#Medical Discoveries

[ecomehdi]

Cancer Research: Scientists Triumph in Taming the Protein of Severe Cancer Cases 24

In the realm of medical breakthroughs, scientists have achieved a remarkable feat in the battle against severe cancer cases. The focus of their triumph? Taming the elusive protein that plays a pivotal role in these challenging scenarios. Join us on this journey as we unravel the science, the victories, and the hope that comes with this groundbreaking achievement. Protein Unveiled: A Culprit in…

[kevin-the-bruyne]

I’m not from thailand but there is a very similar capitalist ruling class vibe in my country that I’m picking up in these Thai BL shows and I’m tangentially but closely related to this class and all I can say is…Ming is really not that bad.

These rich boy with hearts of gold/ rich boy finds heart of gold through interaction with poor boyfriend dramas I think has skewed the way that we view rich people. As in we think of them as people that operate on a general set of values and principles that we all hold. But the casual way that Ming imprisons Joe and thinks nothing of how he’s ruining the biggest opportunity Joe’s had in his career just because he can buy him a better, more lavish life is almost painfully realistic. And no it does not at all contradict with the fact that he loves Joe. And I think the way Up plays Ming with this careful mix of being totally self unaware, even innocent at times but with absolute entitlement in every thing he does, even at his most kindest is just so chillingly revealing of the ruling class psyche.

So many people are horrified by what Ming is doing and while I’m not saying that they aren’t horrific (they are) - it’s just that if you actually know a Ming you’d know that playing with poor people’s lives is like a Tuesday morning activity for him.

[bleue-flora]

I’m losing my mind… sooo a little bit ago I was combing through the Revival Book video for my fic and I noticed something interesting — The map

What about the map? Look closely…

You’ll notice that marked by turquoise is none on than the - vine covered Doomsday’s grid over the water filled L’manhole! Confirming that this conversation and therefore the experiments on Vik and Lazar took place after prison.

Which means quite a few earth shattering things. Firstly, the revival book likely was not the main factor that drove him mad to the point of putting himself in the prison like we might have suspected. This also means that just in general, Dream is not as prepared, planned, well thought out and as mastermind as we thought, and a lot of things were actually more genuine after all.

Because if he didn’t know that the revival book worked (which is implied by the dialogue in this video over the map) then he really must have trusted the server and Tommy to not kill him permanently and the revival book mention was more likely a really desperate afterthought last card that he hadn’t even used yet (honestly he hardly had the time to be fair - but thankfully he memorized it I guess), which oh just really makes the server almost letting him die permanently sting so much more. Plus, this also suggests that maybe Punz did not have the revive book before prison (the dialogue in this scene certainly suggests as much), and it means Dream really was adamantly afraid of dying in prison, making his stubbornness to not give up the book and endure the torture make a lot more sense. Further highlighting that he also was likely not as prepared or thick skinned going into the prison as we might have thought. It also implies that he is likely being truthful about Tommy being his first revival. Oh and there’s also the fact that in this conversation he suggests killing Philza after Philza helped rescue him, which just… rude (but that doesn’t really makes sense anyways since I doubt he would want to piss off Techno but still)… and since we now know the experiments with Vik and Lazar happened after prison I’d say that if staged duo did experiments on eachother it’d would also be after prison because why would you test on yourself before knowing that it can bring you back from any death, that’s pretty risky, (which also aligns with Dream having his original 3 lives in the staged finale).

Oh and if that wasn’t crazy enough, I also noticed there are end rods in the laboratory!

Heeeeehhhhh?!!!….. Which means they went to The End (and I already kinda suspected that since they talked about it in the finale, but I certainly didn’t think they went before/(during?) the basic experiments on Vikk and Lazar.) And not only did they go to the End they went to an End City, which does that mean they have like elytras?…

Have I blow your mind yet? Because I’m losing my shit…

{This is all of course unless we are to take these as accidental inconsistencies and flaws in the video from a lack of due diligence (since I’m pretty sure the ccs hired someone to make it) and ignore it or retcon it, (which wouldn’t be the most unreasonable thing since the dialogue in that scene suggests that they don’t know it works at all - “but what if it does work?” which doesn’t make sense for them to say after he already brought back Wilbur and Tommy). Or alternatively, we could also go the route of disregarding things due to my other theory about the video [post] and say that since it’s from DreamXD’s pov it’s messed up because he misremembered the lore as he’s a god and wasn’t paying that much attention to detail…

[mishy-mashy]

The Resistance squatted in abandoned buildings. They were squatters.

