A Hole in the World

Patient X425-15: Issaac, Edean. Breathing slow, but regularly irregular. Pulse 83. Blood pressure 156/95. Lung liquidation 8.5%.

“Any irregular developments in your internal body, Mr. Issaac?”

“Since 10 minutes ago or 10 years ago?” Groggil sounding voice; projected .15 ml of mucus coating throat. “Cause, I’ll tell yah,” Patient coughs; projected .12 ml mucus coating. “Both have different answers.”

“Whichever was most recent.” Laughter as projected, though small and lasting 2.4 seconds. Further, heavier coughing immediately after, lasting 3.8 seconds. Projected .03 ml mucus coating. Lung liquidation 8%.

“Ah ha, oooh.” Clearer voice, projected .03 ml mucus coating more than likely. “It feels like 10 minutes ago lasted forever, but 10 years… 10 years went by so quick. Gone,” patient still able to lift and wave right arm and hand with controlled mobility. “In a day. How does that happen?”

…….

“I do not understand. Try rephrasing the question.” Patient still able to move his head back and forth, minutely. Elbow and wrist are capable of fast, flipping movements.

“Don’t worry about it, JAX. Just the ramblings of an old man, musing on time.”

“Time; a concept measuring the rate of change in quantifiable units.” Patient still capable of smiling on both sides.

“’Spose that’s one way to look at it, yeah.” Slight laughter and cough; lung liquidity and projected mucus coating unchanged.

“Are there any irregular developments or further symptoms in your internal body you can determine, Mr. Issaac?”

“I’m fine, no new irregular developments. Internally, anyways.” Patient adding specification: Internally, no new developments.

“Externally?”

“I’m pretty sure my roots have grown out an extra millimeter.”

Roots… Patient is running left hand through head hair. No obvious signs of pain, discomfort, or struggle. Hair is silver/white close to the scalp where fingers are touching.

Roots of hair strands.

“A naturally occurring bodily function.” Laughter occurring, unprojected. Chest constricting, excessive coughing projecte- occurring. Occurring. Patient must be sat up, prepare Oxygen.

+

Crap spewed from his mouth, out of his throat and blessedly out of his lungs. The relief of such an exercise of his body’s poisons was nearly orgasmic as he breathed a huge, clean gust of air. He didn’t even notice the rust color anymore that driveled out his chin and pooled into the issue. He took an inhale of the Oxygen mask before taking it away, overriding JAX’s strength and clearing his throat with a few small chuckles.

“Oh, if only that weren’t the case.”

“…If only what weren’t the case?” JAX questioned. Edean spared a look over the bot’s metal frame and hovering head. In a way, it almost looked JAX was tilting it in confusion, though still keeping his hands ready with the mask at a moment’s notice.

A true nurse. Edean chuckled silently at the thought.

“Mr. Issaac? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes. I can hear you JAX.” He replied, relieving the poor thing. “I was only thinking, how very nursely you are.”

“Thank you, Mr. Issaac. It is part of my design to be so.”

“Yes, you’re very good at your job.” Edean nigh on mumbled, adjusting himself in the hospital sheets as he disposed of the orange-stained tissue in his hand.

“Now, tell me what is your pain level from 10, being the worst pain you have ever felt, to 0, being no pain felt at all.”

“Aaaah, I’d say today it’s somewhere between 4 and 6.”

“Which is it closer to now?”

“As of 5 minutes ago or 5 seconds ago?”

“Whichever was worse.” Edean chuckled softly. He swore sometimes it felt like JAX was trying to make him laugh, though he did find the robot’s clear and to the point affect as much a comfort as a comedy.

“Well, then I’d say 5 minutes ago. Far closer to an 8 in those few seconds I was hacking out my lung’s capillaries.” JAX tilted it’s head down then, lights flickering over it’s panel in accelerated patterns.

“No capillaries were lost in the last attack. Your lasting alveoli are still accounted for and in place.”

