by Kelli Kimble
He moved the pile of clothes to the bed, then struggled into a standing position, his face briefly contorting as he found his balance. “Sorry. I’m still a little new at this standing thing. It’s getting easier, though.” He pulled the blanket off my chest, and I felt the bumps spring to my skin again. I winced and touched a finger to the bumps on my forearm.
“We call those ‘goosebumps’. It’s a reflex. You can’t control them. Feels weird, right?”
I nodded, but he wasn’t waiting for me to answer. He unfolded a smock and began tucking it around my neck. “Just put your arms in these holes, here.” He guided one arm, and then the other, through the smock. “This will help keep you warmer when you aren’t in bed. There are ties in the back to hold it shut, but we don’t need to worry about that right now.” He pushed the loose sides of the garment under my sides, then drew the blanket over my stomach.
“Now, we need to do something about this hair. It’s all tangled-up and matted. We’ll get you a bath later, when you can stand on your own. But, today, I’m just going to brush out the snarls.” He produced a prickly-looking device, which I knew to be a hairbrush. I wanted to touch it. He could see my curiosity right away and handed it to me. The handle felt smooth and hard. I rubbed my thumb over the bristles and shivered. I didn’t like how they felt against my skin.
“Once your skin tightens up, it won’t feel so bad,” he said, taking it from my hand and running it over my head. There were too many tangles, though, and he stopped after only one pass. “I’m going to need to comb it first. Weren’t you combing it in the tank?”
I shrugged. It was a chore I didn’t care too much to keep up with. My hair had grown long; according to Fiona, it was longer by far than anyone else’s in the tanks. I periodically wove it into a braid, but it had come out a week or so before my removal. I was too excited about the possibilities ahead to bother with something as mundane as combing my hair, so it had fallen aside.
He produced a comb and began the task of removing the tangles. I wished I could talk or communicate with him in some way so that I could tell him I wanted to hear about him: His birth; what he’d been doing since then. I grabbed his forearm and raised my eyebrows, hoping to prompt him.
“What?” he said, pausing. “Am I hurting you? I’ll try to be more gentle.”
I shook my head.
“I’m not hurting you? But, you want something. Okay. We can do that. When I get to something that is right, you touch your nose. Okay?”
I touched my nose.
“Is what you want an animal, vegetable, or mineral?”
I wrinkled my nose. What I wanted wasn’t a thing at all. I pointed across the room, to the therapy implements.
“You want to get started?”
I shook my head. I pointed first to him, and then to the therapy implements, and finally, to my ear.
“Ah. You want to hear about what it was like. What you’re going to have to do.”
I touched my nose.
He resumed his combing process. “Therapy is different for everyone. But, we all have the same basic need—to strengthen our muscles. In the tanks, we don’t have the opportunity to bear weight, and of course, we don’t really perform any physical activity, either. So, strength-building is a big deal.”
The comb was flicking bits of liquid around from my still-wet hair. He paused to work out a particularly stubborn knot. “I’m not supposed to tell you much about what it’s like. Fiona thinks that if you know too much, you’ll assume things will be hard and give up.”
I shook my head. There was no way I was giving up. I was going to be mobile, and I could not wait to have that freedom.
“There,” he said. “I think that’s much better. You want to see?” He handed me a mirror, and I looked into it. I’d seen my reflection against the tank glass many times, but somehow, today, I looked different. For one thing, my hair was stationary, without having to be restrained.
My eyes flicked up to his.
“You look great. Yeah?”
I nodded.
“All right. I’m headed off to dinner. I’ll let Fiona know that you’re awake. See you later.” He turned and moved away, his walker scraping across the floor in an unpleasant way. As he left my curtained area, he pushed the curtains back so that I could see the other beds in the room.
The other three looked at me. They couldn’t talk, either, so they just smiled and waved. I waved back, then sat up in the bed, and through a combination of pushing and pulling, got my legs to swing over the side.
