NaPM April 2, 2018

[Knot]

Everything Old


He focused on the arm, tracking it's surgical cleanliness
up past the first elbow, losing it in the dazzle of the l.e.ds.
The light, he surprised himself by remembering, was designed
to simulate late morning in spring, somewhere below twenty
degrees south, which seemed curiously inappropriate.

He turned his head as the whirring servomotor began to rotate
the syringes and listened, intrigued by the almost biological sound
of the barrel being filled; one more tiny asthmatic, allergic
to this century. The liquid left a thin film on the inside
of the plastic tube, like an unshed tear;

the image burst as the needle pricked his skin. The machine
never hesitated, never had difficulty finding a vein.
He imagined the sedative, cold as it entered his bloodstream,
soothing the lit match burn of the injection site, swiftly
warming to the temperature of his blood.

He tried to recall what he had done to deserve this,
to choose this; but the thought faltered even as it formed.
The drug began to unwind his memories, and effortlessly,
painlessly, he was forgotten.