The Great Wall of China15. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies

Robot parade, robot parade
Robots obey what the children say

Car accidents can definitely paralyze people. Maybe that is why I never jumped out of the bed and tore out the tubes. There were electronic blankets wrapped around my legs that were plugged into a machine. That frightened me more than any of the tubes that pierced my skin. When you wake up in a hospital with a strange machine on your legs, assuming that something catastrophic has happened is effortless. I'm a dancer. Losing the use of my legs is not an option. Take out my spleen or a kidney, burn my appendix in effigy, but leave my legs alone.

While the doctor talked about whatever he was talking about, I shook my feet, perhaps too enthusiastically, but happy that I could move. The blankets were a mystery, but my legs were moving. The doctor looked concerned, but I was overjoyed that my legs worked. He insisted on whispering, so I ignored him and tested out all of my limbs. I could wiggle my toes like nobody's business.

I was satisfied that I could move on my own, but the doctor had a few people slide me from the bed onto a gurney. I assumed they were taking me to the room for people who were not paralyzed. I did not care. As long as my legs still worked.

Watching the ceiling lights come and go during the gurney ride, I could hear a bouncy chromatic D minor melody in my head. I wanted to jump off the gurney and turn straight from a pas de bourrée couru in sixth position to a tendu devant in plié. I could just imagine one of the nurses playing a celesta.

I recognized the CT scanner. Maybe it was not the exact same machine that I saw earlier, but it was a similar type of space donut. After the scan, they brought me back to the bed and plugged me back into the machines. I have never seen any of the Matrix movies, but if they have a CT scene, it probably looked like that.

Machine or mannequin
With parts made in Japan
My heart is human
My blood is boiling
My brain IBM
Domo arigato, Dr Roboto