On Three

Suddenly there are several people around me. Commotion. People to my left and right. A doctor, a woman. I get an injection.

I feel them unbuckle the straps. I don’t struggle. They hold me anyway, very hard. They’re strong. They don’t need to put that much force into it. I’m not resisting anymore. They hold me like someone who’s thrashing, because that’s the procedure. The procedure doesn’t know I’ve stopped. The procedure never knows, because there’s no way to tell it.

“Right. On three?”

“One, two, and three...”

A jolt. They fling me from the stretcher onto the bed, hard. They keep holding. More straps tighten. Someone takes off my trousers. They take off my underpants. They put a nappy on me. They tighten the straps.

An hour ago I was speaking clearly and knew all the answers. Now I have a nappy. Between those two points there is not a single decision I made. I chose hospital over prison. Nothing else was my choice.

I think to myself: at least it’s warm here.

I got what I wanted in the ambulance. That was the price.

I can move my head. I lift it to look around. The nurse who gave me the injection says I’ll fall asleep after it. Everyone leaves. They switch off the light. I’m left alone with the straps.

Not entirely alone. The ones in blue gowns are moving about. After a moment I realize they aren’t doctors.

After another moment, that I’m wearing a gown like that too. They put it on me along with the nappy. I don’t know when. They did it that fast.

There’s one difference between me and them. They can walk around this room. I’m strapped down. That’s the whole difference.

Nobody says anything to me. I ask nothing. I look around. The only thing I wonder is how I’m going to pee. Because I have no intention of peeing into this nappy.

After the pavement, the ambulance, the straps, “on three” — that’s what’s still mine. Very small. Entirely practical.

I don’t fall asleep. I feel the pressure on my bladder. It’s starting.

Then my eyes begin to water. I’m strapped down and can’t wipe my eye. I feel a tear run onto my eyelid and it has nowhere to fall from there. I move my head a little. It doesn’t help. I don’t know where these tears are from. The whole evening was without crying. The body cries separately, outside me, at precisely the moment when I’m least able to respond. The tears find no way out. They gather and stay.

In the evening the body went against the prophecy. In the night it goes against me. I’m writing it down.

After a while the door opens. A man comes in. He asks if I’m okay.

“I need to pee,” I say.

He doesn’t tell me to pee in the nappy. He goes to get someone. He unbuckles one strap, enough that I can turn onto my side. He puts a vessel under me.

I can’t squeeze out a single drop. It goes on for a good while. In the end I say I can’t. But the pressure is there the whole time.

I had set myself one thing to defend. The man agrees. I win. And then the body refuses.

He says it happens. That I should go to sleep. He puts the nappy back on. He fastens the strap. He leaves, along with the light that was coming in from the corridor.

Of those who had power over me that night, he alone heard the request and did something with it. He unbuckled a strap to spare me the nappy. It didn’t work. He tried.

I did fall asleep.

The injection worked. Only at the end, after everything.