around the pins and wires, and my ideas for laparorraphy must wait. They must.)
I sit down, thinking it is worth making a few notes. Linnea's jawbone is on my desk, still rich with its faint phosphorescence. My lovely little match-girl, such a wonder... I lean back into the chair, remembering the first time I saw her. It was winter, and the slush was thick on the paved streets. Dilapidated bricks and the squalid paupers crawling their way up out of the alleys, and the firefly glimmer shining through the grimy rot of her face like a caged... like a caged star...
Satisfaction makes me fanciful, as I slip back into memories and to sleep.
[Open to Damien]
[Cautions for dehumanization and stylized vivisection]
[Closed]
[Basement of the Sagert residence]
With the miserable weather, I do not expect that anyone would have been interested in stopping by anyway, and so I was quite happy to leave the shop closed. Although I admit the weather is a slim excuse. I do believe this is the second (possibly the third?) day this week I have left the windows shuttered.
I should go out soon, I know, but I have been distracted. Quite pleasantly so. I should go out and see her, or more prosaically I should go out to replenish the cupboard, but...
I finish cleaning and polishing my tools, and set them down. In the corner, the man makes a moaning sound, but I am quite sure it is of no consequence. He is deeply drugged, too much so to begin struggling, and I have high hopes for the ankylosis. (That is another reason to go out, I think; it is so difficult to restrain myself, and I know that there is only so much he can tolerate, but the visions are coming so thick and fast... His jaw is still healing around the pins and wires, and my ideas for laparorraphy must wait. They must.)
I sit down, thinking it is worth making a few notes. Linnea's jawbone is on my desk, still rich with its faint phosphorescence. My lovely little match-girl, such a wonder... I lean back into the chair, remembering the first time I saw her. It was winter, and the slush was thick on the paved streets. Dilapidated bricks and the squalid paupers crawling their way up out of the alleys, and the firefly glimmer shining through the grimy rot of her face like a caged... like a caged star...
Satisfaction makes me fanciful, as I slip back into memories and to sleep.
[Open to Damien]
[Cautions for dehumanization and stylized vivisection]
[Closed]