"The doctor ordered a urine pregnancy test?"
The nurse pokes his head into my cave, a tiny triage suite illuminated only by the vitals displayed on the screen behind my bed and the world beyond the door. He poses his statement as a question, looks at me like he's looking into the face of a woman who doesn't sleep with men.
"There's no way," I reply, meeting his gaze. I brace for questions, but they don't come. "It's been... years," I add, hoping I've concealed the defensive panic welling in my chest.
The nurse nods, glances briefly at my vitals, and leaves, quietly sliding the door shut behind him. He is gentle, kind, and I am grateful. My pulse rushes with release, and my throbbing head throbs harder. I lean forward in the bed and press my forehead into my ice pack, drip hot tears into my lap.
If I could contemplate much beyond the pain, I might ponder my shame. So much to-do about which gender is having which sex with who and how and why and which god is ok with it but at least they are having sex. Nobody talks about the freaks who don't want it. Who are ashamed to talk about not wanting it. But nobody cares about that here.
"Three ibuprofen, three Tylenol."
I wait for it to kick in but it never does. I'd turned down anything stronger for fear it would make the nausea worse.
Voices on the other side of the door, the other side of this experience. Convivial conversations between colleagues. They bring comfort. They bring loneliness.
A tech comes with a wheelchair to wheel me down the hall for a CT scan. Asks my birthdate and tucks my gown around my exposed back. In the new room I am helped onto a cold slab. A new voice asks again to confirm my birthdate, then repeats it into the space beyond me in a volume for speaking through walls. I'm given a warm blanket to huddle under while they slide my head into the swirling portal.
"This will only take a couple minutes," someone says. I squeeze my eyes shut, wild animal terror suffocating under docile human restraint. Time forgets me, and the scan is over in moments.
"Does anyone ever see anything strange when they get these?" I ask the ceiling as the slab lowers.
"People tell us all kinds of things," another tech says brusquely.
I turn my head and look at him. I think he looks like the type who watches a lot of documentaries about aliens and conspiracy theories. I don't remember seeing him when I came in. He does not seem gentle like the others, and I do not like myself for these secret judgments, these private gut reactions.
I don't tell anyone about the twinkling purple electricity I saw with my third eye while I was in the portal.
The first tech tells me I can hang on to my blanket and guides me back into the chair. I notice other patients as he wheels me to my room. In chairs, on stretchers, headed to the kinds of unfamiliar somewheres I'm headed to. Attended by professionals for their medical needs. Alone, like me, with their fear, their pain, their courage, their fate. Their shame.
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