The Caretaker - Chapter 1 - Annie M.

Slender limbs lurched suddenly.

They always do, the caretaker thought to herself, as she settled into the comatose form and begin her ministrations. Even those in the deepest of sleep sensed the intrusion at some point and responded. Even those who had made prior arrangements. She busied herself with her checklist. Arms: intact, marginal muscle degradation. Legs: intact, sleep-diminished. Hands: intact, flexible. Feet: intact, weakened. Torso: intact, newly formed scar tissue above right ribcage. Head: intact, stabilized. Spine: intact, minor scoliosis. She completed the quick structural review and, finding nothing untoward, moved on to the integrative.

Physically there was nothing wrong with this form, she noted, except for the natural effects of 27 active years of life. She continued her travels, frowning to herself as she located and evaluated a lymph gland that appeared slightly discolored. Lungs: the alveoli showed marginal hardening in the lower right lobe. The woman had been exposed to second hand smoke. The caretaker sniffed slightly and winced, noting the tarry odor, then moved on to investigate the circulatory system. As she worked, she went over the chart in her mind.

Annie M. Deep coma since 14 July 1993 11:54 AM GMT, general anesthesia, during repairs to lower left leg as a result of auto collision. Runner. No history of drug use. No family history of heart conditions or diabetes. Weight proportional to height: 124, 5'8". No prior surgeries. Dental: full adult set, one emerging wisdom LL. BP: 115/64.

Annie had been riding in the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla when the Metro bus had t-boned it in the middle of the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood, at 4:32 PM local time, sun boomeranging off the tall glass tower windows and into the windshield of the car. Her fiance' had been momentarily blinded and distracted. The nose of the car was just a bit too far into the intersection and the bus had swatted it like a mosquito on an arm. The car had leaped the curb and been pinned between the bus and a light standard. Annie's leg had bent just wrong, snapping the tibia in two places.

Annie had been a runner, before the accident. She'd prided herself in her early morning sojourns along the broad sandy expanses of beach south of Santa Monica pier, feet digging triangular indents as she sprinted to the wet sand where she would start her normal jog. South a mile then north two then south one and back to the parking lot and back to home. Rain or shine. She was in great shape and knew it, and her wardrobe showed it, a closet packed with the latest fashions and trendiest trends.

The caretaker wondered what had happened to the dark blue sweater and pale gray pleated blouse that Annie had been wearing when the ambulance brought her in. The matching slacks had been too damaged to salvage, cut away to access the injuries. She checked the property list idly and found them, then continued her review. All seemed to be in order. Well, as best order as one might expect for someone who had been comatose for so long.

She stationed herself behind Annie's cerebral cortex and settled in to work. As she flexed and extended each arm, finger, leg, toe, elbow, shoulder, she hummed a small tune to herself. Patients responded well to music, she had found. After ten minutes of limb and joint exercise, she opened Annie's eyes and surveyed the room. Annie's father inhaled sharply. Even though the man knew what to expect, a result of the caretaker's presence, it still seemed to catch him off guard each time.

Frank and Eleanor had arranged for the caretaker's services over a year ago, in an effort to bring their only daughter back to her life, despite the opinion in the general medical community that such services were unproven and at best marginally successful. Annie's primary physician, Dr V Singh, held forth that it could do no harm to try this approach and, with the best mixture of his Eastern upbringing and medical training, and West Los Angeles residency, stated they should 'go for it.'

"But will it break the coma? Will she wake up?" Frank had queried as his wife sat next to him on a narrow plaid-upholstered bench in the doctor's waiting room. She had fidgeted as he spoke, eyes pinned to the floor as she tore tissue after tissue into damp confetti with trembling frail hands.

"We can make no -" Dr Singh paused, searching for a delicate approach. "There are no guarantees, of course, with any approach we can take at this stage. A patient in coma may awaken at any moment or remain comatose indefinitely."

"Will she know what is happening?"

"We have little way of knowing if a patient can sense the presence of a caretaker, sir. We monitor activity through electroencephalography - at every step of the process, naturally, and the caretaker is bound to the same professional oaths as we take as physicians."

"I think we should agree, Frank," Eleanor whispered at the stack of torn tissue in her lap.

"Will our insurance cover this?" Frank scowled as he looked between the doctor in front of him and his wife at his side.

"You should call them before we begin," Singh stated matter-of-factly. "It is classified as an experimental procedure, even after all this time."

Frank sighed and nodded, then looked over at his wife.

"We should do this, Frank."

Frank nodded.

"Call your insurance company, and I'll make the arrangements." Dr Singh looked through the open door at the young woman's still form, then made a few quick notes on the chart propped in the holder next to the door.


