You ever think about someone who passed, and realized that although you rarely saw them, they were an anchor, someone who moored the foundations of your life, and although little has physically changed in your life with their passing, everything is different, because one of your mooring anchors is gone?
My New Body
“Beer o’clock,” I said.
I unplugged from the system, ending my day’s work as a virtual worker. The job description’s hype had sucked me in: “See the solar system! Work on Mars from the safety and comfort of your own home!” It was drudge work, but safe, and secure. Didn’t pay too bad — didn’t pay too good, neither — about the same that I used to earn as a teacher before they downsized and privatized me out of the education system. It was either fly drones with the military, stock boy, or vee dub. You see why I decided to be a vee dub. No, it wasn’t great but the job provides me with security and keeps me off the streets even if there was no chance to advance. Once a vee dub, always a vee dub. At least I’m employed.
Mail and marketing bees immediately swarmed me. One bennie of being a vee dub is that the system protects you from bees while you’re working. But unless you pay for the filters, they’ll get you as soon as the shields go down. I’d subscribe to filters, but I can’t afford them.
So I endured the bees as their messages were delivered for shit I can’t afford, like more health insurance, dinner on the moon for two, solar system cruises, and visiting Heaven Above Earth. Then the next to last bee said, “Congratulations. You’re a winner.”
Bullshit, of course, I thought, ready to say, “Trash.”
The bee said, “You’ve been selected to receive a new body.”
“Wait. What? Repeat that.”
The bee did. Just like I’d heard.
Jesus, a new body. A new body. I jumped and danced around my module. A new fucking body. I couldn’t believe it. I’d entered the lottery, of course, spent twenty on tickets (yeah, I know, not much, but I’m frugal), but I’d never expected to win.
A new body, just what I, a sixty-one year old man, could use, a new fucking body. My current body, the one I was born with (ha, ha), had become overweight and creaky. Its hair was thinning and graying, its spine was stooped, and its fucking eyes didn’t work right. There’s treatment for all this shit, but, hey, do I sound like a big earner? No, I think you’ll agree. Medical treatment for things like bad eyes is for the upper classes, not vee dubs.
Euphoria diminished, stage two of coping with unexpected happiness kicked in. I asked myself, was this real or a scam? What’s in the fine print? Is it a real new body, or somebody’s cast-off? Movie stars and the upper classes get new bodies all the time. I don’t know what happens to the old ones but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’re recycled, right? Can’t you see that happening?
I didn’t know. Understanding that the means to buy a new body were waaay beyond my circumstances, I hadn’t bothered with such minutiae. It took enough of my brain power just to keep up with my carbon points. And, okay, my body had done me right until like three years ago. Then it was like the warranty expired, and it all started coming apart.
I listened to the bee’s full message, and queried it extensively. It linked my phone to multiple review sites along with the lottery’s web page. The systems all pointed to yes. I’d won the lottery.
I was getting a new body.
###
The process took almost a year, almost a fucking year of completing forms, being scanned, selecting choices, and making arrangements. I hadn’t expected choices. I thought I’d be me at some young age again. The choices surprised. Taller, bigger (ahem, anywhere)? Everything was up.
Of course, I had to endure a lot of propaganda and make videos enthusing about how excited and grateful I was. Half the population knows the New Body Lottery is a tool to appease the desperate masses and keep the Revolution Clock from striking midnight. The rest believe NuBod (yeah, cheesy, right?) wants to share its largesse because it’s a kind corporation.
Bottom line with the choices, I stayed white and male (but not as pale as my natural genes made me). I’d be put in a twenty-two year old body, but I would be four inches taller. Sweet. Of course I had my vision fixed. I opted to change my eyes to blue and my hair to blond.
Yeah, I took the option for a bigger pecker, too. Can’t hurt, right?
###
I was pleased as fuck when I finally got my body. So weird to not grunt as I stood from a chair, run out of breath while doing some shit, or squeeze my belly into a pair of jeans. I could see like I’d never been able to before, and I heard better, too. I didn’t know how bad my hearing had become.
I thought it would take a few days to get used to the new body but I acclimated within hours. Several companies donated new clothes and shoes to go with my new body. All I had to do was let marketing bees hover around me to inform everyone what was I was wearing. Of course, I agreed. What’s a few more bees, right?
Then it was so cool. I’d walk into places, and everyone would gawk. We’re a pretty small and intimate town, population about sixty thousand, mostly ex-educators who became vee dubs, so they all knew I was the guy who’d won the new body. I got coupons and discounts for the movies, filters, food, and travel. I still couldn’t afford most of it, but I was sure that was going to change. I was a new man. There were also a few guest appearances on talk shows and radio interviews. They were fun but they didn’t pay anything. Part of the fifteen minutes, yo?
I’d taken two weeks off in real time to get the new body and become acclimated to it. When I went back to work, all the others came by to check me out and bullshit with me. I felt like the king of the damn world.
I understood exactly why all those rich people get new bodies all the time. It changes everything.
Game
You ever get the feeling that you’re playing a cosmic video game, but nobody has told you the rules, score, player, or objective?
Just wondering.
Overheard 3
“I was in my Mom’s room with my sister when Mom died. Mom and Dad lived in a remote area, surrounded by cedars. It was quiet. Mom had been ready to die. She’d actually done checklists. She’d written pages of very precise notes that she wanted done before she died. My sister and I had to do these things, and check them off, and show them to her, to show her that they’d been done.
“When they were all done, Mom said, “Okay, I’m ready to go now.” And she died that day.
“And I remember sitting in the room, and watching this soft blue glow rise from her body and drift out the window, and up into the trees, and on into the sky. It was like watching a puff of smoke, but I’m sure it was her soul.
