Bundled in blankets, I watch the rectangles of fluorescence glide past as I am rolled down the hall. I don’t care about anything until I realize that I cannot feel anything below my waist. I cannot feel my feet or penis. I think about that. Think isn’t the right word. I consider that, dazedly consider the meaning of that, until I finally look down to find my toes pointing up against the sheets.

My penis is harder. Not harder. That’s not the word. But impossible to see beneath the sheet. I reach down to find it, loose and fleshy, senseless but there. I do that again and again, reach down, hoping it will regain its senses, and stare off as I’m wheeled again, into the elevator, into my room, and watch the various technicians jab needles for blood and fluids, let me drift off, now six oxycodones deep.

I greet each of the technicians as they check my vitals. I am chatty on the drugs, holding out my arm, being blithe and pithy, in between epiphanies for Mina, the third and final installment of the Cx Trilogy. Iterations of me. That’s what this is: me in the bed, me out the door, me on another planet.

I wiggle my toes and touch my penis. I am coming back into myself.