The Focus Effect

Three

Doctor Sue is right about needing my rest.  The next three days are long and tiresome.  There are memory tests, psychic tests, math tests and comprehension tests.  There are blood tests, genetic tests, and radiation tests.  In those first few days, I thought a lot about who I might be.  Where did I come from?  Who was my family?  Why can't I remember?  Doctor Sue says that I'm trying too hard.  It's very frustrating so I've decided not to dwell on it.  I don't get to see her as often as I used to, and when I do, it's through a window and she's surrounded by other doctors analyzing data.

Over the next several days, my blood is drawn every morning by a droid that greets me with a mechanical voice.  The droid is a little taller than me and relatively plain looking.  Its body is mostly white with black sections at its joints.  Its eyes glow a soft blue color.  It says funny things sometimes that make me laugh.  Somewhere between the robot's ability to learn and the programming it has been given, things get lost in translation.  I said I was a bad egg one morning when the droid was trying to draw blood from my arm and couldn't find the vein.  The robot seemed to ponder this for a moment before saying, "I see neither chickens, nor any other kind of avian present from which an egg, otherwise good or bad, could have been expelled."  I rolled with laughter and tried to explain figurative speech to him to no avail.  I like my time with the machine and try to find reasons to make its visits last longer. 

His name is BOB, which stands for Blood/Observation and Buttinski.  I think it was a stretch to come up with the acronym and that the designer must have really wanted the name Bob.  I'm just thankful to have a friend.  I like to ask Bob what a buttinski is.  His answer is the same no matter how many times I ask the question.  "A buttinski is a person who recommends, teaches or otherwise helps."  It's pretty funny and ridiculously adorable the way he stresses the last syllable of some words as opposed to the first.  He only does it with a few words and my name is one of them. Han-NAH, he says.  I tend to fawn over him like a cute little puppy dog which leads me to believe that I'm either going crazy or desperate for human interaction.

After two weeks in the facility, I'm no longer feeling nauseated or throwing up.  I'm no longer hungry or thirsty.  My skin has started to change and there are faint silver markings on my arms, legs, shoulders, and stomach.  These markings spiral around my limbs like vines climbing a bamboo pole.  I'm feeling stronger and healthier than I have since my arrival but I'm craving sunlight like a chocolate sundae.  By this time, though, my radiation levels have spiked through the roof and Bob is the only one allowed to see me.  He stays with me most of the day now.  The doctors can speak and see through Bob if need be, but mostly they talk through the intercom in the room.  I see Doctor Sue even less these days.

This morning when Bob enters my room, I prepare for my blood to be drawn. 

"That will not be necessary today," he advises.

"Okay," I shrug, rolling my sleeve back down.  I'm happy not to be prodded for a change.  "So what's on the agenda today, Bob?"

"I will be taking you to your new room in the Vault," he informs me. 

"Okay."  The word comes out with hesitation.  I'm not sure if being taken to "The Vault" is something to be celebrated.  But I'm so tired of being cooped up in a small room that I'm ready for a change in environment, preferably to one with a window so I can see the sky.

Bob reaches out and offers his hand, which catches me off guard, but I take it.  How can I not, I mean, really?  As far as friends go, who could ask for a better one?  He listens without interrupting, he's honest, and he makes me laugh.  It gets me to thinking.  Who out there might be missing me?

Suddenly, I'm bombarded with blue and gold lights.  The blue ones jump off of Bob like sparks then settle into orbit around him.  I feel dizzy.  For a moment, I almost think I understand the threads of lights.  Over the past handful of days I've figured out how to not see them when they show up so unexpectedly.  I do this now, concentrating so hard that I almost have to let go of Bob's hand.  Like changing a lens on a camera, I shift my focus.  The lights go away.  I look back at my room for anything to take with me before we go.  But there's nothing here that belongs to me.  "I'm ready," I say.