CHAPTER 5:
Nightmares and Daymares
George J @spacefan
What is Space Force hiding? Did he die?
USSF Public Information Office @SpaceForceOfficial
@spacefan, US Space Force is unable to comment at this time.
Please see our website for the latest news and exciting opportunities in the Space Force!
George J @spacefan
@SpaceForceOfficial, pretty much what I expected. Who runs your Chirp feed? A mynah bird?
ChirpChat, September 2040
The nightmares came often, with the frequency varying as his recovery progressed. Each time, Glenn woke up sweating and thrashing around. Several times, he damaged pieces of the bed. The first time it happened, Marty threatened to turn the gain back down on the prosthetics, but Glenn talked him out of it. It was his problem; he would solve it.
This time, Glenn opened his eyes and blinked away water. “Which one was it?” Doctor Nik Pillarisetty was sitting in his wheelchair beside Glenn’s bed. “The crash? Sickbay? Asimov Incident? The one where everybody kept eating all the shrimp off the buffet and you didn’t get any?”
“I haven’t had that last one in quite a while. I’d almost forgotten it. Thank you so much for reminding me.” Glenn always woke up grumpy when the nightmares interrupted his sleep. Nik just ignored it. “Hey, why is my face wet?”
“New therapy technique.” Nik was holding a squirt gun in his lap.
“You shot me with that thing?”
“Naw, just a little squirt.” Nik reached around to the pouch on the back of his chair and pulled out a garish green and orange object which looked like a weapon from science fiction. “But, if you act up, I’ll just soak you.”
“Oh, nice bedside manner, Doc. That’s sure to lower my stress levels.”
“Hey, it works.” Nik gave a mischievous grin which told Glenn that the psychiatrist would not hesitate to use the high-volume water gun on him. “Okay, based on the fact that you’re just grouchy and not trying to bite my head off, I’d say it was the Dragonfly crash. I can understand that one—you were there. My Hindu ancestors would be very interested in the other one. I’ve checked out the details and you’re one-hundred-percent accurate, but there is no way for you to recall events from the operating room so accurately. You were unconscious, in a medically-induced coma.
“No, no, I remember waking up and talking with Yvette. I don’t remember seeing the other events, but the convulsions? The cardiac arrest? It’s so vivid in the dream.”
“Right. The part where you watched yourself die. There’s no way for you to know any of that. I’ve interviewed you countless times when you’ve woken up screaming—and you’ve had the details correct every time.”
“You’re saying I died and was watching?”
“No, I’m saying that the human mind is complex, and contains mysteries we may never solve.”
“Hey, you’re the head-shrinker—should you be talking like that?”
“Shows what you know. All good head shrinkers should question existence. It’s how we deal with the worst in our field. Besides, I’m Hindu. We have a spiritual and mystical streak.”
“And I’m Baptist. We believe in . . . potlucks and bake sales.”
“. . . and not dancing.”
“No, we got over that. The point is—I believe in miracles. After all, I am one. But practical miracles that result from someone’s hard work. It’s like luck. Luck is what you get when you put in the time and effort. Out-of-body experiences, astral projection? Nope. No way.”
“Remind me to introduce you to a physicist I know. He’s also a science fiction author and thinks that the ‘mind’ is a phenomenon of quantum physics—that all neural events are due to quantum functions.”
“He’s never met a neuroscientist, has he?”
“He did . . . once. The guy gave him a pretty long lecture on why he was wrong—as far as the examples he used, then told him that overall, he was probably right.”
“So—quantum physics? That’s something I can’t wrap my mind around.”
“Congratulations. You’re sane.”
“I think I liked your other explanation, better. The Hindu one.”
“So do I. Okay, now let’s work on post-trauma adaptation.” Nik held up the smaller of the two squirt guns. “Close your eyes.” <squirt> “You’re watching the trainer fall to the lunar regolith.” <squirt> “Tell me what you see . . .”
“Tell me, Nik, why do you do this?” Glenn was back in the hospital bed, trying to relax his hip and chest muscles, and debating whether to call a nurse to administer the pain blocker. It had been a grueling day of physical therapy, still just passive movement of the muscles around the attachments for his bionics, and Nik had been beside him for most of it.
“I used to work with kids who had serious injuries and chronic illnesses. I trained in emergency medicine and psychiatry, and it was the most obvious application of psychiatry to trauma. The kids were great, and I related well to them, but the department leadership always wanted me to basically work for free.”
“Wait . . . what? They didn’t pay you?”
“Oh, they paid standard entry-level salaries. I developed a bunch of new programs—I was good with the kids—and those programs resulted in new treatments and more patients. The problem was that the department chair always took credit and the promotion boards never saw any reason to promote me or increase my pay.”