Before I show the panels that show they used abandoned buildings, I just want to be logical about this for a moment.

It doesn't make much sense to assume these guys - looking around jump-into-university age (18-26) - could afford to make underground bunkers and metal-plated halls all across Japan, for their base. They wouldn't have the time, resources, or even support from others to make these places.

Where do they find the metal to hammer in? The posts? The knowledge of actually building tunnels or buildings from scratch without them falling apart?

Other than that, having a single stationary base (above-ground, for example), is not going to survive. All For One's supporters fight anyone who opposes him without him needing to say anything.

AFO rules Japan right now. Everyone is wary of each other. Look at how Bruce describes it as "the harshest era";

As All For One's supporters attack his opposers of their own will, and supporters don't even realize they're on his side, the Resistance has to constantly be on the move. They can't really trust anyone.

They can't have stationary bases, nor can they afford ANYTHING to make them. They would've been caught immediately trying to do a big project like that, especially if they needed supplies to do so from someone who likely works for AFO, even without knowing.

Japan was in economic and social turmoil. They can't trust the market to keep going and grocery stores to be open. Look at how Japan is with All For One and Tomura; people band together and stores are looted.

Money is obsolete. Society is divided between humans and "monsters" (Ability-users). You can't trust anyone because anyone could be his pawn. Time is running up as his control spreads everyday. Resources are being looted left and right. It's too dangerous to go outside alone. Even if you have a stun gun, what does that mean against Ability-users?

So what do they do with their limited resources? Trying to hide from the big guy? What "bases" do they have?

They hunker down in abandoned places that already exist and, again, are abandoned. No one's going to come looking for them in places that people have run from and left behind. Because these places are literally just that: places no one wants anymore.

You hide a tree in a forest. You don't make a big, special base somewhere that says "I am here!", and they don't have the resources or time to burrow underground or build that.

Hide in an abandoned building among many others. There's not many people in abandoned places, if they happen to be there at all. The Resistance isn't going to be found in the deserted buildings, but they still have to keep moving, because someone might be trailing them.

When they take Yoichi from the vault,

They're in a house. The couch is ripped, the mug is cracked, and so is the wall, with a questionable stain in the background. There are signs of fighting and abandonment, but it works.

Houses have food. Houses have clothes. Houses have beds. It's enough to sit in for a bit and heat up some water.

Not everyone packed their things and run. Some people just had to RUN. And when some places are full-on abandoned from an exodus, the Resistance is definitely gonna find some stuff there in the new "safe area".

Look below at where Kudo and Bruce hole up after Yoichi's death. No one's outside, there's a destroyed car, and there's some smoke further up the road.

The hospital/clinic room Bruce uses is ripped apart and unsanitary, but it's still the best they can do. I think that houses and a hospital would be their best bet for survival/using as a base; resources, lodging, and some sort of safety exist there. Especially in a hospital, which would have backup generators, a camera system, and even a PA system. Hospitals have to accommodate for lots of people (food, space, lodging), and have a lot of medical equipment they can use.

Basically what I'm saying is: the Resistance likely doesn't have a permanent base. They don't have the resources or enough safety to make their own. They squat in abandoned places and move constantly, because nowhere is safe, but they can't just waltz in public and declare where they are; they have to hide in plain sight while they bide their time. In the meantime, the places they use would have to be resourceful, or they're using what they have on their backs. The manga already shows them using a house and a hospital room.

[ai-innova7ions]

Neturbiz Enterprises - AI Innov7ions

Our mission is to provide details about AI-powered platforms across different technologies, each of which offer unique set of features. The AI industry encompasses a broad range of technologies designed to simulate human intelligence. These include machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, computer vision, and more. Companies and research institutions are continuously advancing AI capabilities, from creating sophisticated algorithms to developing powerful hardware. The AI industry, characterized by the development and deployment of artificial intelligence technologies, has a profound impact on our daily lives, reshaping various aspects of how we live, work, and interact.