The one closest to me—Opal—grunted. It was a guttural, primal sound. I looked up at her, shocked to hear that she’d vocalized. She was waving her arms and shaking her head emphatically.
So, I wasn’t supposed to get out of bed.
I tipped back against the bed on my side and left my legs hanging. It was obvious, then, that I didn’t have the strength to lift them back onto the bed. Probably, that also meant that I wouldn’t have had the strength to stand, either. I gritted my teeth together and willed just one leg to move—to stretch straight out and swing over to the bed’s surface. It twitched slightly, but getting it up was much harder than letting them fall down. Resigned, I waited for Fiona to come. My toes were starting to feel funny, and when I peered over the edge of the bed, I could see they seemed darker, maybe even blue.
When she arrived, she stood in the doorway with a knowing smile. “You thought you could get up, huh?” she asked.
My face heated. I didn’t like being caught in my failure. But, she just laughed. “Here, let me help you.” She lifted my legs up and plopped them onto the bed, as if they weighed nothing. Immediately, my feet began to prickle. They felt cold, too. My forehead crinkled with concern.
“They’re asleep,” she said. “Your circulatory system isn’t strong enough yet to hang them over the edge of the bed like that.” She held a foot in each hand and began massaging them. It was agony at first, but after a minute or so, it felt nice. “All right. I’ve brought you a tablet, so you can write what you want to say. Just draw it with your finger, like you did in your programming. Okay?”
I nodded and accepted the tablet. It took a huge amount of effort, but I scrawled out with my pointer finger: Thank you.
“No problem.” She bustled around at the table next to the bed and produced a bag of liquid. “This is your dinner. I’m going to connect it to your port. The only problem is, this isn’t the tank. The detox ability of your port won’t work with a bag like this. So, you’re going to have to go to the bathroom in the conventional way.”
I blinked at her. How did she expect me to use a toilet, when I couldn’t even get off the bed?
“Right. I know you can’t use the toilet,” she said. Her ability to anticipate what I was thinking was a little unsettling. “So, we’re going to do something for a week or so that is going to be unpleasant. I’m sorry. But, you aren’t even going to be able to manage a bedpan for about a week.” She withdrew a fuzzy, white piece of fabric from the table drawer. “This is what you’ll do instead. You sit on it, and afterwards—I mean, after you go—then I fold it up and take it away. Then, I put a new one down for you to sit on.”
On the tablet, I scrawled: Okay. It seemed as though I didn’t have a choice, I was going to have to relieve myself this way, whether I wanted to or not.
“I don’t want you to think I’m being demeaning, but just so everything is clear, you’ve never urinated or had a bowel movement in the way nature intended. So, it’s going to feel a little strange. You probably won’t even know that you had to go the first few times it happens. But, don’t be embarrassed.” She patted me on the arm. “Everyone has been caught by surprise with it. So, just remember: You aren’t alone.”
My face flushed again—not because I was embarrassed about going to the bathroom on a cloth, but because I did feel somewhat alone. The other tankers were in varying stages of development, but only I was fresh out of the tank and too new yet to have even taken a piss. Be
ing the newbie didn’t feel good.
She hooked up the bag to the port sticking out of my side. Then, she rolled me back and forth, as she centered the cloth under my buttocks. “You’ll feel a lot stronger after you’ve had some liquids. It takes a few days for your hydration levels to even out.”
Even as she said it, I felt the refreshing fluid entering my bloodstream. The tube leading to the bag lay against my side, and it was cool on my skin. Only for a moment, I ached to be back in the tank—to feel the liquid envelop me. I quickly swept it aside.
“So, as soon as you pass some waste, I’m going to bring all your siblings in for a quick meet-and-greet. Are you okay with that?”
I nodded.
“Good. It won’t take long; there’s only thirteen, including the three girls already in here with you.”
I shrugged, unsure how to respond.
