STACY | PART 01 | ORBIT
A Serliased Story by Jen Ives
STACY | PART 01 | ORBIT
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Stacy didn’t want to do it, technically, but like most operations - she knew there wasn’t much of a choice. She knew it would surely relieve some pressure. It’d help her, at the very least, to get by a bit easier. To lighten her load. To pass by. Yes, it was scary, but what procedure wasn’t? Yes, there were risks, but what in life came without those?
Ever since she had started living authentically she had found it difficult. Yes, she was proud of herself for it, but she realised now that it just wasn’t enough. Some others like her managed to get by without major operations - without altering themselves irreversibly, and she admired them for it - their security and comfort was a marvel to her, but it wasn’t something she seemed to have access to.
Things had changed recently, though. The original operation, the one she’d been on the waiting list for for the past 9 years, was no longer available. Just when Stacy thought she might be called up for it, it was banned country-wide. It was deemed ‘too barbaric’. Uncivilized. The government said there were better ways to help those like Stacy. It was true, she had struggled around the time of the announcement. She had made a scene. She had to leave her job - go away for a while. Hazy times. Stacy was just glad there was another option for her now. Some hope again. Some progression. She’d been fast tracked, afterall - which she ought to be grateful for. There were many others like Stacy who were still waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.
Her mum and dad had accompanied her on the tube to the clinic in Harley Street, but weren’t to come in with her. Instead, they planned to go around Oxford Street for a few hours and do some shopping. That’s how long it took - just a few hours. There was no staying overnight. No serious aftercare. No breakfast. The procedure itself took just minutes, they said - most of the thing was prep and admin.
Stacy was put to sleep, though. She needed it, her nerves being far too erratic. Her body so rarely still. Her breathing so infrequently steady. The kind eyed nurse, whose face was almost completely obscured by a green mask and hat, counted down from 10 as the anesthesia was administered. Stacy never heard ‘6’.
Stacy was shown some pictures just before the procedure. They demonstrated a long and thin icepick-like instrument entering through the eye socket - piercing the bone like butter, finding its way easily to the frontal lobe of the brain. Doing it’s magic. Transorbital was its name. Trans-Orbital. Like it was made just for her.
She didn’t feel anything. There was no pain to speak of. Only strange, deep, queasy dreaming…
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