“If not clear of toxins trying to infuse themselves into their membranes.” Edean jested, resting his head against the top pillow. He suddenly was feeling quite tired.

“This is correct, Mr. Issaac.” Edean sighed a long breath out, willfully ignoring the rumble it pulled through his chest.

“Will say though, I felt a load better afterwards. Pain went right down to a 5.”

“Is it accurate to describe your overall pain over the day as being closer to 5 or 6?”

“Yeah, that could be accurate.” Edean nodded.

“Is it definitively accurate, to 5 or 6?”

Damn. He forgot they needed simpler, direct answers.

“Yes. I’d say yes, 5 or… well no. 5 is definitively accurate, for describing today.” In more ways than one he realized, looking over the blue and grey walls of his resting place. The only real break from the monotony being through the view in the window, but even that was only worth looking through after dark when the city lights were out, speckling the dark with diamonds, rubies, warm stars and the occasional rain of amethyst pulled from a passing security blimp. It made him long for a time, when he could touch such beauty.

“Splendid, Mr. Issaac.”

“Yeah, not how I would describe it.” He stayed staring at the gray sky, wishing for dark to come sooner.

“Your pain level is far lower than it has been, with most of this week averaging at a 7 or above. Is that not splendid progress, Mr. Issaac?”

“It’s a splendid reprieve, JAX, sure. However, you and I both know the only progress I’m gettin’ anymore is to my gravestone.” He looked off to the hospital door, wondering what was going on beyond it. If anything was going on beyond it.

“This is correct.” Edean rolled his eyes. The plain but still slightly upbeat voice they gave JAX didn’t ordinarily bother him. In fact, usually it made the machine all the more humorous, creating the illusion of a dry or occasionally oblivious wit. However, in this moment, it only made the truth of what his life had become that much more hammered in. That much more bleak.

“Do you have control over what you sound like, JAX?”

“I am programmed to have three different voices. One of human male dissonance, one of human female dissonance, and one of neutral dissonance.”

“Right, and I’m guessing I’m hearing the upbeat male dissonance?”

“This is correct.” Edean nodded.

“Anyway, you can turn that off? Go to neutral or… whatever that is?” Edean gestured vaguely to JAX’s middle, where a person’s heart or upper chest would be.

 “I can bring your query to the supervising team as a request. They are the ones who pick which dissonance I am set in.” Edean shook his head and waved his hand, as if he could dismiss the idea like a fly from his head.

“Course, damn supervisors. No need for that.” Edean thought for a moment. “Can you really not change it on your own?” The question seemed to put pause in JAX’s circuits, its lights dimming.

“… I could send an email to them as a request. They may respond promptly if still awake.”

“So, you don’t need them to do anything manual to make the change?”

“No.”

Edean nodded. “Well, what’s stopping you from doing it anyway?” There was another pause in JAX’s circuits, its lights not even flicking but for the one at it’s base.

“The supervisors are the ones who pick my dissonance setting, based on their wants and needs.”

“Yeah, I understand that, but I’m the one their serving ain’t I? Aren’t my needs what should be counted here in this regard?”

“You are not the only patient I observe in a day-“

“For Christ’s sake I know that, JAX! I’m just trying-” The yell barged out of him unexpectedly. He wasn’t expecting it, didn’t even realize he was particularly angry. However, the anger had unleashed itself anyway, and brought his lungs out with it. The pain returned as the tubes in his lungs began to cease, his chest bunching up, closing in on itself, then bursting, pushing, dispelling anything it could. Which, unfortunately, would never be enough.

Before Edean knew it, there were two cold ‘arms’ on his chest and back, and the oxygen mask once again being pressed to his face. “Breathe slowly, Mr. Issaac. Breathe slowly.” Edean did as he was told, turning away from the mask in effort to cough something he felt was coming up, burning up his esophagus – but unfortunately nothing came. JAX let him, then lightly pushed the mask back to surround his nose and mouth when he returned to it.