“I’ll leave you to your devices. When you’re ready for a change . . . ” She gestured towards the cloth. “ . . . just call me with your tablet. I’m going to make my rounds to check on the others now.”
She leaned over and kissed my forehead. She was always quite affectionate with me and had hugged me many times—and, of course, held my hand. But, she’d never kissed me. For some reason, tears sprang to my eyes at her gesture. Her hand brushed over my free hand, and she squeezed it.
“I’m glad you’re home, Silver. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come out.” She pulled back and swiped a hand across her cheek, wiping away a tear. “Look at me, blubbering all over the place. You just can’t imagine how happy I am to have you here—all of you. It’s been hard, being alone.”
I put an arm around her waist in an awkward hug, and she laughed. “You’ve always been the comforting one,” she said. She blew her nose loudly into a hankie, then closed my curtain and left the room.
I settled back against the pillows. The bag was almost empty, and I was feeling the urge to try out my legs again. But, the prospect of losing my waste when I wasn’t sitting squarely on the cloth kept me in place. I was going to have to be patient.
It didn’t take long for the urine to come. It felt strange, but I was careful to note it. I wanted to be able to control it as soon as possible. After all, I’d never get to try a toilet if I never learned how to hold it until I got there.
I called Fiona with my tablet, and then tried to shift away from the wet spot. It was already cooling, and it smelled bad. Thankfully, she came quickly and didn’t fuss too much about it. She removed the used one and put down a new one. She threw the used one in a container with a lid on it.
“All right. I think it’s time you met all your siblings. They’ll be in shortly. Okay?”
I nodded. Hopefully, I wouldn’t let any more waste out before they came. I didn’t like the idea of them noticing that bad smell coming from me.
Just then, I heard the sound of Leif’s walker in the hall.
“Ah, sounds like your first visitors have arrived,” said Fiona. She pulled both curtains back, revealing the rest of the room.
Leif appeared in the doorway. He lifted an arm to wave. “Hey, bro—” he started to say, but his right foot came out from under him, and he lurched forward, banging his chest on the walker. He brought his lifted arm down to try to grab the side of the walker to stop his descent, but his hand just missed it and went outside the bounds of the bar. He tried to correct the course of his hand too late and pulled it inward. That only succeeded in getting his arm caught between the next row of bars on the walker. His upper body continued falling, his one arm not strong enough to stop it. Then, there was a loud and quite surprising crack.
Fiona gasped. “Leif! Oh, my goodness, Leif. Are you all right?” She rushed to him, and sort of danced around him; it wasn’t obvious how to help him at first.
Leif let out a wail. Tennie came through the door behind him. Seeing him hanging from the bar of the walker by his now-quite-broken arm, she lifted him up by the waist, trying to get his feet underneath him to support his weight. They struggled together for a moment. Tennie had been out of the tank the longest, and likely had much more physical strength than Leif. But, even so, he was a fully-grown man and not an easy weight to carry.
Finally, his feet were below him, and they’d managed to extricate his flopping arm from the bar. Fiona wheeled over the wheelchair, and together with Tennie, they maneuvered him into it.
His face was pale and pinched. He whimpered with each movement. I looked down and was surprised to see that, in the commotion, I’d sat up and swung my legs off the bed again. But, Fiona and Tennie didn’t notice. They rushed a groaning Leif out of the room, leaving me with Opal, Paisley, and Wren. They looked back and forth to each other, and Paisley picked up her tablet. She drew something on it, and my tablet received the message. It was to everyone, and it said: Silver meeting cancelled. Leif injured. See him in infirmary.
My heart sank. Nobody would come, and here I was, with my legs hanging off the bed and no way to get them back up. Opal and Wren were still scrawling on their tablets, apparently speaking to each other. Feeling left out, I looked away. Opal grunted, and I looked back. She gestured towards her tablet, then mine.
I glanced at my tablet. It said: How did you get up so fast?