The caretaker hummed as she closed Annie's eyes, checked off the minor exercise routine, then let herself out through the shell of Annie's left ear and vanished. Moments later she blinked her own eyes awake and rose from the day bed in her office, crossed to her desk and sat down. She ran her own hands through her own hair, pushing back a few locks of tousled auburn curls behind her own ears, then selected a pen from the cherry wood box before her and began to complete her notes and charts.

The Game, oh yes!

Legends of Karinth takes a few new twists today. Body parts, which have been in play for well over a year, now carry consequences when damaged. We've just started out with two - ambidexterity and eyesight - but that should be enough to definitely provide some testing to a character's response to it.

In a few minutes, we will have character-settable age at creation, advanced within the game only when the character chooses to set it (but never backwards).

In a few minutes more, new characters will automatically be included in a starting kingdom.. a protectorate actually, since Perry Region cannot belong to a kingdom as it is under the protection of Astria.

It feels so good to see progress being made once again, and the players are responding with extremely positive remarks.

-=-

Chapter 1 of The Caretaker should be ready today as well. Like any good story, I am not sure how it ends yet, even though I'm the one writing it. Stay tuned.

The Caretaker - A Caveat

(Strange but due to the way that blogs post in reverse chronological order, this tale may appear fragmented - I will be posting chapters as they are written, and perhaps someone who is blogfluent can inform me how to make them index into some semblance of order).

Elegance, Endeavors and Education

A swirl of knots leads the eye from border to center and back several times in this Celtic knotwork design. Can you find the way through? Other decorative pillows are available in the same department, to fit many styles and ambiences.

-=-

A dear friend of mine is wrapped in the shrouds of permanent academia, while he awaits word back from his advisor on the first draft of his doctoral thesis on international economic law or international legal economics or some such. He's been working on this project steadily for several years, placing many other aspects of life on hold to focus his energies, eye on the goal. I'm proud of him, this dear friend of mine, though as I watch him struggle with this, I find my mind returning to a single rude question of "Why?!"

Not why get a doctorate in the field he has chosen. I'm sure it will be of great value to someone, someday for some reason. Not why pick that particular field. I can see international law and international economics remaining vastly important topics in the coming century.

No. My 'Why' is aimed at the method of starving portions of life in order to feed another. Why do people choose to cut themselves off from the vast rich dessert that is living, ignoring the banquet of possibilities, for indeterminate lengths of time. What does this achieve for them, aside from escalating misery?

I'm no hedonist - I do not exist for joy, nor have I studied enough philosophy or Greek masters of thought to have a clue what I'm talking about. I'm just talking from my own point of view (as opposed to someone else's - like his) and stating what seems obvious to me.

What happens if he gets all done with this degree, gets out into the working world and discovers he detests the field he's just spent this many years preparing to work within? What happens to the stacks of sheepskin that never get hung on walls because by the time a degree is completed, the rest of the world has saturated the field or made the need obsolete? What happens if Sue Somebody gets all these degrees finished, then discovers nobody needs a person with a PhD in Buttonhook Construction?

Education is critical. Don't get me wrong. I wish I had a lot more than I have, and I wish I could have afforded to go back several times over the last 35 years and get more! But, face it, folks - the path of education does not branch and break with ease, nor does it necessarily prepare people to walk it. I know I certainly wasn't prepared, when it came my time to move from high school to college. Nothing prepared me for the radical switch in mentalities, schedules, focal points, demands.

Not only was I not prepared to make the change into a self-disciplined educational environment, I wasn't prepared to make the choices which would lead to a successful degree in anything. Liberal Arts would have been the most logical (and to my thinking, least useful) at the time, and eventually I would have graduated with a broad education but an extremely shallow one.

So here's what I think. We should encourage folks to get to the end of high school, or whatever they're calling in these days. Then they should take the summer off, play by the pool, go camping until Labor Day. Then when it comes time to go to college, get a job in the field that interests them, spend some time seeing if it is indeed a field that interests them. Grow within the field for four years. Then go to college, knowing that they have a grounding in the field, a grounding in life, a better grasp of what they want to do.

This four-year period, for many from 18 to 22, is a bridge between the lands of academia and the churning waters of life. Once they have crossed the bridge, they are better prepared to tackle the rigors of a degree, and people who hire them later on will know that they have an applicant who has an awareness of life, not just 16 years of classrooms and homework.

Corporations could support this bridge period, by granting subsidized leave to employees to take a four-year degree. My company paid for me to take an intensely focused program, and for about six months I spent eight hours each Saturday in classes, and came out with an incredibly rich education as a result. They paid the tuition; I kept my full time job and spent my evenings (and some lunch hours) beating my head against a stack of homework that was daunting at times. But we both gained. Seriously, if I had attempted that rigorous of a training period before having ten years in corporate life, I would have failed quickly.

So that's my plan. It's too late to get my friend of the perpetual doctoral thesis shroud to higher ground and prepare him for the time when academia ceases to take up 99% of his life. It's not too late for many others to come.