We Are Both Mammals by G. Wulfing Read Free Book Online Page A

knew virtually nothing? Why on earth had this
thurga thought that such a thing was a good idea? If he wanted to
help people, surely there were ways he could have helped more
people than just one. He might not even have survived the surgery:
both of us could have died, and then Toro-a-Ba’s plans to do good
would come to nothing.
    Even now, as he lay asleep in the bed beside
mine, his life was at risk. I was hardly psychologically stable;
that must be obvious to him.
    I watched him, more than arm’s reach away
from me in the gloom, watched his tiny ribs moving with his deep
little sleeping breaths. The fuzz that had been growing on the big
shaven patch on his side had now lengthened to almost half of its
natural length, so the nurses had shaved part of it again, creating
a smaller patch of pink skin around the place where the hose
entered his side, so that the regrowing hairs could not interfere
with the still-healing skin around the hose, and so that it was
easier for the surgeons to inspect the hose where it entered him.
The effect was bizarre; but it was merely one bizarre detail in a
tapestry of bizarre disaster.
    He was so small.
    He had known that I was human,
when he volunteered for the surgery. But had he realised that he
would be placing himself, forever after, at the mercy of one who
was probably a dozen times his size and weight? Had he realised
how vulnerable he would be? Not just vulnerable in that he might not
recover well, might be sickly for the rest of his days, might not
even survive the procedure to begin with, and in that whatever
happened to me forever after would directly affect him also; but in
the fact that if I so chose, I could kill us both with
ease.
    Had he not understood that?
    I gulped, watching him.
    What was wrong with this creature? Why would he
shackle himself to me?
    What madness possessed this little furry
body to think that the best possible use of his life would be to
physically join himself to an alien for the rest of his days?
    We were both monsters, now.
     
    –––––––
     
    At last I was able to drink and retain not just water
but fruit and vegetable juices. Tasting fruit juice again after two
weeks unconscious followed by a further two weeks of tasting only
water or vomit was both shocking and delightful to my mouth. Before
long I was able to digest yoghurt. The surgeons and other
specialists were elated: clearly, their work was a success. They
had done something that had never been done in the whole of medical
history. The techniques they had pioneered, and their successful
execution of something many had considered impossible, would see
their names etched into medical history, both human and thurga.
    Not once had any of them asked,
retroactively, for my permission; nor for my forgiveness. My body
was their success, bearing the marks of their genius; my personhood
was, apparently, not of concern.
    I almost wondered that I did not hate them
more.
    Perhaps, I grudgingly thought to myself,
despite all my anguish, part of me was actually thankful to be
alive.
    Now free of the heaviest drugs, my mind was
recovering more quickly than my body. I was offered books and
magazines, and I accepted. I could even ask for specific ones, and
they would be found for me and brought to me. I was supplied with a
reading stand like the thurga’s. Due to the fact that the surgery
was still being kept secret from the outside world, I could not be
given any electronic device that could access the Internet; so my
reading material was all hard-copy. I did not mind; whom would I
contact anyway?
    Upon request, the surgeons
allowed me to have a small music player with headphones. Hearing
music again after five weeks was unexpectedly blissful. My brain
seemed to give a jolt at the shock of hearing music
–  music , not just sounds! – again; and then I felt my whole body
relax. Hitherto I had never realised how much music means to
me.
    As with the reading material, I could
request whatever music I