UnWholly (Unwind Dystology 2)

“Walrus!” His thoughts are useless. Pointless. He despises himself.

But then Roberta says, “. . . and the Carpenter?”

He snaps his eyes to her. “Yes! Yes!” Somehow, as random as those two things are, they make perfect sense.

“ ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter,’ ” says Roberta, “an absurd poem that makes even less sense than you!”

He waits for her to connect at least some of the dots for him.

“It was written by Lewis Carroll. Who also wrote—”

“Alice!”

“Yes, he wrote Alice in Wonderland, and Through the—”

“Looking Glass!” Cam points to the bathroom. “Through the Looking Glass!” But he knows that’s not the word people use for it anymore. The modern word is—

“Mirror!” he shouts. “My face! In the mirror! My face!”

There is not a single mirror anywhere in the mansion, or at least in the rooms he’s allowed in. Not a single reflective surface anywhere. It could not be an accident. “Mirror!” he shouts triumphantly. “I want to look in a mirror. I want to look now! Show me!” It is the clearest statement and the highest level of communication he has yet to achieve. Surely Roberta will reward that!

“Show me now! Ahora! Maintenant! Ima!”

“Enough!” says Roberta, with calculated force in her voice. “Not today. You’re not ready!”

“No!” He touches his face with his fingers, this time hard enough that it begins to hurt. “It’s Dauger in the iron mask, not Narcissus at the pool! Seeing will lighten the load, not break the camel’s back!”

The guards look to Roberta, ready to leap in, to restrain him, to tie him once more to his bed, where he can’t hurt himself. But Roberta does not give the order. She hesitates. Considers. Then she finally says, “Come with me.” She turns and strides out of the room, leaving Cam and his guards to follow.

They leave the wing of the mansion that has been carefully designed for his protection, journeying to places that seem far less clinical. Rooms with warm wooden floors instead of cold linoleum. Framed artwork instead of bare white walls.

Roberta tells the guards to wait at the door, and she leads Cam into a living room. There are people present: Kenny, and some members of his therapy staff, as well as others whom Cam doesn’t know; professionals of some sort who work behind the scenes of his life. When they see him, they rise from their leather chairs and sofas, alarmed by his presence.

“It’s all right,” Roberta tells them. “Give us a few minutes alone.” They drop whatever they’re doing and scurry out. Cam would ask Roberta who they are, but he already knows. They’re like the guards at his door, and the guards on the rocks, and the man who cleans his messes, and the woman who rubs lotion on his scars. All these people are there to serve him.

Roberta leads him to a full-length mirror against a wall. He can see himself now head to toe. He sheds the hospital gown and stands there in his shorts, looking at himself. The shape of his body is beautiful; he is perfectly proportioned, muscular and trim. For a moment he thinks maybe he is Narcissus after all, absorbed in vanity—but as he steps closer and more into the light, he can see the scars. He knew they were there, but to see them all at once is overwhelming. They are ugly, and they’re everywhere—but nowhere are they more pronounced than on his face.

That face is a nightmare.

Strips of flesh, all different shades, like a living quilt stretched across the bone, muscle and cartilage beneath. Even his head—clean-shaven when he awoke, but now filling in with peach-fuzz hair—has different colors and textures sprouting like uneven fields of clashing crops. His eyes ache from the sight of himself, and tears cloud them.

“Why?” is all he can think to say. He turns from his reflection, trying to disappear into his own shoulder, but Roberta gently touches that shoulder.

“Don’t look away,” she says. “Have the strength to see what I see.”

He forces himself to look again, but all he can see are the scars.

“Monster!” he says. That word comes from so many different bits of memory, he needs no help finding it. “Frankenstein!”

“No,” Roberta says sharply. “Never think that! That monster was made from dead flesh, but you are made of the living! That creature was a violation of all things natural, but you, Cam, you are a new world wonder!”

Now she looks into the mirror with him, pointing out his many miraculous parts. “Your legs belonged to a varsity runner,” she tells him, “and your heart to a boy who could have been an Olympic swimmer, had he not been unwound. Your arms and shoulders once belonged to the best baseball player any harvest camp had ever seen, and your hands? They played guitar with rare and glorious talent!” Then she smiles and catches his gaze in the mirror. “As for your eyes, they came from a boy who could melt a girl’s heart with a single glance.”

There is a certain pride in the way she speaks of him. It’s a pride he cannot yet feel himself.

Roberta puts a finger to his temple. “But the best of it all is right in here!” She moves her finger around the multitextured fuzz of his hair, pointing out different spots on his cranium, like travel destinations on a globe.

“Your left frontal lobe holds the analytical and computational skills of seven kids who tested at the genius level in math and science. Your right frontal lobe combines the creative cores of almost a dozen poets, artists, and musicians. Your occipital lobe holds neuron bundles from countless Unwinds with photographic memories, and your language center is an international hub of nine languages, all waiting to be reawakened.”