[kandicon]

*writes the same exact headcannons in slightly different scenarios over and over again*

[bnha-more-like-bnh-gay]

Izuku: I have officially been awake for 25 hours, and I have come to an epiphany

Tsu; that you need sleep?

Uraraka: that you need to go to bed?

Izuku: no?

Uraraka: bestie

Izuku: that if pencils had eyes, we’d call them, “peyencils”

Tsu: I think maybe you should talk to physician or psychiatrist about a sleep aid

Izuku: oh

[b-blushes]

HEY GUESS WHAT despite it all i am 2 weeks no migraine which i think is a record amount of time without a migraine this year >:3

[science-sculpt]

Amplifying Revolution: The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

Imagine a scenario where you have a crucial document, but there's only one fragile copy. You need numerous duplicates to analyze and share. This is exactly the challenge faced by scientists dealing with DNA. Thankfully, a revolutionary technique called Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) comes to the rescue. PCR, often referred to as molecular photocopying, is a fundamental tool in molecular biology. It allows scientists to exponentially amplify a specific DNA segment, creating millions of copies from a minuscule sample. This has revolutionized various fields, from diagnosing diseases to unraveling genetic mysteries.

The credit for inventing PCR is widely attributed to Kary Mullis, a biochemist working at Cetus Corporation in the early 1980s. Inspired by his nighttime drives through California, Mullis envisioned a method for exponentially copying DNA segments through repeated cycles of heating, annealing (primer attachment), and extension (polymerase-mediated DNA synthesis). This elegant concept became the foundation of PCR. Mullis's concept was brilliant, but a crucial hurdle remained. The process required a DNA polymerase enzyme that could withstand repeated heating and cooling cycles. The solution came from an unexpected source: hot springs. In 1976, researchers discovered Taq polymerase, a heat-stable enzyme isolated from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus. This discovery was a game-changer, as Taq polymerase could function optimally during the high-temperature steps of PCR. In recognition of its transformative impact on science, Kary Mullis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993, alongside Michael Smith, who pioneered site-directed mutagenesis.

While the core concept of PCR was established, the technique required further refinement. Pioneering researchers like Henry Erlich at Cetus played a vital role in optimizing reaction conditions, automating the process, and developing the now-ubiquitous thermal cyclers that precisely control the temperature changes needed for PCR. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a surge in PCR applications. In 1985, PCR was used for the first time to analyze sickle cell anemia, demonstrating its potential for clinical diagnostics. Forensic science embraced PCR in 1987, with the successful amplification of DNA from a single human hair. By 1989, highly sensitive DNA fingerprinting techniques based on PCR became a game-changer in criminal investigations.

At the heart of PCR lies a clever exploitation of the natural process of DNA replication. The key players in this drama are:

Template DNA: The DNA sequence that contains the target region to be amplified

Primers: Short sequences of nucleotides that flank the target DNA region and serve as starting points for DNA synthesis.

DNA Polymerase: Enzyme responsible for synthesizing new DNA strands by extending the primers using nucleotides.

Nucleotides: The building blocks of DNA, including adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G).

Buffer Solution: Provides optimal conditions for the enzymatic reactions to occur.

Thermal Cycler: Instrumentation used to automate the PCR process by cycling through different temperatures.

At its core, PCR mimics the natural process of DNA replication within an organism. However, PCR condenses this complex process into a series of controlled steps carried out within a test tube. Here's a breakdown of the PCR cycle:

Denaturation: The first step involves heating the reaction mixture to a high temperature (usually around 95°C), causing the double-stranded DNA to separate into two single strands. This process is known as denaturation.

Annealing: The temperature is then lowered to allow the primers to bind (anneal) to their complementary sequences on the single-stranded DNA. This typically occurs around 50-65°C, depending on the primer sequences.

Extension: With the primers bound, the temperature is raised again, and DNA polymerase synthesizes new DNA strands by extending from the primers using the nucleotides present in the reaction mixture. This step occurs at a temperature optimal for the DNA polymerase enzyme, typically around 72°C.

Cycle Repetition: These three steps—denaturation, annealing, and extension—are repeated multiple times (usually 20-40 cycles), resulting in an exponential increase in the number of DNA copies. Each cycle doubles the amount of DNA, leading to millions of copies of the target sequence after just a few cycles.

