Stella said from the microwave, “I’m awake, dear.”
“I was trying to be quiet.”
Corey stopped at the medical readouts displayed at the foot of the bed. Stella felt around in her head until she found the readouts too, clear in her mind, pulse, temperature, blood pressure, chemical balances, respiration. She held her breath to see the breathing stop. Soon, the pulse accelerated.
“Ma’am?” Corey said, a touch of concern in her voice.
Stella released the pent-up air in a whoosh. “Oh, this is fun.”
“Fun?”
“I’m mobile again.”
“I don’t understand.”
Stella wished there was a camera on her bed so she could see Corey’s expression, but all the eyes in the room were behind her.
“I told you,” Stella said. “The seat of my consciousness is on the move.”
Corey shook her head.
“The seat of your consciousness is where you picture yourself. It’s where you feel the center of who you are emanates. Where is the seat of your consciousness, dear?”
The young woman sat in a chair next to the bed. Now the side of her face was clearly in view. Fine, blonde hair that fell to just above her shoulders. High cheekbones. A mouth that turned down when she wasn’t smiling, so she often looked pensive. Stella tried to remember when her own face was so unlined.
“In me?” said Corey.
“Yes, but where within you? Try this. Close your eyes and just listen. Where are you, your essence, the seat of your consciousness?”
For a minute, neither woman made a sound.
Corey laughed. “Between my ears, just behind my eyes.”
Stella sighed. “Yes, that’s where it would be. But what if you couldn’t hear or see? What if your only sense was of touch? Would the seat of your consciousness be in your hands then?”
Corey’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She stood. “The night nurse and your dinner will be here soon. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”
“No, dear. I’m enjoying my independence,” she said from the medical sensor.
A voice Corey didn’t hear often said inside her ear, “This is the mattress speaking. The sheets are soiled and need attention.”
After the night nurse came and they changed the sheets—the old woman seemed almost weightless as they transferred her to and from the bed—Corey put on her coat. Her hands smelled of antiseptic. The nurse, a solid-looking woman with sturdy calves, stood in the doorway into Stella’s room, her arms crossed. “I don’t give her a week at this rate,” she said. “Nutrients aren’t being absorbed. She dehydrates easily. Next coma will be her last.”
Corey felt a sudden itchiness in her eyes, but she resisted the impulse to rub them. “I know.”
“I’ve got another patient signed up in her spot at the end of the month. It’ll be a scheduling problem if this one hangs on that long.”
It wasn’t until Corey reached the park across the street from the building that she let herself cry. The park bench said, “You are upset. Can I contact a counseling service for you?”
Corey blew her nose. The air smelled of elm and warm streets, and the afternoon sun cast long shadows of buildings and trees across the lawn. Traffic hummed quietly on all sides. A few feet in front of her, four small gray birds pecked at the sidewalk. They moved in little hops from one spot to the next, tapping for a moment, then straightening to look for threats. Corey leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, a tissue hanging from one hand.
One of the birds hopped toward her, its black eyes like pencil tips glistening in its feather-smooth head. The bird cocked its head to one side, then the other, looking at her. It pecked at a seed on the cement, then looked at her again. Corey half expected the bird’s voice to erupt in her ear. “What are you staring at?” it might ask, or “Any bread crumbs?” But the bird was mute. The tiny intelligence functioned on its own. Corey pressed her palm on her belly. Still flat. The doctor had said there was a heartbeat, but she couldn’t feel it. The doctor had said, “We’ll throw it away. Just a handful of cells. An annoyance, no more.” How big was it growing inside her now? Was it as big as a wren? Where was its voice?
When Corey went to bed, she stayed awake for hours watching the shadows from the tree outside her window play across her ceiling. As she finally grew drowsy, the shadows took the shape of small gray birds, hopping from tile to tile.
Stella didn’t feel tired in the least. If she concentrated, she realized she could identify a sound’s location. All she needed was to triangulate from the microphones. A minuscule scritching sound behind the closed doors under the counter told her a mouse was hard at work. The night nurse’s steady tapping of the pencil on the table while she contemplated a crossword puzzle seemed as distinct as a bell. She heard the pencil’s beat echo from the walls, and without accessing video, she could see the room like a bat, each tap clarifying the dimensions.
Stella chuckled. Maybe what she could do would be to order a remote control sensing device. Something she could direct through the interface. She could walk the streets again, or at least her senses could go.
The medical sensor clicked. A valve opened inside to release a dose of something from Stella’s I.V. line. She moved her consciousness into the sensitive machine. Of all the devices in the room, the medical sensor provided the most information. Her own pulse was a sound, a feeling and a color, throbbing like a dull red sun. Her breathing rasped in rainbow hues, dazzling in the medical sensor’s perception. Her body’s temperature registered in numbers and grid lines, the coolness of her fingers and feet, the warmth of her chest and stomach.
She watched herself on the bed, probed her organs, listened to the crackle of air through her nose, the snap of her lips as they separated for another breath, the gurgle of her intestines.
After a couple hundred steady beats of her tired heart, Stella realized the sound of her breathing had changed. The snore vibrated in the room, stopped for a moment, resumed.
The mouse paused in its investigations in the cabinet. The night nurse kept tapping.
I’m sleeping, Stella thought. I’m wide awake and sleeping. How interesting.
The tram from Corey’s apartment to work was only half full. Across the aisle, a man, a woman and a five-year-old girl hunched over a coloring book. The girl said, “I’m making the sky purple because purple is Mommy’s favorite.” The woman smiled. She wore a yellow blouse and pants that left most of her midriff bare. No lines on her slender belly. She’s never been pregnant, Corey thought. Pregnant. The word itself felt alien in Corey’s head. No queasiness for the yellow-blouse lady. Of course not. Corey couldn’t picture what it would be like to sit on the tram, her belly gravid and alive with motion. She’d read that a pregnant mother could feel the baby kicking inside. What was that like? Little fleshy earthquakes. People would stare. She shuddered.
“I like purple too,” said the child.
The man tousled the girl’s hair. He was Harlow’s age. How had the man and woman got together? Had his wife said I love you first? Did she know then that she loved him?
Corey closed her eyes and rested the side of her head against the window until she reached her stop.
The family exited first. Corey gripped the handrail near the door, waiting for them to leave. The little girl turned and held up a broken crayon to her dad. He took it, shrugged, and dropped it in a waste bin on the sidewalk.