“I hope this place pays you better, but what’s with the jump from peds to adults?”
“Look at yourselves. Wounded soldiers are no different than children . . . hell, half the guys on this floor aren’t even twenty-one. The attitude and sense of humor is certainly the same, Mister Shepard!” Nik pitched his voice into a high range, pinched his nose to get a nasal sound, and clicked just like the HR briefer.
That elicited a laugh, and then a wince of pain from Glenn.
“You okay, Shep?” Nik looked concerned.
“Mostly just sore.” After a few deep breaths, he continued. “Not all of the problems are the same, though.”
“You’d be surprised.”
This dream was . . . frankly, embarrassing. Yvette figured prominently, and like many of his dreams involving her, they were arguing. The two of them had been quite passionate when they were in residency together—both in their arguments and in their lovemaking.
That was part of the problem, and the setting of this nightmare. They’d just made love, and Glenn had asked Yvette why she was so willing to forego birth control. When she told him that it wasn’t possible for her to get pregnant because of a hysterectomy, his first reaction was concern over what had warranted such drastic surgery at her age. When she revealed that she wanted to go to space and didn’t want kids, his concern had turned to anger.
“What right do you have to deny your partner children?” He’d screamed.
“What right do you have to dictate what I do with my body?” she retorted. “Once again, you’re trying to tell me what to do!”
It was one of the arguments they’d never resolved, and the dream left him feeling . . . odd.
He woke up, and for once, Nik wasn’t sitting by his bed with his water pistol. Probably because Glenn could see daylight through the small window in his room. Nik’s vigils were usually at night.
The odd sensation continued. He couldn’t quite place it until he went to pull the thin sheet aside to try to sit up and noticed it was tented over his legs.
Oh.
That.
It was the worst possible time for a nurse to enter the room. So, of course, that’s exactly what happened.
“Good morning, Shep!” Nurse Cudde greeted him, then stopped abruptly as her attention was drawn . . . lower. “Oh! Good for you. Doctor Nik’s notes said it was about time for that. The day staff has been rooting for you.”
“Um, you have?” Glenn’s voice squeaked as he tried to sit up to cover for his involuntary reflex. There were only two problems with that idea. First, he needed to reach across with his right arm to grab a bar and pull himself upright. The motion caused the sheet to dislodge, fully exposing him. The feeling of tightness increased. The second problem was that the nurse was just so . . . cute. Blonde, with full hips and bust, and a thin waist; she looked a lot like a girl he’d dated in college.
“Ooh,” she exclaimed. “Do you need help with that? I can call a therapist for you, but I was about to give you a bath, and I’m perfectly willing to help out.”
“What!” he almost shouted. “No!”
“It’s okay, we’re used to it. Major trauma causes all sorts of sexual dysfunction—even more so for the wounded veterans we get here. There’s counselors and specialized therapists, but we’re all trained in the basic techniques.” Her expression had gone through several changes, from surprised, to happy, to proud. “I have gone through advanced training!”
“Um . . . well . . . thanks, but please, just page Nik.”
She pouted, but went back to the nursing station to update his medical record and put in a call to the psychiatrist.
Glenn was eating his lunch when he heard the tapping of Nik’s crutches in the hallway. The psychiatrist rounded the corner into his room, settled his weight, leaned forward, and leered at him.
“I hear you exposed yourself to Nurse Cuddly this morning.”
“It wasn’t like that; it was an accident. A dream.”
“Oh ho! You’re having those dreams now. No wonder she was so happy, she won the pool.”
“You bet on me? On—that?”
“Not money, that would be unethical. Cuddly gets to pick the break-room music for the next week. She likes country—not the classics—the bad ‘K-Pop meets Willie Nelson’ kind. On the other hand, it helps us keep a sense of perspective. Patients are just problems and probabilities.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“True, and for that matter, I haven’t quite figured why I like you. It obviously isn’t your sense of humor, Shep. So, did she help you out?”
“No! I’m nearly twice her age.”
“Nurse Cuddly, remember?”
“Yeah. I know.” Nik cocked an eyebrow at him, and Glenn responded, “I know! I was just too embarrassed.”
“You’re going to have to figure it out. Most of the guys—and the women, too—have dysfunction and issues with body image. You’re lucky, Shep. You’re well on your way to looking like a recruiting poster, but the problem isn’t going to go away. You don’t want it to go away.”
“But I could have hurt her!”
“Ah hah! So, there’s the problem.” Nik shifted his weight and set his right crutch to the side, reached behind his back, and pulled out the water pistol.
<Squirt>.