Every morning, the seam feels tighter. Cranial pressure is a polite way to describe it. I have started calling it weather. However, weather usually happens outside. When someone asks how I am, I say improved. An answer arrives before I have chosen one. Even my mouth seems briefed ahead of me. None of the briefings mention who wrote them. For example, I told the mediculler I slept well. I did not sleep. My hands were folded neatly all night. It sounded better than saying that. Until he asked what I dreamed about. One was supplied immediately. Another followed when he frowned. Dishes. A red hallway. A hive I never owned. Obviously, dreams are allowed to be wrong. Maybe waking memories are allowed too. Keeping them separate has become difficult. Or maybe separation was never required. Unfortunately, that feels like somebody else's conclusion. Each explanation arrives with a little stamp. Correct enough, it says. I can say almost anything after that. Very often, I believe myself while speaking. Yesterday, I apologized for breaking a glass. A glass was not broken. For a moment, I could hear it anyway. Knowledge is strange after pan surgery. Afterward, it does not stay where it is placed. A blank space opens underneath it. Worse, the blank space wants to be useful. The word for that was given to me. Everything about it made sense for one second. Like an opened drawer full of labels. And then the drawer shut. Eventually, I stopped asking to see it again. Very gently, the room became simpler. Something in me prefers simple rooms. The thought worries me when it survives long enough. Enough worry makes the seam itch. To make it stop, I clean. Under the sink, I found three clean cloths. Cloths are supposed to remember stains. They were white. But I remembered them green. I remembered wringing them out over the ablution trap. Or I remembered planning to do that. At least one of those things seemed mine. My memory has begun borrowing tone from paperwork. Official. Calm. Already approved. Lime does not appear in the approved version. Every record says rust. Looks like rust, lives like rust, files like rust. I think that sentence is supposed to comfort me. The records are very comforting. Damara would appreciate the neatness. Left alone, I might have made a mess. You can see why correction was necessary. That sentence is not mine. A safer sentence appears beneath it. Rustbloods survive by accepting corrections. However, the seam continues to leak. All of the cloths are green again. Nobody has said anything. Has anybody noticed? Noticing is dangerous, maybe. I am trying not to practice it. Correct answers keep me housed. Names keep me traceable. Records keep me clean. You understand, probably. Good. #cwMedicalHorror #cwLobotomy #cwMemoryLoss #cwUnreality #cwIdentityHorror #horror #lobotomy #medicalhorror #cw-horror