The beauty of PCR lies in its repetitive nature. With each cycle, the number of copies of the target DNA segment doubles. After 30 cycles, for example, you can have billions of copies of the specific DNA region, enough for further analysis.

This versatile technique has spawned numerous variations, each tailored for a specific purpose. Let's delve into some of the most common types of PCR:

Real-Time PCR (qPCR): Real-Time PCR, or quantitative PCR (qPCR), revolutionized nucleic acid quantification by enabling the real-time monitoring of DNA amplification. This technique utilizes fluorescent reporter molecules to measure the accumulation of PCR products during each cycle. qPCR is invaluable in gene expression analysis, microbial quantification, and diagnostic assays due to its high sensitivity and quantitative capabilities.

Reverse Transcription PCR (RT-PCR): Reverse Transcription PCR combines PCR with reverse transcription to amplify RNA sequences. This technique converts RNA into complementary DNA (cDNA) using reverse transcriptase enzyme before proceeding with PCR amplification. RT-PCR is pivotal in gene expression studies, viral load quantification, and the detection of RNA viruses such as HIV and SARS-CoV-2.

Nested PCR: Nested PCR involves two rounds of amplification, with the second round using a set of nested primers that bind within the product of the first round. This nested approach increases specificity and reduces nonspecific amplification, making it ideal for detecting low-abundance targets and minimizing contamination. Nested PCR is commonly used in forensic analysis, pathogen detection, and rare allele identification.

Multiplex PCR: Multiplex PCR allows simultaneous amplification of multiple target sequences within a single reaction. This technique employs multiple primer sets, each specific to a distinct target region, enabling the detection of multiple targets in a single assay. Multiplex PCR is valuable in microbial typing, genetic screening, and detection of pathogens with complex genetic profiles.

Digital PCR (dPCR): Digital PCR partitions the PCR reaction into thousands of individual micro-reactions, each containing a single DNA template molecule or none at all. By counting the number of positive and negative partitions, dPCR accurately quantifies target DNA molecules without the need for standard curves or reference samples. This technique is useful for absolute quantification of rare targets, allelic discrimination, and copy number variation analysis.

Allele-Specific PCR: Allele-Specific PCR selectively amplifies alleles containing specific nucleotide variations, enabling the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) or mutations. This technique utilizes primers designed to match the target sequence with single-base mismatches at their 3' end, allowing discrimination between different alleles. Allele-Specific PCR finds applications in genetic testing, pharmacogenomics, and population studies.

PCR's ability to amplify DNA has made it an indispensable tool in various fields. Here are a few examples of its diverse applications:

Disease Diagnosis and Surveillance: PCR plays a pivotal role in the rapid and accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases. By amplifying specific nucleic acid sequences, PCR enables the detection of pathogens with high sensitivity and specificity. PCR-based tests have become indispensable in diagnosing viral infections such as HIV, hepatitis, influenza, and COVID-19. Additionally, PCR facilitates the surveillance of disease outbreaks and the monitoring of antimicrobial resistance.

Genetic Testing and Personalized Medicine: PCR empowers genetic testing by enabling the detection of genetic mutations, polymorphisms, and variations associated with inherited diseases, cancer, and pharmacogenomics. Through techniques like allele-specific PCR and real-time PCR, researchers can identify disease-causing mutations, assess drug efficacy, and tailor treatments to individual patients. PCR-based genetic tests have transformed healthcare by enabling early disease detection, risk assessment, and personalized therapeutic interventions.

Forensic Analysis and DNA Profiling: PCR has revolutionized forensic science by enabling the analysis of minute DNA samples collected from crime scenes. Techniques like short tandem repeat (STR) analysis and multiplex PCR allow forensic experts to generate DNA profiles with high resolution and accuracy. PCR-based DNA profiling is used in criminal investigations, paternity testing, disaster victim identification, and wildlife forensics, contributing to the administration of justice and conservation efforts worldwide.

Environmental Monitoring and Microbial Ecology: PCR facilitates the study of microbial communities in diverse environments, including soil, water, air, and the human microbiome. Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis using PCR-based methods enables the detection and characterization of microbial species, including bacteria, fungi, and archaea. PCR-based assays are employed in environmental monitoring, food safety testing, and microbial source tracking, aiding in the preservation of ecosystems and public health.

