Those self-inflicted ones are much more random, a finger or two, parts of them, those from nerve damage much more uniform, a balanced destruction.
The feet:
The woman, who while walking barefoot, sliced her foot on a piece of glass, how she nearly bled to death not knowing of the wound. The orthopedic boots, made and designed by the patients in the woodworking shops, help them to walk, the artificial feet, legs from the knee down. How she sometimes removes these artificial limbs when giving massages, places them next to the futon or props them against the wall. Those who still have their feet, the bend of them collapsing toward the arch, the crinkled, crushed toes. For them, the orthopedic boots, so they don’t damage their feet while walking.
With the feet, she is much more forgiving, for they are often out of one’s sight, self-inflicted damage easier, more understandable, but not the hands.
The eyes:
The young man already wearing the blue glasses, helping to preserve the nerve function of his eyes. Are even the plum blossoms blue? she wonders. How sometimes while giving a massage, she is talking to the patient and he has fallen asleep, but she will talk on for a while, not realizing that the patient has done so, the nerve-damaged eyes never completely closed. No eyelashes, no eyebrows to protect them, the protruding forehead giving them that lion look she has read about from the books on the clinic bookshelf.
The mouth:
Here, patients in the advanced stages of the disease rely on their memories the most. Memories of the taste of a pear; the burn of drinking the freshly made brown rice tea too fast; the texture of a mountain potato; how she wants to wipe away the spittle that hangs, drips from their unfeeling mouths.
The nose:
Flat, splayed, twisted, some with nearly none at all, the septum gone, nothing to hold it in place, collapsing it.
With the worst of the patients, she places a menthol balm under her nose before massaging them. The overpowering stench of mucus built up in their noses—the smell of the rotting flesh is something that even after all this time, all these massages, she can’t get used to. The mucus draining out— she always has a towel handy to place under their faces when she massages their backs.
And when she returns to her room, she refuses to allow herself to feel sorry for any of them. She can’t allow herself to do that, for if she does, it will crawl into her in the form of self-pity, and that, she knows, is also selfinflicted, also a sign of carelessness.
Her future is somewhere on this island, everywhere, lurking in each patient she sees who doesn’t see her, every one she touches who doesn’t feel her hands, the patients whom she knows in time she will become. The waiting more difficult than the actuality.
But her future doesn’t come. In her sixth month at Nagashima, she begins receiving her shots and taking her doses of Promin. The only future that this assures her of is one of nausea, vomiting, headaches, loss of appetite, wearing a head covering and long sleeves in direct sunlight. Even this future is unpredictable—sometimes all of these side effects after taking the medicine, sometimes none, or a combination of them. Even in this, she has been lucky; others have skin rashes, blood disorders, a bluing of the skin from the medicine.
Months and months pass, and now she can count the months as years. Still she has only the two numb spots on her body—the left forearm, the lower back. Medals or curses—she isn’t sure how to wear them. The one thing that keeps her going is knowing that she is not alone, that there are all the others who arrived that same year as she did, several years before, and in the years after. And she is like them. Living here every day in all their outer normalcy, amid all the inner torment.
She has been waiting thirty minutes and is still an hour away from where the nurses sit honing their needles on whetstones. If it were winter or
The feet:
The woman, who while walking barefoot, sliced her foot on a piece of glass, how she nearly bled to death not knowing of the wound. The orthopedic boots, made and designed by the patients in the woodworking shops, help them to walk, the artificial feet, legs from the knee down. How she sometimes removes these artificial limbs when giving massages, places them next to the futon or props them against the wall. Those who still have their feet, the bend of them collapsing toward the arch, the crinkled, crushed toes. For them, the orthopedic boots, so they don’t damage their feet while walking.
With the feet, she is much more forgiving, for they are often out of one’s sight, self-inflicted damage easier, more understandable, but not the hands.
The eyes:
The young man already wearing the blue glasses, helping to preserve the nerve function of his eyes. Are even the plum blossoms blue? she wonders. How sometimes while giving a massage, she is talking to the patient and he has fallen asleep, but she will talk on for a while, not realizing that the patient has done so, the nerve-damaged eyes never completely closed. No eyelashes, no eyebrows to protect them, the protruding forehead giving them that lion look she has read about from the books on the clinic bookshelf.
The mouth:
Here, patients in the advanced stages of the disease rely on their memories the most. Memories of the taste of a pear; the burn of drinking the freshly made brown rice tea too fast; the texture of a mountain potato; how she wants to wipe away the spittle that hangs, drips from their unfeeling mouths.
The nose:
Flat, splayed, twisted, some with nearly none at all, the septum gone, nothing to hold it in place, collapsing it.
With the worst of the patients, she places a menthol balm under her nose before massaging them. The overpowering stench of mucus built up in their noses—the smell of the rotting flesh is something that even after all this time, all these massages, she can’t get used to. The mucus draining out— she always has a towel handy to place under their faces when she massages their backs.
And when she returns to her room, she refuses to allow herself to feel sorry for any of them. She can’t allow herself to do that, for if she does, it will crawl into her in the form of self-pity, and that, she knows, is also selfinflicted, also a sign of carelessness.
Her future is somewhere on this island, everywhere, lurking in each patient she sees who doesn’t see her, every one she touches who doesn’t feel her hands, the patients whom she knows in time she will become. The waiting more difficult than the actuality.
But her future doesn’t come. In her sixth month at Nagashima, she begins receiving her shots and taking her doses of Promin. The only future that this assures her of is one of nausea, vomiting, headaches, loss of appetite, wearing a head covering and long sleeves in direct sunlight. Even this future is unpredictable—sometimes all of these side effects after taking the medicine, sometimes none, or a combination of them. Even in this, she has been lucky; others have skin rashes, blood disorders, a bluing of the skin from the medicine.
Months and months pass, and now she can count the months as years. Still she has only the two numb spots on her body—the left forearm, the lower back. Medals or curses—she isn’t sure how to wear them. The one thing that keeps her going is knowing that she is not alone, that there are all the others who arrived that same year as she did, several years before, and in the years after. And she is like them. Living here every day in all their outer normalcy, amid all the inner torment.
She has been waiting thirty minutes and is still an hour away from where the nurses sit honing their needles on whetstones. If it were winter or
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