We Are Both Mammals Read Online Free PDF

and
shoulders to prop himself in a semi-sitting position.
    He was healing much faster than I, of
course, and was probably fit enough to have left the hospital a
week ago: but of course he could not. He could never, now, go
anywhere without me.
    And so he read books and waited for me to
heal.
    I was still spending more time unconscious
than not, sliding in and out of sleep, dopey and sedated and
exhausted. As my intake of drugs was lessened, however, and my body
began to recover, I was awake more often, and more lucid and
coherent. I was also more sensible of what was happening to me and
how my body was reacting.
    I felt ill. I felt so very ill. I felt
sicker than I had ever felt in my life.
    It was not only the trauma to
my system, the chemicals in my body, the blood loss, the
after-effects of the general anaesthesia, and the fact that my body
was now trying to come to terms with sharing itself with another body – of a different
species, no less – that were causing me to vomit or retch several
times a day, even when I refrained from sipping water.
    I was joined to another creature.
    Physically joined. Permanently joined.
    Its body and my body were, for all intents
and purposes, one now.
    I had a conjoined twin.
    At thirty years old, I had gained a
conjoined twin, and would now have to spend the rest of my life
with him.
    And this ‘twin’ was not even the same
species as I.
    The nausea continued for days. It was
horrible. The powerful painkillers I was being given were enough to
prevent me screaming in pain every time I vomited, but vomiting
still hurt. As one particular drug was withdrawn from my system,
for three days I spent my waking hours lying in silence, eyes
closed, trying just to breathe calmly, and I was unable to bear
sounds louder than a softly-spoken voice. When the medical staff
tried to examine me, my body rebelled at every sensation, retching
and shaking continuously so that I whimpered and gasped in pain,
until they left me alone, concluding that examinations would have
to wait until I was asleep.
    And it seemed that everywhere my mind
turned, it found something that caused me to vomit.
    The tube-filled, fluid-filled hose that
joined me to that other creature.
    The bandages and dressings that I knew
covered massive surgical wounds and long lines of stitches. I had
been cut into and sewn back together like a cloth doll.
    The tubes and hypodermic fittings that hung
out of my body – my own naked, living skin, punctured by black
thread and plastic tubing …
    The weakness, the sheer feebleness that
subsumed me.
    The smell of the ointments and cleaning
products when the nurses changed and inspected my – and the
creature’s – dressings and bandages.
    The sight of the discolouration of my own
skin – the bruising that yet lingered, the swelling and
puffiness …
    The fact that I could feel so little: so
much of my body had been numbed that it often seemed that much of
it did not belong to me. What I could feel was often painful.
    And the awful, awful knowledge that I would
never be alone again.
    It was as though my body knew that something
horrific was happening. This was not mere recovery from major,
risky and life-saving surgery. This was waking into a nightmare. I
was alive, but not because my body had been repaired. I was living
on borrowed life. Someone else’s life was keeping me alive. Someone
else’s body was keeping mine from the grave.
    Perhaps my body knew that it should have
been dead.
     
    –––––––
     
    “Daniel … are you awake?”
    The thurga spoke softly, but I heard him,
automatically opening my eyes from my sleep or doze – I know
not which. The room was in daylight; it seemed about
mid-morning.
    I swallowed, and turned my pillowed head
halfway toward him, thankful that for the moment I felt only
slightly nauseated. I could not bring myself to vocalise even a
grunt, but I figured that Toro-a-Ba would see my movement and that
that would answer his question.
    “ I