Beatrice Bleakley
it’s an old Seventies control room,
like they had in Chernobyl.
there’s a circular gold table
much like the record
sent into space
and a man
with dark combed hair
in scrubs and a surgical mask
stands near it.
strewn across the table
are barely opaque tendrils—
not quite wires,
something made out of
firm plastic light.
and they are streaming out of a girl,
a woman, really,
although she appears youthful.
her eyes are closed,
nothing in the expression.
long straight brown hair
fans under her
somewhat slender skull
across the table on her left,
limp strands
cascading towards the floor.
the woman is torn in half,
but there is no blood,
only the tubes of light
connected to her midriff.
neither thin nor fat,
she is wearing something
like a hospital gown
although perhaps it is more to do
with a baptismal dress.
we see only the half of her
containing her arms,
one cast loosely
across her not quite small
(not quite large) breasts
and the other
hanging off the table.
you cannot tell
if she is conscious or not.
you cannot tell
if she is unconscious
whether it’s by choice
or by force.
“is this you?”
the man asks,
muffled by his mask.
you step closer
and look at the woman.
you see you
in the freckles on her arm,
her scrunched up little chin.
her eyelashes clump together,
like yours.
her breasts are
weighted somewhat
by gravity,
like yours.
her fingernails are bitten
and when you look at the hand
that is half reached out
of its own volition,
you see yours are too.
“i don’t know,” you lie.
“i don’t know who this is.
i don’t know if she’s me.”
“it is you,” the man insists.
you focus on the lights now.
the filaments
almost remind you
of the glowsticks ever-present
in your childhood.
one good hard yank,
one decisive crack,
and they burst all aglow.
but there is no touch of stress,
no point of severance
where the color is darker.
you reach out hesitantly
and brush your fingers
through them.
they’re stiffer
than you would have
expected them to be,
and when they brush together
they clack lightly,
like the balls
in a Newton’s Cradle.
“it is you,”
the man repeats.
“it is you.”
he’s getting louder
and angrier
and you don’t know
how to explain it,
that this creature
does not have your hair,
or your face.
she does not
possess your weight,
she does not
have the scar
on the bridge of your nose
from when your brother
threw a projector at you
when you were children.
this is not your body,
but the sheer you-ness of her
radiates out
glowing uranium,
making you sicker and sicker
just to look at her.
she is unwell,
you think.
all her unwell
is seeping out of her aura
she is irradiating all who come close,
anybody in her radius
will cough up blood
and turn black
and slough skin
and they will tell her
it wasn’t her fault,
she just happened to be there,
but she will know.
she will know
that the act of getting near
poisons them
with the air they breathe in,
and in that moment,
you are yourself
standing on the floor
and i am lying
strewn across the table.