We Are Both Mammals

By G. Wulfing

Thirty-year-old human Daniel Avari awakes in a hospital bed to find that he has been the victim of a terrible accident that he does not remember. He should have died, but instead he has been the unconsenting patient of experimental surgery: he is now permanently joined by a synthetic hose to a thurga, a non-human native of the planet on which Daniel is living and working. He will spend the rest of his days physically joined to a stranger; to a living life-support system in the form of a member of another species ... if he still wants to live. The gentle, possum-like thurga has volunteered to spend the rest of his life keeping Daniel alive, but Daniel is not convinced that he wants such a gift.
A short science-fiction story. Not gory nor graphic, but contains adult themes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. Wulfing
• Release date: Aug 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370971152

G. Wulfing

G. Wulfing, author of kidult fantasy and other bits of magic, is a freak. They have been obsessed with reading since they learned how to do it, and obsessed with writing since they discovered the fantasy genre a few years later. G. Wulfing has no gender, and is of varying age. G. Wulfing lives amidst the beautiful scenery of New Zealand, prefers animals to people, and requires solitude, books, music, chocolate, and masala chai lattes in order to remain functional.

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We Are Both Mammals

Published by G. Wulfing at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 G. Wulfing

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The book cover is by the marvellous DrRiptide:

drriptide.deviantart.com

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Table of contents:

We Are Both Mammals

About G. Wulfing

We Are Both Mammals

Waking was a haze: I cannot say when I first woke or what happened or what I felt. At some point I opened my eyes; I can remember doing that, and seeing light from the window of the clinic, and realising that I was in a hospital bed. It may have been morning or afternoon; I cannot tell. There were people in the room with me: the nurses, I believe, and perhaps the surgeon who had operated on me.

On us.

I know that they spoke to me, but I have no recollection of what they said. Everything is blurred and vague in these memories. At some point, I woke up more coherent, and found that there were no tubes in my mouth nor an oxygen mask on my face. Presumably this means that I was conscious of those things being there at some earlier point, but I don’t remember them.

Oh, you’re waking up, remarked a kindly female voice. My whole body ached dully. I think I asked where I was and what had happened. The nurse – she of the kindly voice – informed me that I had undergone surgery. I remember nothing further.

The next memory is more vivid: of waking again, and asking where I was and what had happened. A nurse – possibly the same one, I have no idea – informed me that I had undergone surgery. I processed this, and asked again, somewhat dazedly, what had happened. The nurse told me that I had been in an accident. Slowly, she explained that I had sustained severe injuries to my internal organs, and that I had undergone life-saving surgery.

The third time I remember waking up, I felt fear. Previously I had been too dazed and bewildered to feel much of anything except some anxiety, but the nurses had sounded so reassuring that my dozy brain had subsided back into unconsciousness without experiencing much arousal; this time, my body seemed to feel that something was wrong. The dull aching in my body also felt more intense: I was aware of what felt like bruising and swelling, seemingly throughout my body, and vague pains that seemed like they were screened off, or coming from underwater, somehow; not immediate, but still very present in my body. I could only breathe shallowly, and I was not sure why.

What happened? I demanded, feebly, of the nurse in the room. I could now see the room more clearly: it had light blue walls, a couple of doorways leading off into more brightly-lit areas, and a couple of white things that might have been boxy machines, or furniture like chests of drawers, positioned about the room. The lighting was somewhat dim.

You’ve had surgery, the nurse replied, approaching the bed. He was dark-skinned, and wore a pale blue uniform.

Why? I asked anxiously, not remembering the previous explanation I had received.

You were in an accident, he said simply.

Why? I croaked stupidly, suddenly feeling that my throat was rasping and dry.

Would you like a drink of water? the nurse offered.

I whispered, Yes, and there was a faint humming as he made part of the hospital bed tilt upwards so that my head and torso were raised slightly and I could drink. As the bed moved, I registered that my ribs and midriff, from beneath the pectorals, seemed to be covered in bandages and dressings. My fuzzy mind reasoned that maybe that bandaging was the reason why I could not seem to breathe properly.