“That’s it, Mr. Issaac. Breathe slowly. Breathe slowly.” He could’ve done without the repeat in tone, as well as words. Wasn’t its fault though, he knew the thing was doing it’s best. “Very good, Mr. Issaac…”

Calmness returned slowly, relaxing his chest, expanding his lungs slowly, and letting the last trickling of coughs rumble out what was left. Occasionally he took his face away from the mask to spit out whatever rust-colored substance he could muster, but otherwise he stayed breathing, per JAX’s instructions. “Breathe slowly. The Oxygen will help you.”

Edean chuckled smally at the obvious. “Really, JAX? And all this time… I thought it was just here… to make me high.”

“That is purely myth. Most likely made by medical students looking for a reprieve from their studies much like a mother would from their child, and thus gives them a sugar pill to incite sleep.” Edean laughed lowly, tiredly.

“I can see that… especially with… medical students. I ever tell you my… husband was one?”

“You have told me of your husband, Dr. Lucon Mikaen, yes.”

“He used to… he used to love teasing me about… all the things I thought of medicine. Things, you just grow up hearing as a kid and… you believe, because everyone else… says their true. Get a bloody nose… hold your head back. Get a concussion… don’t sleep for 24 hours.”

“This is not correct.”

“Hehehe, no. It’s not. That’s the point.” There was a small pause as JAX’s lights went dark again.

“I do not understand.”

Edean smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure you don’t. It’s okay, buddy. You’re probably another thing he would tease me about.” Edean chuckled. “Never was good at taking comfort. Not from people, anyways. Always better at getting the facts, then just going off from there, making jokes, laughing through the darkness and gettin’ things done. Of course, a robot built to diagnose me and nothing else, that’s what would get me going… every day.” Edean became silent a moment, looking through memories of a man once bold, once at peace, once adventurous, once loved… once living a life that would get him going ever day…

“I do the best I can.”

“Yeah… now that he’s gone. Our friends are gone. Our kids are off, exploring the universe, making their lives worthwhile… I don’t have anyone to make mine… worthwhile.” Edean looked down, his fingers now wrinkled and weak feeling against each other. “I’m all alone.”

Silence fell like a blanket of heavy snow amongst them. The cold weight of it all made him shiver, then look further into a hole in space no one else could see. A hole that not even he could truly ‘see’ with his eyes, but he could feel it with his heart. With his soul. A hole in the world, that no one would ever notice.

“… you are not alone.” Edean looked in JAX’s direction, the words seeming far away. “I will be here, everyday and night, to check that you are not dead.”

There was a moment of silence, and Edean broke into small, silent laughs. Eventually he closed his eyes, he couldn’t help it. The sentiment, the voice, the blunt word choice. JAX had changed his voice to something he could only assume was the neutral tone because it sounded exactly what personal robots used to sound like, back in his elementary school years when they first began to teach you the basics of these things. No wonder the supervisor’s never chose it, it made the machine sound incredibly outdated. Pretty soon he’d be coughing again, it was just so damn funny.

“Mr. Issaac, are you alright?” The male tone of dissonance was back in JAX’s voice, and Edean couldn’t help but hold the metal claw of the machine as if it were a hand, wiping his chin of whatever toxin had left him with the other.

“Ooooh, yes. Yes, JAX. I’m alright.” He looked up at the machine’s panel, wondering if it could see him the way humans saw each other. The way he saw that hole. The way he saw JAX, in that moment. “Thank you, my friend. For everything.”

+

Patient is still able to smile. Is holding JAX 45 unit right outer extremity, likely patient is in need of comfort. Patient does not wish to have a comfort unit. Patient does not wish to have any psychological units. Patient is still in need of comfort.

…….

Moving right outer extremities to hold patient’s hand. Patient vitals calming.

“You’re welcome,” Patient smiling. “Friend.”