“When it was gone, I turned to my sister and said, “Did you see that?” She said, “No, but I wish I did, because I could see you watching it.””
Overheard 2
“It says it should be stored in a cold, dry place. I know of one, but I don’t think my wife would appreciate being referred to as a place.”
Oh, snap (to employ an outdated phrase).
Overheard 1
“How do you a bathroom open house?”
Silence answered, followed by gales of charming laughter.
So sweet.
The Ice Chip
It’s five thirty A.M., and cold and dark. Even the cats are all curled up and asleep.
The telephone connection is amazingly clear. The tension in the hospital room seems as substantial as the phone against my ear.
“She’s gurgling, and sounds wet,” the speech therapist said. “I’m going to see what she can swallow.”
Her voice becomes louder as she speaks to the elderly patient. “I’m concerned about your ability to swallow. Can you lick you lips? Can you lick your lips?”
Holding the phone, I lick my lips in response to the orders on the other end and urge the patient to do the same.
“No? You can’t lick them? No saliva?”
Damn.
“Okay. I’d like to give you an ice chip to see how you swallow. Would you like an ice chip?”
“Yes,” the patient says in a low, weak gravel.
“Yes, I bet you would,” the speech therapist says. “You’re probably pretty thirsty because you haven’t been able to swallow anything for a couple days.
“Can you stick your tongue out for me? Can you put it out a little further? There we go. Good, that’s good. Now, I’m going to put the ice chip on your tongue, okay? There we are. Good. Now take it in your mouth and let it melt. Feels good, doesn’t it? Yes, I bet it does. Don’t let it run out of your mouth okay? Keep it in your mouth.
“Okay, are you ready to swallow? Swallow it for me. Let me see you swallow. Okay, that’s good.”
I hear an odd sound and listen, trying to understand what it is. I imagine the process it takes to let ice melt, and the muscles and passages used to swallow.
The speech therapist’s volume drops to a normal conversational level. “She couldn’t swallow, and I can hear wet gurgling.”
That was probably the odd sound that I heard.
The speech therapist says, “The fluid is going down into her airways. Normally, when that happens, we violently cough. That’s a normal reaction. But she lacks the strength and energy to cough.”
My sister-in-law speaks. “She’s in advanced stages of Parkinson’s, and hasn’t had her meds for several days, because she’s had the flu and pneumonia, and hasn’t been able to swallow. They’re going to insert an NG tube and begin her meds again.”
“Yes, we’d expect to see an improvement in a Parkinson’s patient with their meds, so we’ll try the test again after the NG tube is inserted and her meds are given.”
Thanks are given, and comments about things that will be done later are made. I listen and absorb it, but I remain thinking about the importance of a melting ice chip and swallowing.
Wednesday’s Bumper Sticker
This one has been around for decades.
The Green Tooth (An Abridged History)
I’d forgotten about my green tooth.
How did I forget? It was right in the front of my upper set of teeth. Dark green, it beckoned others’ curiosity, disgusting them. I saw that in their expressions.
The tooth was a product of playing blind man’s bluff in our Pittsburgh cellar in the dark. The cellar had a few steel support poles. I ran into one in the dark and broke off the bottom half of my tooth.
That was fifth or sixth grade.
We were a lower middle-class family struggling to get by. It took a few months to get my tooth repaired. Meanwhile, I walked around with half a tooth in my grin. Already a little shy, retiring, self-effacing, and insecure, I took to smiling and talking less. When I spoke, I mumbled, to avoid showing my teeth. Eventually, though, I received a nice fake white tooth on a post.
Then I knocked it out.
It was replaced.
I knocked it out again.
This happened several times. Eventually, that fake white tooth turned green. Nothing I could do about it. So I endured, thirteen years old, with a green tooth. A perforation developed in my upper jaw bone. The summer I became fifteen (the year I met my wife), my upper gums became swollen and infected. I solved that by thrusting sharp objects into my gum and squeezing until the pus burst out. It was a little painful and bloody.
Did I mention that I’m not too bright? That’s pretty evident by now.
I moved in with my father that summer. The perforation remained. My gum would become swollen and infected about once a year. I’d heat a steak knife, cut it open and drain it. I got pretty good at it. Yes, I know how lucky I am that the infection didn’t worsen and kill me.
I did this alone because my adventures with my tooth upset my parents. They were exasperated that I kept knocking it out. That exasperation spread to me. I also became aware of being studied and judged. I didn’t like the judgement I heard. I became overly self-conscious, and secretive about my tooth and what was going on with it. My mumbling increased.
Eventually, I joined the Air Force. Uncle Sam replaced my post with a pink, plastic denture. That lasted about ten years. I’d break that tooth off, too, then glue it back into place. I struggled to eat with it, so I’d take it out, usually wrapping it in a napkin so that others didn’t see it. Of course, that left a tooth-sized gap in my smile.
My wife would sometimes need to remind me not to forget it after I’d taken it out.
A metal bridge replaced the pink one. Also uncomfortable, held into place with little silver holds that wrapped around my bicuspids, Seeing those metal things, people would ask, “What are those silver things on your teeth?” I’d explain it was my denture, and offer to show it to them.
It was pretty flimsy. The bridge would end and twist. I’d try fixing it. Eventually, a new fake tooth on a new post was installed.
Naturally, I broke it off. While eating a hamburger, in fact. I glued it into place. It broke off again. That became my regular thing: glue it into place, and then break it off while eating.
After years of going through all this, I had a new, permanent bridge implanted. It cost me thirteen thousand dollars, but it was worth it. By then, I was fifty years old.
It’s interest how such a trivial matter affected me and my life, and how much of it I’d forgotten. Most of us have something like this that shapes us.
When I think of all the things that others endure, I’m fortunate that it was so trivial.
But I still mumble.
Michael Seidel, writer 