And there wasn't a sound. To the distorted senses, wavering and uncertain, sounds could be masculine. "Yes?" said Maureen poutingly. "Where are you now?" But she couldn't hear what she said. So she stopped speaking.
It was forbidden.
The bloodstream left her heart and had no path but to return deviously. It travelled darkly with many branches, pounding, flushed with oxygen from the lung machines. The mind was turned inward. The body was turned inward. Life had no place to go. It was out of balance.
Her feet touched the floor and she got out of bed. The flesh was heavy. The tube in her chest whistled with exertion. There was oxygen, too much of it, but there was no substitute for the regulative substances her body didn't have. She was falling apart, pulled apart by the wild dissimilar tendencies of all her cells.
She kept on walking until she lunged against a wall. Her nose splayed to one side but her veins weren't ready to bleed. There was nothing to tell them to let out the red drops. She fell down and got up, walking on, banging against the wall.
She could never find anyone she knew. After a while she realized the person she missed most was herself.
Why was it light without being light and dark with no darkness? Her eyes had forgotten they were supposed to see. She sat down in the middle of the floor and began plucking at the hospital gown, pulling it apart thread by thread. Her mind said she didn't feel what she touched but she didn't believe everything. She practiced playing tricks on her thoughts. There were so many tricks to play and such few thoughts.
She sat there, pretending to listen to something that nobody said. She waved her fingers languidly and closed her eyes with deep regret, lips curved for the kiss that wasn't given.
Cameron came in and hurried out after one glimpse, calling for Jeriann. The deterioration was proceeding more rapidly than he expected. There were not three weeks left. It might be less than three days.