“See the World” Part 2: Advanced
The psychedelic patterns, the room’s antiseptic smell, and the doctors expectantly pressing in–it was all overwhelming. Neil’s stomach churned loudly with a pang of nervous nausea. Sam, his friend and colleague beside him, snorted a laugh under his mask.
HIV’s design was beautiful in a way, but also nauseating. Too nauseating. Neil needed to get rid of it, not as much for the patient’s sake at the moment but because he felt like he would puke if he stared any longer. It was probably his nerves that made the surgery all the more sickening, but the way that the patterns seemed to overtake the room made Neil feel as though they would float up and overtake him too. Maybe he would become one of them, a pink and blue spotted amoeba. Amoeba Neileus. Commonly found in operating rooms or providing for its offspring. The most intelligent of its kind. Able to maintain expressive homeostasis despite varying emotional conditions.
An internally anxious mess.
But it was worth it to give this woman a better future.
Hyper-focused on the patterns, Neil charted the HIV-infected areas on the screen in front of him, which then gave him the number of infected cells and their placement throughout the body. With his gloved hand shaking a little, he typed in the final code that would allow the computer to take over and edit the cells. With this last command, Neil was done with his part of the surgery. The machine had such a low rate of failure that if anything went wrong, it was probably Neil’s fault.
Fun for Fluency! 