The real bionic man

OPEN my eyes to the ward… I lie and stare at the wall and become aware of my body. A roll call of body parts checking in. It’s too painful and strange to be me—I am dislocated from this broken flesh. My nerves have been shocked by explosives and everything below the neck is fizzing. There is a whirring also: the analgesia dulling the pain, retuning its frequency so it is just white noise. I feel for my legs along the map of synapses I’ve known a lifetime, but now my legs are distant, shimmering in a kind of hot furnace