The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter four

I opened my eyes, slowly, as if they had been glued together and it was a straining task just to crack them open a little bit.

 But finally, I could take in my surroundings.

 White walls, and scratchy bedcovers. Tubes in my nose, a fancy heart monitor beeping steadily. To my right there was a boy, looked to be about my age, dressed in his farming attire, something different from the standard issued clothing.  His eyes were closed and he was snoring obnoxiously.

 My head felt clear, though. It was miraculous. Any and all guilt about my trip to the SHQ had dissipated.

 I hadn’t noticed the door at the far end of the room until it opened. An older man walked in, wearing a lab coat; extremely different from the standard issue clothing. He had silver hair, deep brown eyes, and a stethoscope wrapped around his neck.

 When he saw that I was conscious, he smiled.

 “You’re lucky.” he said plainly.

  I cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking a question.

 “Well, most of your jacket was shredded to pieces, by whatever animal attacked you, and your body temperature dropped.” he said.

 “Pardon my asking, but how does that make me lucky, exactly?” I asked.

 The doctor chuckled, he was almost charming, for an old guy, of course.

 “When someone is extremely cold, their blood flow slows. Slow blood flow means, little blood loss. It also helped that you had a very rare strain of food poisoning, very similar to rabies, because the most blood came from your head and abdomen, and you didn’t hit your adrenaline rush until ten or so minutes until you reached us. So, you didn’t end up losing so much blood!” he smiled.

 “I had rabies? What does that have to do with anything? What does an adrenaline rush have anything to do with it either?”

 The doctor smiled, and sat on the edge of my bed, putting his clipboard on my legs.

 “They have everything to do with it, sweetie. You see, the rabies allowed you to stay cold enough for a while, because you didn’t register the danger you were in. Once you did register it, though, you had an adrenaline rush, causing your blood to flow faster, yet at the same time, causing the rabies to stop spreading long enough for me to cure you.”

 “How long did it take you to figure that all out, doc?” asked another voice.

 I whipped my head around. It was the boy in the rocking chair. I hadn’t noticed him wake up.

 “Not very long. When you have a PhD, these kind of things are almost second nature. I even figured out how she obtained the rabies. Get this- she ingested the meat of a previously rabid animal.” he laughed jovially. Although it didn’t seem that funny to me.

 That deer didn’t seem all that rabid when my food-starved body was ingesting it.

 Suddenly, the doctor withdrew my covers, exposing my body which was in a pair of pajamas. Standard issue, of course.

 He lifted up my shirt to expose my stomach. I looked down at it.

 Smooth skin. No scarring.

 “No scars?” I breathed.

 “No scars.” the doctor said triumphantly. He handed me a mirror so that I could look at my face. No scars there, either.

  I stroked the bare skin, it was almost better than it was before. So soft.