Second Self (caption) - part 1 (Patreon)

Read part 2 here.

The fluorescent light above the bed is a pressure against my eyelids. I keep them closed for a long time, mapping a body that feels made of lead. The air in the room is dry and smells of rubbing alcohol. My tongue's stuck to the roof of a mouth that tastes like copper. I try to swallow and I can't coordinate the muscles in my throat.

I open my eyes.

A man's leaning over the bed. Blue surgical button-down. Sharp jawline, dark hair fading to gray at the temples, the skin under his eyes bruised purple. I know the exact pattern of the stubble on his chin because I shaved it three days ago.

I'm looking at my own face.

Dr. David Miller clicks a penlight on. He sweeps the beam across my left eye, then the right. The light burns.

"Pupillary response is normal," he says. His voice is a low baritone. I've heard it on recordings, but I've never felt it vibrate in the air from the outside.

I push a reedy sound past my lips and it cracks.

"Don't force it," he says. He clicks the penlight off and slips it into his breast pocket. "You've been in a coma for a month. The vocal cords are atrophied. Everything's atrophied."

I blink, clearing the grit from my eyes. I look past my original body to the corner of the room. Chloe's sitting in a vinyl chair. She wears a heavy green sweater and her knees are pulled up to her chest. She's looking at the bed.

Veronica was already in a coma when we decided. The aneurysm ruptured a month ago. Chloe signed the proxy authorization. I designed the mapping protocol and ran it. We didn't ask the ethics board. The board had prohibited human trials of cross-biological neural hosting, citing psychological degradation in the primate models.

To the hospital staff and the ethics board, the woman in this bed just woke up from a four-week coma. I'm Veronica now. I go home with her partner, and the man standing over the bed carries on without me. He has my apartment and my life. I have a thirty-two-year-old body recovering from neurological trauma.

"We need to test motor control," David says. "Lift your right index finger."

I focus on the right hand. It feels hollow, the bones heavy. I send the signal and the index finger twitches, lifting a fraction of an inch off the cotton sheet.

"Good," David says. "Flex your left foot."

I locate the foot and pull the toes back. The feet are smaller, the arches higher. They slide weakly against the heavy hospital blankets.

A pressure builds low in my abdomen. I need to piss.

I open my mouth and force air through the thin vocal cords. "Bathroom."

It's a woman's voice, raspy from a month of disuse.

David turns to look at Chloe. He doesn't step forward to help me.

Chloe stands up and walks over to the bed. Her face is pale. "Okay, Veronica," she says.

The name hits me like a missed step. I give a slight nod. She pulls the heavy blankets back.

I'm wearing a standard hospital gown. My legs are exposed, the skin bare where I used to have hair. The muscles are wasted, the thighs soft. I press my palms into the mattress to push myself up. My triceps shake. I can't lift my own torso.

Chloe slides her arms under my armpits. She smells like stale coffee and peppermint. She hauls me upward. I use her leverage to swing my legs over the edge of the mattress.

I sit on the edge of the bed. The room spins. I wait for the blood pressure to stabilize, staring at the linoleum floor.

"Can you stand?" Chloe asks.

"I think so."

I place my bare feet flat on the cold floor. I lean my weight forward and push up, keeping my hands on Chloe's forearms.

Standing sends a jolt through me. My center of gravity shifted an inch or two south. My hips tilt forward, weighted differently. The pelvic bowl anchors the spine in a posture I'm not directing. I take a step toward the bathroom door and nearly stumble. My stride is shorter, my knees brushing together.

Chloe wraps her arm around my waist, supporting my weight. We walk toward the bathroom together. David stands by the monitors, writing on a clipboard. He doesn't watch us go.

We cross the aluminum strip in the doorway. The room is bigger than it needs to be, pale blue tile to shoulder height, grab bars bolted along the wall. A commode in the near corner. A tub against the far wall with a low stool beside it.

Chloe turns me around so my back is to the toilet.

"Hold the bar, Veronica," she says.

I reach out with a trembling hand and grip the cold metal rail. Chloe reaches around my back and unties the lower strings of the gown. She lifts the fabric up around my waist.

