Celestial Inventories

Read Celestial Inventories for Free Online Page B

Book: Read Celestial Inventories for Free Online
Authors: Steve Rasnic Tem
is not normal.”
    “In ancient times epilepsy was considered a holy disease.”
    He sounded ridiculous, and trapped within the rough wall texture, he looked quite ill.
    ----
    From
The Disease Artist: A Performance Chronicle:
    During the last year of his career, following the disruption at his
Cholera!
engagement, The Disease Artist enacted a number of manifestations in a relatively short period of time:
    His scrofula was remarkable in the brilliance of its “neck collar” rash, a bright red which awed the spectators. The accompanying suppurations were plentiful and some said spelled out intriguing messages if you understood the language.
    His short-lived sleeping sickness performance disturbed some of its audience when The Disease Artist manifested a morbid craving for meat, devouring a number of dead animal parts and then attempting to bite his partner of ten years, Mickey Johnson.
    His portrayal of a memorable yellow fever victim, attempting to explain the breeding habits of mosquitoes while vomiting up large quantities of blood made greasy and black from gastric juices.
    His leprosy and his yaws were cancelled in mid-performance. There are no existing eyewitness accounts.
    ----
    With Mickey gone and the government threatening to close down his career, The Disease Artist found that his recuperation times had lengthened and the side effects of his various recovery regimens were increasing. He had been experiencing severe shortness of breath for several days before he decided to return to his local hospital. But once the day’s attendant recognized him, he ordered a battery of screening tests to check for any lingering issues.
    Jerome waited over two hours for the attendant to return. He wondered how sick you had to be to actually see a full-fledged doctor anymore. Worm food. Mickey used to say that his art was coarsening him.
    The hospital was as slow and quiet as most of the city’s restaurants. And every bit as concerned with disinfection. The spray from the nozzles was a constant background music.
    He did not know when hospitals had become places of such quiet. Now you could walk inside a hospital and be almost oblivious to pain and blood and the mess of illness. Of course this did not mean that the patients no longer felt the pain, no longer spilled the blood. There must be a higher survival rate in these new hospitals, but in their hush and tidiness they felt more like old fashioned funeral homes.
    A sudden rush in the corridor, figures passing, a whoosh of pressure, sharp perfume scent. Curious, he climbed off the gurney and walked into the hall.
    In the next room activity was manic. Attendants rushed around a small figure in the narrow bed. Blood everywhere. The significance of this did not occur to him immediately. Blood everywhere. He stepped closer. A young woman lay beneath one of the blue life blankets, but something had malfunctioned, things had gone messy, and the girl was bleeding out through nose and mouth and from wounds invisible.
    Suddenly Jerome realized he was alone in the room with the bleeding girl. There was so much blood, more blood than most had seen in decades, more blood than any small human had the right to contain.
    ----
    Mickey thought he would retrieve the rest of his belongings while Jerome was out. He watched the apartment for days, and seeing no activity during that period he used his handprint to get in, both saddened and pleased that it had not been erased from the building’s memory.
    He found Jerome wandering from room to room, followed by jets of disinfectant and his own image from the day’s newsreels. The stench was as bad as from any of Jerome’s performances. He thought about checking the supplies of masking and cleansing compounds for the apartment, then remembered he didn’t live there anymore.
    “If I’m doing my job correctly, if I’m taking the particular malady far enough, some permanent physical damage always occurs: even after the course of the disease has been

Similar Books

Citizen of the Galaxy

Robert A. Heinlein

Irresistible Lines

Breena Wilde

Rise of Phoenix

Christina Ricardo

The Hunt

Allison Brennan

Exile

Rowena Cory Daniells

His Plus One

Winter Gemissant