Moving Forward in Reverse by Martin Scott, Coryanne Hicks

those
signals off the surface of your skin and translate them to the electric hands.
No straps or cables. And the best part is you’d have hands instead of hooks.’
He paused and looked at me for a while. An alternative to the hooks? I
didn’t care if I only got three of five fingers, it’d still be better than
none.
    ‘The downside is just one of those things costs about as much as a
new car.’ I winced. A new car? Each? And I’d need two. How could I
afford that? ‘You should look into how much your insurance is willing to cover
and consider it. Not everyone has this option, you know.’
    I nodded. I did know: It was a gift from the surgeons who’d saved
my life and I wanted to accept it. My brother Rick worked as an insurance
agent. I could ask him to look into making the cost of the myos acceptable
to my insurance company , I thought. A flicker of hope was beginning to take
shape and it scared the living daylights out of me. If this went South. . .
    I pursed my lips. I couldn’t afford to be crushed. Not again.
    ‘In the meantime, the prosthetist will be by in two days to cast
you for the hooks.’
    Out blew out my little flame of optimism.
    Gathering up the bandages, he said, ‘Stay strong, man,’ and left
me to my thoughts.
    ~~~
    Two days came much too soon. I spent the morning of the casting
lost in my own dour mind. I didn’t want the hooks, yet, or the reality they
signified. Even with the potential of the myos down the road, I couldn’t come
to terms with the fact that I needed prosthetics. In the same way that seeing
my arms un-bandaged forced me to confront the fact that three-quarters of an
arm was all I had left, donning prosthetics would mean facing the true
consequences of my amputations. I would be one of “those” people you saw on the
street: part human, part robot. The kind of people you gave a slightly
wider-than-necessary berth to as if amputation were a contagious disease; whom
you would lie to and say you hadn’t even noticed the prosthetic hand or missing
leg while inside you were cringing at the mere mention of such things. No one
liked to face reality when it came to prosthetics because the reality was it
could happen to anyone. It had happened to me.
    The prosthetist was an older gentleman who had clearly moved past
the emotional side of his job long before meeting me. He was very
matter-of-fact and did little talking other than explaining how to place my
arms for the casting.
    I was thankful for his silence, as I’m sure he was aware. While he
positioned my arms and wrapped them to just above my elbow in the plaster
casting material, I stared dejectedly out the window. I wanted no part in this
process, necessary as it might be. I preferred the image of the outside world –
the world unaffected by my paltry existence – and thought of nothing; felt
nothing.
    The entire process took less than thirty minutes. By the time the
plaster had dried enough for the prosthetist to use a Dremel tool to slice each
molded cast from my arm, I had managed to detach myself from the present just
as cleanly. I watched him pack his things and heard him say his good-bye, but I
wasn’t cognizant enough to register any of it until long after he had slipped
from my room.
    I would recover from that withdrawal. Life would go on and I would
persist in my recovery, strengthening what I could and learning to cope with
what I couldn’t. For the brief respite between casting and fitting, thoughts of
the hooks would again fade to the background where I’d allow myself to box them
up and think exclusively of simpler things. Unfortunately, like all reprieves
this one, too, came to an end. It was a meager week later when I was forced to
confront the things I’d been avoiding in an onslaught of trepidation.
    He came shortly after the breakfast dishes had been cleared while
I was resting contentedly with my USA Today spread on the bed table before me.
I hadn’t been expecting him, so I turned to the motion of