The cool air hits my bare skin. I look down. The pubic hair is softer, curlier, sitting higher and stopping sooner than it should. Below it, flatness. I look away. The pressure in my abdomen borders on pain.

I bend my knees and lower myself down. The hospital gown bunches in my lap.

I sit on the seat. The hard plastic presses into soft flesh. My hips settle differently as I sit, the curve of my ass pressing into the seat. It's fuller, wider.

I lean forward and try to relax. Muscle memory fights me. I expect to aim. I let the muscles go.

The warmth goes in the wrong directions. It spreads through unfamiliar folds, trickling down the inside of my thighs. The sound is softer, closer, a quiet trickle instead of a direct stream. The urine splashes against the porcelain in a messy spread. I finish, but the muscles continue to contract in small spasms I can't control.

I reach for the toilet paper dispenser. My arm's weak. The angle's awkward. I pull a long strip of paper free and ball it up.

I lift my hips slightly. I reach back behind myself, the only approach my hand has ever needed. The paper drags forward through soft folds.

"No, stop," Chloe says. She grabs my wrist, pulling my hand away. "You'll get an infection that way. Always front to back now."

She takes the crumpled paper from my shaking hand. I freeze, staring at the white tiles on the wall.

"Lift up a little more," she says.

I grip the metal bar and pull myself up an inch. She reaches between my legs from the front, passing the paper front to back. A jolt goes up my spine. I gasp and drop back onto the seat.

She drops the paper into the bowl and flushes the toilet.

I sit on the plastic seat.

"Let's get you washed," Chloe says. Her voice softens. She looks at my shoulders. "You've been getting bed baths from the nurses for a month. Let's get that hospital smell off your skin. I brought your favorite lavender soap."

She leans over the tub and turns the taps on. Steam starts coming off the water while she works. There's a stack of blue plastic basins on a metal cart by the sink. She takes one and fills it at the tap. A yellow sponge sits in a sealed plastic package on the cart. She tears the plastic open and lathers it with a purple bar of soap from her bag.

"Stand up," she says.

I grab the bar and pull myself up. The gown falls back down around my knees.

"Take it off," she says. "Sit on the edge of the tub."

I reach up and pull the remaining tie loose between my shoulder blades. I let the gown slide off my shoulders. It falls to the linoleum, pooling around my bare feet. I step out of it.

I'm nude in front of her. I turn slowly. I walk the two steps to the tub. I reach behind me, find the cold porcelain rim, and lower myself down. The edge presses into the back of my thighs.

Chloe pulls the low stool over and sits down facing me, the blue basin balanced in her lap.

She dips the sponge into the water and wrings it out.

She presses the warm sponge against my right shoulder. She washes down my bicep, tracking carefully over the bruised skin where the IV lines were taped. The muscles underneath are small and soft.

She moves to my chest.

She runs the sponge over the collarbone, then lower. The breasts rest heavy against my chest, the pale skin marked by a faint network of blue veins. When the rough texture drags over the swell of tissue, a line of sensation runs straight down to my stomach. I hold still, hands flat on my thighs.

She washes underneath them, lifting the tissue with the back of her hand to pass the sponge along the crease.

She rinses the sponge in the basin. The water turns cloudy.

Tomorrow, or the next day, the hospital will discharge Veronica. Chloe will drive me to the house they shared. I'll have to know where the plates are kept, which side of the bed is mine, how she holds a coffee cup.

Chloe washes my stomach. The flesh is soft. The skin here is smoother, body hair stopping a few inches above the belly button where it used to run all the way down.

She moves to my legs. She washes the right thigh, scrubbing firmly. The legs taper differently now, a softness to the thighs I've never had. The sponge drags harder than it should. She works her way down to the knee, then the shin.

She picks up my left leg and repeats the process. I watch her hands.

She finishes the legs and drops the sponge back into the water.

"Lean forward, Veronica," she says.

I lean my torso forward, exposing my back. My center of gravity shifts. I grip the edge of the tub tighter to keep from sliding off the porcelain.

