Fib and Tib

This is only a dream, because I'm asleep. I'm not really strapped
down on a bed.

There isn't the sound of a pump or the dull hiss of the anesthetic
seeping sweetly into me. There are no clear tubes flowing into my
thighs. Because this is just a dream - albeit not a nice one.

This is what happens next (what always happens next) the numbness kicks
in
like a massage, soft fingers of buttery nothing moving along my legs
from the toes, right to my hips. It is actually pleasant, but I know
what is coming next, because I have been here before you see.

Doctor starts the clock -big red digits, when I squint at them I can
tell that all the numbers are really eight; that the lights just turn
off for some of the numbers.

That isn't the worst part. (Although it is)

When I can no longer feel anything in my legs that's when the two
assistants (Dean and Michael) start to break every bone in my feet with
sledgehammers.

They swing the hammers purposefully but with no malice; like knocking
through into my kitchen. They mean me no harm. And it doesn't hurt,
because of the gas.

Sometimes one of them will smile at me as if to say, 'don't worry,
we've done this before' (And they have, so many times)

Toes, feet, ankles; bones in all splinter and crack. The hammer bounces
with the effort and often the assistants grunt as they hoist the hammer
over their head and bring it down onto my legs. They take a leg each.
Dean seems weaker than Michael, needing more blows to fracture the
bones.

I grit my teeth when they reach the shin - shin is the worst, although
I feel nothing. The imagining is so bad. You know how much it hurts
just scraping your shin against a coffee table, making you need to hop
and swear. This is hitting it with hammers. The hammers bounce more on
the shins. At least my thighs have a layer of fat, it doesn't seem as
sharp and angular as the shinbone.

When all the bones in my legs are broken (this seems like the worst
part but it isn't) an X-ray is taken of me. There is a wait and the
clock keeps counting while the X-ray develops. I can feel no pain, but
I am totally aware of what is going on. The numbers on the clock are
decreasing.

The doctor holds up the X-ray film, he seems grimly pleased. He shows
it to me, soundlessly. From the waist down, every single white shape is
cracked, twisted, some snapped into four or more pieces.

After that, the doctor explains the clock to me. And now this really is
the worst part. The clock is counting down. The numbers tell me how
long before the anesthetic wears off. Once the anaesthetic wears off, I
will experience the pain in my legs for real; without any shield. I
know from the hammers and the X-ray that all of my bones are broken. I
can't even begin to imagine how much this is going to hurt.

There is a video camera to record all of it. This is an experiment to
observe how people deal with fear. But it is only a dream.

Sometimes I dream that I am laid in a hospital bed, waiting for my legs
to heal, wrapped in plaster, a hoist holding my legs up in the air. But
although in these dreams I gradually get better, sooner or later the
dream with the clock and the hammers come back.

All I can do now is watch the clock count away the last minutes without
pain.