The Implant
Page 5
My newfound happiness lasted all of two hours and ended with an event that earned me my second hospital stay; I got mugged. It was another case of my newfound knowledge exceeding my body’s capabilities. When I reached home I stepped off the train, ambled off the platform, through the crowd at the station and into town. I was threading my way through the side streets and it took me a few minutes before I realised that I was being followed. There were three of them; in their early twenties, scruffily dressed, all smoking like chimneys. I had passed them earlier as they were swigging cans of beer and trading crude jibes with each other.
I’m not sure why they chose me; I wasn’t well dressed, and I certainly hadn’t tried to draw attention to myself. I felt confident with my new skills, there were only three of them and I’d seen Jackie Chan take down hordes of bad guys in his films. Real life isn’t like the movies though and I discovered exactly why within seconds of stopping. I turned to face the three men and slipped into a Wing Chun fighting stance that felt as natural to me as breathing. The men spread out; one in front of me, one to the left and the other flanking to my right.
“Give me your wallet and phone.” The one in front of me said.
“Look at Mister Ninja master! Thinks he can Karate us does he?”
I didn’t respond with words; instead I shifted and launched a fast, spinning roundhouse kick directly at the face of the man in front of me. It should have been a thing of beauty with me defying gravity and my opponent collapsing to the floor. Instead it was me that collapsed as my left hamstring tore and I fell like a stone to the road. I was completely unable to defend myself as the waves of agony rolled from my leg. The three muggers took advantage of the situation to give me a thoroughly good kicking before they stole my money and phone and left me bleeding on the road.
Three broken ribs, a dislocated jaw and shoulder, multiple lacerations and contusions and a mild concussion brought my kung fu dreams to an end. I was in agony for weeks and the painkillers I was on did nothing to take the edge off my discomfort. The only thing that went in my favour was that I didn’t lose any money from being unable to work for such a length of time. When I was a child I had starred in a series of television commercials for a famous brand of cola. The money from that provided a regular income in the form of quarterly cheques. The fact that I had cash was probably why I did what I did again as soon as I got out of hospital; I got another Implant.
Over the next year I treated myself to seven new Implants to the growing disbelief and consternation of the clinicians that I saw. My mounting skills included brick laying, fine art, pâtissier, telecommunications engineer and Net-ninja. I used my computing skills to great effect but most of the other new talents fell by the wayside within a short time of being gained. It was around the same period that I got my tenth Implant that the nausea and headaches began. At first I didn’t really put much importance on them; I thought that it was stress or from being over tired.
Nothing I tried my hand at seemed to work out and the Implants that I did find uses for turned out to be a lot less interesting and exciting than I had imagined. I was restless and bored and relentless in trying to find the one that would be perfect for me. That was when the first obstacle in my own personal quest for fulfilment reared its head; Delphi-Pharma refused to give me any more Implants. I was shocked, I was hurt, I was outraged and in the end all my anger hit a brick wall. The company stubbornly and steadfastly persisted in denying me what I wanted. Their official argument was that people were only meant to have one or two Implants and I had exceeded their recommended safety levels by a large margin. I just thought they were being mean and spiteful.
Fortunately for me there was an alternative to going to the dream strangling clinics of Delphi-Pharma. With the increasingly cheap manufacturing costs, constantly inflating clinic prices and the ready availability of black market Implants a whole new underground trade had opened up. It was now possible to get an Implant in semi-legitimate back room clinics if you knew who to ask and where to look. That was where my computing Implant came into its own and I soon had a string of names and addresses to contact. The underground Implant scene asked no questions as long as your money was good and my money always was. Seven new Implants soon joined my growing wealth of knowledge on demand.
I had been having increasing difficulty with sleeping as the year progressed and I figured it was just the stress catching up with me. It turned out to be something much worse and it took a visit to a regular hospital to confirm the problem. After some research, a few hastily made phone calls and a string of emails something became clear; I was a genuine medical marvel. I had CAT scans and MRI’s and all sorts of other cranial probing to confirm the initial finding that I had more Implants than any other living person on the planet. The Guinness book of records featured me that year although I hated the photo they used.
The Implants were causing the problems in a way that nobody had envisioned because nobody had ever thought a person would have seventeen of the damn things embedded in the back of their skull. They were interacting with each other and sending conflicting data into my cerebral cortex. That was causing the irritability and lack of sleep and probably contributed to the weight loss and generally bad moods that I was suffering from. I needed something done about it and I turned to the experts for help.
Delphi-Pharma instantly absolved themselves from any guilt by stating that I had contravened a sub-clause in their contract. I told them where they could shove their precious sub-clauses and moved on to see other experts. I saw surgeons, brain specialists, psychiatrists and psychologists; I even sought out herbalists and a shaman. They all drew a similar conclusion; that removing the Implants would probably be fatal. I was pretty sure that they just wanted to study me like some lab rat and get rich and famous writing me up in medical journals.
As the pain in my head increased I became more and more desperate. I stopped sleeping at some point and for the first few days I almost marvelled at the sensation of being awake for forty eight hours, then seventy four. The headaches got worse and then the hallucinations started; phantom sounds and smells and weirdly surreal visions. It became difficult to separate reality from the Implant generated ephemera that seemed to surround my every waking moment. I knew I had to do something soon before I completely lost my mind; something drastic.
It’s hurting now.
The pain never really goes away fully. It feels like some immense hand is pushing steadily down on the front of my head – slowly, inexorably applying pressure. I can feel the dull aching thud that permeates my temples like the steady beat of a drum. Painkillers don’t work anymore, massage won’t help, soft music, herbal tea, meditation, incense, crystals, chakra alignment, reiki; nothing works. At times it feels like someone is trying to lever off the top of my skull with a rusty can opener. That probably sounds melodramatic. So what? I don’t care. It’s the painful, terrible truth.
I got another Implant two days ago. I think it was two days ago, but then again it could have been last month. It’s so hard to tell where one day ends and another begins now. The waves of pain and nausea that wash through my head keep me unbalanced at the best of times. I’ve taken steps, purchased a few necessary items, taken all the precautions I could. If those bastards won’t remove my Implants then I’ll do the job myself. I have scalpels and drills and forceps and dozens of other shiny pieces of medical equipment. I’ve set up a chair and arranged some mirrors so that I can see the back of my head.
This could be awkward, but I can do it in stages; I figure that I can remove all the Implants myself in three or four little operations. The surgical drill is nice and heavy in my hand and it makes a lovely, high pitched sound as I operate it. I’m going to use it on myself in a minute and start the slow road to recovery. In the end nobody would help me so I decided to take matters into my own hands. My last Implant was for a clinician and I plan to make good use of my new found skills. It shouldn’t hurt for too long and the drill can’t possibly be as bad as the
headache raging through my skull right now. This should all be over soon and I’m rather looking forward to being my plain old boring self again.
Ah well, here I go.
Wish me luck…
****
About the author
I am a writer, make-up artist, artist, actor, anime fiend, X-Box junkie and government endorsed secret agent ninja assassin - one of these may be false...
I have three children and live in Staffordshire with my crazy dog Theo.
About the story
The Implant was one of those stories that I had completely in my head from the start. Unfortunately part-way through writing it my laptop died and my backup copy was not as recent so I lost some of the story. By the time I had another computer my enthusiasm for the story had faded and to my shame it took me the best part of a year to get back into the groove with it. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed writing the Implant and I hope you enjoyed reading it.