Scan of a Fitful Man

I am slid into the core of the big white tube. It will reveal all my moving parts all the flagging and wheezing organics that reside in the same apartment block, share the same airducts and plumbing, but otherwise hang in semidetached hutches strung around my walled city. My neck hurts, the cat scan takes time. I get to thinking about cats, how they curl up to rest in the most unusual places. Cat’s would probably sleep well in this softly clicking tunnel. My head needs a pillow, arms akimbo aching. After ten minutes of thinking in this sterile cylinder I am an annotated movie of my life, a surface feature for the paranoia of clinging plants. I trawl stagnant pools for whale calls or anything that can sing in my turgid being, but only a headless language floats up. I can only listen to organs stirring; some drool, some open small gummy gobs and gills. Dim rheumy senses squint. Pulpy cisterns gurgle, glands groan under a weight only a shut-in darkness can weigh. Transportation hubs and their arteries continue their tireless gift-wrapped deliveries. Muscular chemicals continue their Peloton workouts, but the body as a whole is still wearing away what it can’t afford to lose. “All done,” a disembodied voice declares. I am conveyed outwards on the worlds shortest rail track, leaving parts of my mind behind to clean up stray fears - remove the litter of mad ponderings. Results will be days away, until then black cats in lightless rooms must find a way to be seen.