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Monday, July 19th, 2010
Voices above the surface.
Eight hours to remove the parasite’s internal organs . . . amputate . . .
Who’s speaking? Talking about?
Nervous system disorganized . . . chaotic . . .
Circles of pink light. Spreading fast.
No paralysis in the autosite . . .
Bitter. Smell? Taste?
Four hours to suture . . .
Metal clangs. Water runs. Where?
Earlier separation . . . much simpler . . .
Murmuring, mumbling, laughing.
Twelve years old . . . quite late . . . psychological adjustment . . .
Tapping. Slapping?
Voice, very close: “Daman. Are you awake? Can you wake up? Your father is here.”
No moving. Eyes closed. Cold cocoon. Sleep.
Later? Daddyji’s voice: “Daman. Daman. Wake up now. Everything went fine. It’s all over. All you have to do now is rest and recover.”
What does it mean? Remembering. Today is the operation. Separation. Amputation. Something.
But Kalki’s still here. I feel him, the weight of him, on my belly. He can’t move either, but he’s here.
I hear a whisper. It’s me: “When will it happen?”
Laughter. Daddyji’s voice: “It’s already happened. It’s over. It’s done. You’re fine.”
Whisper: “But--Kalki? I feel him.”
Daddyji’s voice, harder now: “No. It’s gone. You’re normal now. Open your eyes and look.”
White ceiling pocked with little holes.
A cold hand slides under my neck, lifts my head. Blue walls, white sheets, silver metal things.
Daddyji. My body, flat and bandaged.
I can’t see Kalki, but of course he’s there. Where else would he be?
*
We were born not one or two, but one and a half. Born
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with “twin reversed arterial perfusion.” Our one heart was inside my body, making me the pump twin. His tiny lower torso and legs protruded from my abdomen, his vestigial head buried inside me. You can still see that ghostly head on the X-rays. His shoulders and arms never developed. When people asked me how it felt to have someone else’s head inside me, I never knew how to answer. What does it feel like for you not to have a head inside your torso? “Normal”? There’s your answer.
But Kalki wasn’t dead--oh, no! I could always feel his life, our heart pumping blood through his little body. I felt his temperature fluctuations, his tiny toes stretching and flexing. He twitched constantly, even in his sleep. You know how you can use a ticking clock to simulate a mother’s heart beat, to reassure an infant or a puppy? That’s how his constant tiny movements were to me--reassuring, comforting, like rocking in a cradle.
He smelled like life. Strange to say, I suppose, but the smell of life is piss and shit. (The dead produce neither.) He always wore a diaper, of course--he dribbled and dripped constantly--but his closeness to my nose meant that I always smelled him. I don’t remember ever thinking that he smelled bad, I guess because the smell was always with me. It was just Kalki’s smell, my brother’s smell. Later, when I got older and more interested in our penises, I noticed that his sometimes got hard. I tried a few times to make him come, but that never happened. His smell was always babyish, never adolescent.
The doctors always called him the parasite. It annoyed me that they didn’t use his name. After all, they called me Daman, not the autosite. Mamaji used his name and so did I, but no one else ever did.
*
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