SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

Sit.10: The Beaker's Solution

THE CURE

Soon in stone we stand alone
and massed in herds we dwindle
shambled tatters made of us
life that undead hinders

alas, a cure, for demon's blight,
from poison-making flora,
shades of night and seeds of light
of tropics and auroras

leaves of thresh can sate the mind
but beware the poppy's promise
many plants can bring you sleep
but not all can bring you wellness

Medicine and ales too harsh
will kill what guards your honor
and leave unguarded all your flesh
its territory garnered

snake oils left and tonics right
doctors blind from masks too tight
science choked until it prays
heed dearly what the scholars say

know well too that flesh is harm
when taken from its bone
though suffered screams may not alarm
it makes the sickness home

And sweet performs, a band of one
makes all that it can dream
bread and honey, gold as sun,
begs novelty to gleam

but sweetness takes upon itself
to race against the cure
so if you seek to live again
stave sweetness to be sure

and when you hear the siren's song
to give in to addiction,
remember those who died before,
and summon your conviction.

* * *

I smelled coffee. I woke up again, and saw The Doc sitting next to me, nose over a steaming mug. He smelled its vibrant, bitter aroma with a deep inhale.
"God, yeah," he sighed, and took a cautious sip. "I can't believe we don't have this at home. Nothing but bloody tea."
I croaked, "You don't like tea?"
He shook his head. "Not anymore." Then he held it up to my mouth, at a bit of an angle. "Drink."
I cracked my dry lips open, so he could pour some in. It was just a little too hot, but I didn't have the breath to spit it out. "Blagh," I winced. "That's acrid. Did you burn it?"
"A little," he nodded, and took the mug away.

Piercing and dull pains of all kinds throbbed like a storm throughout my body, mostly in my neck. I was also dealing with an ear infection, for which I was rolled onto my side and given a tincture that dripped into my left ear-hole and stung me inside my head. The smell of my own infected flesh was in the air, but the oil cut through it like a knife with its own pungent aroma, not unlike mint tea but much stronger. After rounds of that, as well as gritting my teeth and bracing my body best I could, the pain gradually cooled into a tingly crawl. Concentrating to hold my head a certain way, I could feel blood rushing in and out of my extremities with each heart's beat and pump. The pain's sparks, I found, I could divert to other parts of my body, to wake them up, and I used it first to map out the side of my face that plague and swelling had once made numb all those years ago. It felt like something solid was blocking my inner reach, so I sent it thunder from my heart, and it skittered until it burned away. Then, pain still sounding in constant repetition, I took those sparks to wake up my limbs, and shock my fingers and toes back to life. If the pain dulled, I had to wait for it to return to get to work again. I didn't know if it was day or night, and thoughts of lovers and friends and enemies past were floating around me like clouds as I drifted in and out of sleep. Somehow, through sheer concentration, I was using my intense pain to re-establish my soul across my form. The basis of my trick came from The Knight's advice, when he and I were lifting irons in training – him for the watch, I for reaping. He'd told me you can find any muscle in your body if you close your eyes and feel it, and that it would help you build the right way during a work-out. Now, I'd adapted this technique to follow an electric path from my brain, to my chest, to arms, waist, legs, and back again. It penetrated not just my flesh, but every bone in my body, jolting my marrow red again with searing bloody flame. I was subjected to The Doc's birdlike mask many times, and saw so many doubles of him I thought I was kidnapped at once by a flock of crows. His eerie goggles reflected my own face back at me, his cautious breaths hissed from the holes in his beak. At some point, The Doc had put my helm back on my head, and found it too big – so he commissioned a leather one, and strapped it on. I could feel my swollen brain growing slightly smaller, but felt smarter for it – like I was shedding unnecessary water weight to draw closer connections between thoughts. My entire skeleton ached for pressure, which I gave it by contracting my muscles as hard as I could. All the while, my demon and more came to challenge me in my corpus-twisty, demanding control of my fevering flesh, dragging their ethereal claws through me. Through some kind of holy courage, I met them with light and heard their squeals as they disappeared from me for good. Finally exorcised, I was able to relax my body and rest.