jane revisited

Some of you who know me in three dimensions have read this already, so to you some I apologize for being redundant. For the rest of you, it's the beginning of a story I abandoned when the chick-lit craze hit, because I didn't want to be a hack copycat writer. I'm older, wiser and less scrupled now, with no such compunctions. So I'm thinking of resurrecting Jane and helping her find that which she's lost. Maybe when I do, I'll finally figure out what I'm in search of myself. If you likey, I'll post subsequent "chapters" and maybe even write a few more. I make no promises, but we'll see. . .

Jane sat on the edge of the bed looking hard at the x-ray of her torso clipped to the light box three feet away. It was difficult for her to discern the tangle of organs, the edges of bone soft and shadowy, the wispy outline of her derma. It looked ephemeral and other­ worldly, a quick exhale and -- poof! -- it would all disperse like smoke. To her untrained eye, nothing appeared at all awry. In fact, she thought it was the best picture anyone had ever taken of her.

The doctors, however, had a different opinion. Apparently, her heart was missing. Missing. Not deformed, shrunken, clogged, strained, swollen, upside down or backwards, just. . . missing. Oh, they were quick to assure her that her other organs were in wonderfully present condition -- lovely lungs, a gorgeous spleen and the most perfectly matched pair of kidney's they'd ever seen. They even labeled her appendix, "cute," as if to make up for her prodigal organ.

Jane was grateful, she supposed, for their concern, though she had a sneaking suspicion they were less interested in her as a person than they were in the sum of her parts. She was, to them, a mathematical equation and her heart was the x. Still, they seemed to go through the motions well enough, which was as much as she ever really expected from anyone. At least they asked all the right questions, even if they didn't seem particularly interested in the answers.

"How are you feeling," they wanted to know.

"Fine," she answered.

"You aren't in any pain," they asked.

"Nope," she answered.

"You should know that you are very, very ill," they responded, slightly malicious, resentful of her blithe good health, despite her obvious infirmity.

"But I feel okay," she maintained. And then seeing their annoyance she added, "Maybe a little cold, though."

"Ahhh. . ." they nodded knowingly to each other, "That would be from loss of circulation to the extremities."

She could practically hear their sighs of relief at her admission, but Jane disagreed. It seemed to her that the drafty paper "gown" they'd forced her to wear provided little protection from the hospital's air conditioning. She wondered if the chilly environment was meant to stem the progress of disease through people's bodies and preserve what healthy tissue was left: Cryogenics-light, for the not-quite dead. She'd taken a breath to ask the question, but they were already leaving, muttering amongst themselves.

". . . Journal of Modern Medicine. . ."

". . . history-making case. . ."

". . . article I wrote, published last year. . ."

The bastards. They would be attaching their names to her condition before she could say patent law. The Drucker-Feingold Syndrome. The Feingold-Asner-Krikey Condition. If it were her anomaly, you'd think she'd get to put her name on it. After all, she thought indignantly, one should not have to copyright one's own heart.

She jumped off the bed, intent on venting her perfectly gorgeous spleen at them, but a sudden, surprising waft of cold air told her that the back tie of her gown had come undone.

To be continued: Jane and the Doc Tease