The sound of drills coming from my neighbors’ walls irritated me, until they got so close that I could feel them within my skull. Only weeks ago I had managed to keep them at a safe distance. Keep them a nuisance, with little impact on my life. I was ungrateful. Had I not complained so much, there would have been no reason to bring the drills to me.
There are several tasks a drill would help me with. I have an old picture frame that has been sitting on my desk ever since I moved into my new accommodation. I have been meaning to hang that up somewhere suitable. Of course I would need a drill for that. Along with permission from the owner of the building and the approval of my neighbors. They hadn’t asked that of me, but I feared what would happen to me had I not fixed my mistakes. What if the drills sank further into my brain, till it had been disassembled, turned into mush, and served alongside garlic bread to the hungry populace. They wouldn’t know they were eating the processed brain of a university student. They would be told that it’s a new delicacy, created in laboratories. Due to its optimized nature, it would be free of all allergens. No longer would anyone be rushed to hospitals because of the things they ate. All would be able to feast on my flesh and believe themselves to be eating lab grown appetizers.
My only objective in life is to alter the positioning of the drills. Either quicken the procedure, accept that liberation is inevitable, or somehow get divine intervention. Doctors will no longer be enough to save me a second time. No mortal is capable of removing the drills. I have too many lodged into my skull, too many for any ordinary doctor to stomach. They are wedged too tightly and stuck deep within. No, only one can save me now. I am afraid he has turned his back on me. I have done nothing to earn his approval. Shame stops me from looking up at him and asking for help.
At some point, just like the dozens of times before this, I will realise that this is the life I’ve been given. I have spent too long trying to change my fate. It is time to accept. That the drills are here to stay. It was a little over a decade ago when doctors managed to extract little shards of glass from the skull of a dying boy. They have done all they could. Too much care and attention have been devoted to the same boy. He has now grown up and been denied entry into the hospital. Into any hospital, anywhere around the world. Maybe anywhere in the universe, if there are indeed other hospitals out there. There are other patients who need care. There are millions dying of hunger, fighting in muddy trenches and freezing to death during cruel winters, sheltering themselves on the corners of busy streets. People walk by looking at them in disgust, yet they are too afraid to look back. I have been denied my hospital bed, so that another might have respite for but one night.
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