I'm trying something. Abstract, impressionist short stories and sonic sketches. Written, recorded and published within a morning. No AI involved.
This is the fourth.
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“Scalpel.” Cutting.
“Elevator.” Separating.
“Craniotome.” Sawing.
“Let’s localize the lesion using navigation.” Beeping.
“Opening the dura in a cruciate fashion. Tumor margins appear well circumscribed. Initiating debulking with CUSAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
I’m falling or flying through abstraction, I think, as my mind attempts to process the colors and shapes within this space. Frank Bowling is the only thought that moors me.
I’m floating, and that’s when I see her. Many hers. My patient, Ms. O’Brien. Susie. Sometimes Mrs. O’Brien. Sometimes Mom, to organisms of all kinds. She’s rolling in the grass with a bulldog, watering succulents in the sunroom of a Chicago two-flat, cradling the largest rabbit I’ve ever seen. She’s cutting birthday cake, scooping icing off the top with her index finger and dabbing the tip of her son’s nose with it.
Her tattoos are always the same, only hidden by the lab coats, motorcycle jackets, and space suits.
I extend my arms and attempt to catch, pull, swim through this space. It works, though I have no idea what physics makes this possible. I navigate toward a space-suited Susie, and she immediately shouts to me.
“Doc Kulkarni! Good to see you, girl!” I don’t just hear her energy, I feel it, see it, smell it, taste it. It pulses through every atom of me.
“Hi, Susie.”
“What’s got you down?”
“I know I’m not going to be able to save you.”
“Oh, Doc," she says, like a teacher to a school kid.
"Can it be enough that you knew me?”