I shrugged. I had no idea; at the time, I hadn’t even realized I was moving. Need help getting back in bed, I wrote back.
Opal nodded and scrawled away. In only a few minutes, someone new appeared at the door. “You needed help?” he said. He came to my bed and gestured at my legs. “You can’t move them up?”
I shook my head.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Try.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my left leg, swinging away from the bed and straight out. It moved, more than it had the last time.
“Again.”
This time, I tried my right leg. It swung out further, but still not enough to get back in the bed.
“Now, both at once.”
I put my tablet down and clutched the side of the bed, my knuckles turning white. I drew in a big breath of liquid, then concentrated on swinging my legs out. Together, they moved a little higher. Shocked, I looked to him for confirmation of what I’d done.
“Great. That’s good symmetry. You’ll be up and around in no time.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, which caused me to tip precariously on the bed. He righted me and laughed. “Sorry, I’ve already forgotten how delicate your balance can be when you get out of the tank.” He held his hand out to me. “I’m Maestro. Glad to finally see you outside the tank.”
I nodded and tried not to wince. His grip was crushing my hand.
“Let me help you back into bed. But, I’m telling you right now: You only get one more push back into bed. You need to develop your own muscles.”
I signaled to him that I understood with a thumbs-up. This was someone I could work with. He had expectations, and I wanted to meet them. Will you be helping me train? I wrote on my tablet.
“Yeah. Me and everyone else. It helps to keep up our strength, so we can assist with your development. Tomorrow, I’ll be helping Opal. But, the day after that, you’re all mine. Think you can handle it?”
I nodded. Tell me about your training, I wrote.
He dropped to the floor onto his stomach, his legs stiff as a board and straight out, his hands splayed beneath his shoulders on the floor. He extended his arms so that his upper body came away from the floor, then he lowered it back down. He repeated the motion half a dozen times, puffing air in and out as he did it. When he was done, he jumped up and brushed dirt that I couldn’t see from the front of his shirt. “That’s a push-up. It’s a difficult demonstration of upper-body strength. You’ll need to learn to do them, and I’m going to teach you. Sound good?”
What else? I wrote.
He laughed. “You are an eager one. I like it. We need some go-getters around here. But, I can’t tell you anything more. You’re just going to have to wait and see, like everyone else.”
I scowled. It seemed to me that not knowing what to expect was causing me more anxiety about my level of success than it would have if I knew what was coming.
He laughed again. “Relax. All in good time. I can tell you’re going to do great. It’ll be no problem for someone like you. Opal says you practically jumped out of bed when Leif fell. Probably a good thing you didn’t get very far. Sounds like Fiona and Tennie had their hands full with the first person who hit the floor.” He sat on the edge of the bed and indicated Opal. “She’s doing really well. She only got out last week, and she’s already vocalizing. Right, Opal?”
Opal obliged with a grunt, and he clapped.
I glanced at Paisley and Wren. Maestro noticed. “Neither of them can talk yet. Your voice is a difficult thing to master when you’re as old as we are, and you haven’t ever used the chords. They get sort of mucky in the tank liquid. Takes them a while to dry out.”
I nodded. Paisley turned away, but I could see that her cheeks were pink. He’d embarrassed her. Wren simply stared at him, her eyes sharp.
“So, you’ll fall into a routine soon enough. The ladies here can tell you about it. But, basically, every morning, until you can walk on your own, someone will come in and help you with your biological needs. Get you cleaned up and dressed. Then, breakfast, followed by some flexibility work—stretching and the like, for a warm-up. You’ll spend an hour or so doing a round of exercises. Then, you’ll get a break. I can tell a guy like you is going to want to push through breaks; you’ll want to keep on going. But, don’t. Trust me; you can overwork yourself in no time, and that leaves you open to injury. I don’t think I have to tell you that an injury is a major setback to progress.”
I nodded. It made me think of Leif. Will Leif recover? I wrote on the tablet.