She presses the wet sponge against the base of my neck. She washes down my spine. The warm water runs over the vertebrae and pools at the small of my back. She traces the sponge over the shoulder blades, then down the ribs.

"He's not looking," Chloe says.

I turn my head slightly to look out the open bathroom door. Through the gap, I can see David. He's standing by the window of the hospital room, looking out at the parking lot. His back's to us.

"He needs the distance," I say.

"It's hard for him," Chloe says. She rinses the sponge. "But it's going to be harder for you. Being in there." She presses the warm sponge to my lower back. "You have to figure out how to live in this body now. Her skin's sensitive here. Try to use a gentler lotion than you're used to."

"I'll remember that," I say.

"And you'll have tension in your lower back," she says, rubbing circles over my lumbar spine. "You'll feel it in your hips by the end of the day. A hot compress helps."

She drops the sponge into the basin.

"I can do the rest," I say.

She looks at my knees pressed together, my arms crossed.

"Let me help," she says. "It's a lot to navigate the first time."

She reaches into the basin and picks up the sponge. She wrings the warm water out of it. She sits closer.

I tense every muscle in my legs. I press my thighs together. The friction creates a slick pressure between them.

"Open your legs," she says, keeping her voice steady. "Just relax. The nurses will be back for the vitals check soon."

I slowly let my knees fall apart. The movement exposes the unfamiliar anatomy. I stare at a chip in the floor tile near her left shoe.

She brings the sponge down and passes it over the tissue. She washes away the residue of the urine. I feel an involuntary flush of warmth, a dampness. The skin registers every thread of the sponge. I grip the edge of the tub weakly, breathing shallowly through my nose.

She finishes quickly. She drops the sponge into the basin and stands up.

She grabs a towel from the metal rack and unfolds it. She hands it to me.

I take the towel. The terrycloth feels rough against my palms. I bring it to my chest and pat awkwardly at the breasts, drying the skin. I run the towel down my stomach and over my thighs, avoiding the center.

"I brought clothes in the duffel bag," she says. She turns her back to me. "They're on the sink."

I look at the counter. There's a folded stack. Gray sweatpants, a white t-shirt, cotton underwear, a wire-free bra.

I stand up from the tub. The damp skin of my thighs sticks together briefly before parting. I take a step toward the sink.

I pick up the underwear. My arms shake. I can't balance my weight and pull the fabric up at the same time. I stumble against the edge of the sink.

Chloe turns around. "Here," she says. "Let me."

She takes the underwear from my hand. I grip the counter. She helps me step into the leg holes and pulls the cotton up over my hips. The elastic waistband catches.

She picks up the bra. "It's wire-free," she says, guiding my arms through the straps. "Much easier when you're sore. You pull it down and lift the tissue into the cups." She adjusts the fabric. A constant, restrictive pressure wraps around my ribcage.

She pulls the sweatpants up my legs, tying the drawstring tight. The fabric pulls across the seat. She pulls the t-shirt over my head.

I stand in front of the bathroom mirror. The face is pale, the dark hair tangled and damp from the steam. It's a face I scrolled past on my own phone once or twice, back when Veronica was a name attached to somebody else's life.

I step out of the bathroom.

David turns away from the window. He looks at me. He takes in the sweatpants, the hair. He looks at how I'm standing.

He nods once.

He picks up his leather briefcase from the visitor's chair.

"The discharge paperwork's finalized," David says. "Dr. Evans will be in to do the final sign-off in ten minutes. I have to get back to the lab to secure the servers."

He walks toward the door. He passes within two feet of me. I smell my own aftershave on him.

"David," I say.

He stops with his hand on the heavy wooden door. He doesn't look back.

"Keep the heart rate under one-twenty," he says. "Don't drive for a week. The spatial processing needs time to calibrate to the new height."

He opens the door and walks out into the bright fluorescent hallway. The door swings shut heavily, the latch clicking into place.

I stand in the quiet hospital room. I cross my arms over my chest, feeling the foreign shape of the body beneath the cotton shirt. I look at Chloe. She's looking at the closed door. Then she looks at me, waiting for Veronica to speak.