I could only manage a mouthful from the disposable cup that he held to my mouth. The effort required seemed enormous, and exhausting. I felt weak and drained; weaker than I had ever felt in my life. I seemed to doze after that.

I woke several times in the next twenty-four hours: I know this because there was an analogue clock on the light blue wall in front of me, above one of the doorways, and each time I woke I had the feeling that I had not slept long. The wakings all blur, however. At some point I discovered that there was a drip inserted into the back of my left hand. A nurse told me that there was a pad near my right hand, with electrical cords leading off it, which I could press if I needed anything, and a couple of times I pressed it to ask for water. My throat was so dry. I was thirsty, but I was glad of that, in a way; it was somehow good to feel something definite, something other than vague pains and bewilderment and grogginess. My thirst reassured me that I was alive. Sometimes, half awake, I would hear calm, quiet voices in the room, but they didn’t seem to be talking to me.

The next thing I remember with any degree of clarity is that the clock on the wall read five o’clock, and I could tell by the gloom that it was early in the morning. I blinked, feeling more awake than before, and pressed the pad under my hand.

In a moment a pair of nurses arrived, both female, wearing pale blue uniforms, and they seemed vaguely familiar somehow. They put on a dim light, raised the upper part of the bed a little, and helped me to drink. There was a cabinet at my left that held the disposable cup from which I had been drinking.

As one of the nurses, standing at my left, helped me to drink, I realised that the other was on the other side of the large bed, on my right, doing something. As my brain cleared a little more, I looked sluggishly in that direction, and realised that there was another patient in the bed with me: a thurga.

For an instant my drug-addled brain thought it was an animal, as thurga-a do resemble brushtail possums in many ways, though they have longer limbs and are the size of a large domestic cat; and it was mostly covered by the bedclothes, as I was, as it lay on its back over a metre away from me. Its furry, dark brown arms, with their hands like a rat’s forepaws, lay on the sheets that reached to its chest. As the creature’s bright dark eyes looked back at me from its dark-furred face, I recognised it as a thurga: a native of the planet on which I was living and working.

Daniel, said the nurse on my left, very gently, have you met Toro-a-Ba?

In that instant, a curious and terrifying thing happened. It was as though my brain realised long before I did that something was horribly wrong. Whether it was the nurse’s tones or the puzzling sight of the thurga sharing my hospital bed or something else, I do not know; but a sick chill gripped my heart. I stared stupidly at the thurga, which held my gaze.

No, I murmured, not understanding why I felt such trepidation.

Daniel, you and Toro-a-Ba have undergone the same surgery.

Oh, I mumbled, wondering vaguely why the thurga’s surgery was relevant to mine.

Hello, Daniel, the thurga said to me softly, in English, and there was what seemed like great tenderness in its voice, almost as though it knew me well. Something about this seemed very wrong to me, but I could not understand what. Perhaps I was supposed to know this thurga. To a human, many thurga-a look very similar, so perhaps I did know this one and simply didn’t recognise it, or something … My head felt so muzzy and bewildered …

Hello, I mumbled blankly in reply, still regarding the thurga.

But I was weary already, just from being awake, so I rolled my head back to its normal position of looking straight ahead, and my eyes closed almost without my command, and drowsiness subsumed me. I barely felt the hospital bed being lowered gently back into its almost-horizontal position beneath me.

And even as I drifted to welcome sleep, something in the back of my mind squirmed uneasily.

When I woke again, it was full daylight. A large window on the left side of the room had its curtains drawn back to let light into the room, and someone in a white coat was present with two nurses in their pale blue uniforms. As I was lucid enough to speak and be spoken to, my bed was raised slightly, and the new person stood at the left of my bed and introduced herself: Sarah Fong, who informed me that she was one of the primary surgeons who had worked on me, and a specialist in synthetic organs, transplants, and the human digestive system. She was petite, dark haired, and seemed to be of Asian descent. She wore casual business clothes underneath her white coat. 


We were working on you for a good twenty-five hours, she told me pleasantly. "I’ve been checking you over