Pew(19)

He gestured to the other corner of the room where framed certificates hung useless on the wall.
Yes, you can see them for yourself, but what I am saying is, I have spent my whole life studying the brain, the human brain that is, and what happens to it over time and what happens to it when it goes through terrible things. Now, maybe you can give me a sign if I’m right, but I get the sense that you’ve been through something very difficult, am I right?
He stared at me.
Am I right now? Just give me a little nod if I am … He waited a moment, then exhaled, leaned back in his creaking chair.
We don’t need to be this difficult, now do we? I even came in an hour early today, just to see you. So I would appreciate if you could also extend some kindness and understanding to me and my staff, is that clear?
I said nothing, did nothing.
What we have to do is administer a full physical examination to you in order to make sure you are in a suitable condition for us to have a look at your brain. That may sound a little frightening, but it’s completely painless.
What’s going to happen is you’re going to be taken to an examination room down the hall. In that room there will be a paper gown. We are going to need you to take off all your clothing and put the paper gown on. Then Nancy will come back and do the assessment. We need to be sure that you are healthy, and if you’re not healthy, we can find a way to get you to be healthy. And we need to understand what sort of person you are—do you understand? Do you understand what I mean by that?
I looked instinctively toward the wall as if I might find a window there, but the room, I had forgotten, was windowless. I suddenly felt heavy, that I could not move even if I tried, that there was no way for me to lift myself from this chair.
For instance, I can do the assessment myself if you’re more comfortable with a man than a woman doing the physical. It’s your choice, and remember—this is the part without your clothing, so which will it be? A man or woman?
I had not thought so much about the clothing on my body, had not questioned where it had come from or what it was. The shirt and pants were made from the same thick material, something almost like canvas, a gray-black-brown—it depended on the light. There was one square pocket on the shirt, several pockets on the pants, and a loop for holding some sort of tool I’d never had.
So I assume you’re all right with a woman doing the assessment then? Unless you speak up now, I can only make assumptions about what you might be thinking …
Dr. Winslow was silent for some time, then there was a knock and Nancy was there and we were all walking down a hallway and at the end of the hallway was a door with a little window in it and beyond the window I could see a bit of lawn before a thicket of trees. There was a large red bar across this door and a sign: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.
Nancy opened a door on the left side of the hall and let me into a small room with nothing in it but a padded examination table. At the edge of the table was a paper gown folded in a square. I stood still in the room but I was not in the room. I looked at the paper gown but I could not see it. I thought of the emergency exit.
Nancy told me to remove all my clothing—socks, underwear, all of it—and put on the paper gown and she’d be back in just a moment to do the examination. My face must have said something I couldn’t hide; she told me there was no reason to be afraid, that it wouldn’t hurt, that it would only take a few minutes. I’ll be back when you’re ready, she said, and shut the door.
I looked at the gown, looked down at my shoes, plain black ones with thick soles and no laces. I listened at the door, heard her footsteps disappearing, then nothing, then nothing, then nothing. I held my ear to the door—still, nothing. I put my hand on the knob, tried to turn it, but it would not turn. I thought of the hallway, thought of the emergency exit at the hallway’s end, the trees beyond the emergency exit, and wondered what sort of trees they were and how much shade they might offer. I knew about trees, but I didn’t know anything about this.
I sat on the cushioned examination table beside the folded gown. My shoes were still on my feet, clothes still on this body. I leaned back across the table and shut my eyes and thought that at some point in the future, long after humanity had run its course, after some other creature had replaced us, maybe, or maybe even after the next creatures had been replaced by whatever came after them, at some point in a future I could not fully imagine, a question might occur in some mind, and that question might be What was the human? What was the world of the human?—though it would be in some unforeseen language, perhaps a language that was without sound, perhaps a language that did not have to grow from a damp, contaminated mouth—and if this question ever did arise in that future being’s mind, would it even be possible to catalog and make sense of all our griefs, our pains and wars? Our delineations? Our need for order? The question arose then—did all this human trouble begin in our bodies, these failing things, weaker or stronger, lighter or darker, taller or shorter? Why did they cause so much trouble for us? Why did we use them against one another? Why did we think the content of a body meant anything? Why did we draw our conclusions with our bodies when the body is so inconclusive, so mercurial?
Resting on that table, not getting undressed, not putting on the paper gown, I feared I’d become something sacrificial, but I would not lay myself out on this altar. Whatever else I may have been, I was, I knew, not theirs.
The door opened and Nancy was there, somehow leaning toward and away from me at once—
Well, I guess I nearly forgot about you down here—or not exactly forgot, but we just had a few people show up and … well, everything is sort of confusing here the past few days.