Agricultural Biotechnology and Food Safety: PCR plays a vital role in agricultural biotechnology by enabling the detection of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), plant pathogens, and foodborne pathogens. PCR-based assays are used to verify the authenticity and safety of food products, detect allergens, and monitor the presence of contaminants such as pesticides and toxins. PCR-based technologies contribute to ensuring food security, quality control, and regulatory compliance in the food industry.

Evolutionary Biology and Phylogenetics: PCR-based methods are indispensable tools for studying evolutionary relationships and biodiversity. Techniques like DNA barcoding and metagenomics employ PCR to amplify and analyze DNA sequences from diverse organisms, elucidating their evolutionary history and ecological interactions. PCR facilitates the identification of new species, the study of population genetics, and the conservation of endangered species, enriching our understanding of the natural world.

PCR's versatility and precision make it indispensable in unlocking the secrets of genetics and unraveling complex biological mysteries. Its ability to amplify minute DNA samples with remarkable speed and accuracy has opened doors to countless possibilities in research and diagnostics. s we delve deeper into the intricacies of the genetic world, PCR will undoubtedly remain a powerful tool for unlocking the secrets of life itself.

[cooki3face]

We need to talk about healthcare and financial crises. There are a lot of us who wholeheartedly believe that there are cures to everything but that our illness is a form of profit for our country, especially within the United States. Just like the fact that instead of having fruit and vegetables and herbs be readily available and accessible for us, we’ve got to go buy them and as inflation increases, the price tags on healthier food choices increases. In the United States, you can get fined for not having insurance, but when you do have insurance you have to pay a fee to have it, large chunks of our pay checks are eaten up and taken from us as well as tax dollars. We not only have issues in the health care system regarding racial bias and discrimination but we also have a problem with the maternal mortality rate, especially in women of color, and especially in regards to black women.

We know who is most likely to get sickle cell anemia and who is most affected by it, and we know who is going to have a hard time affording a 2.2 million cure for sickle cell anemia. We know a large quantity of individuals with chronic illnesses or life threatening illnesses that require intensive medical care and medication are people or color or minorities. We know that people of color and minorities have historically been and systematically been financially unstable, have been paid more, or have been offered the lowest standard of care and resources. Why are we creating cures and services that we know a large percentage of our population cannot afford or does not have access to? And now, we have a case where even a larger percentage of our population cannot afford healthcare and services due to the economic state of our country.

We’re continuing to have children, especially as women, when we need to advocate for better healthcare and support. Women worldwide need to start setting better requirements for when they’re going to have children and how. As someone whose been interested in midwifery for years and has been reading up on midwifery and birthing practices and what is absolutely necessary and essential in order to give a woman a chance at having a smooth, healthy, and safe pregnancy. Vast majority of women who are having children don’t realize that today’s practices for birthing children or preparing you for labor and delivery are less than the bare minimum. Women need access to good food and need to be able to eat well and have a nutritionally balanced diet, women need to be able to participate in physical activity and exercise throughout their pregnancy (yoga, Pilates, walking, etc.) and especially with trained professionals and staff who are educated on what type of physical exercise would best benefit a woman throughout her pregnancy and what will ultimately help her out when it’s time to deliver, they need access to good environments and practices that are created to benefit them and make their experiences easier, safer, and more comfortable. And they absolutely do not need to be required to pay an arm and a leg in hospital fees to have a child in the United States.

We need better health care that better accommodates women in the process of conceiving, women going through their pregnancy, women who are laboring and delivering, and women who are still alive during post partum healing. All these things should be requirements. All of these things should be covered by insurance. The issue is so large that women are having to travel outside of the United States to give birth to their babies and come back so that they could have better care and a better recovery and overall survival rate. It’s expensive to hire a midwife, let alone a dula for spiritual guidance and support. All women should have access to midwives and dulas and there needs to be more women in the birthing industry. We know that traditional midwifery practices and practices that were created to better aid women and were more effective and atomically accurate have been let go of or replaced.

Children are expensive, motherhood is expensive, and at this current moment we have mothers who are going through their pregnancies and post partum without proper resources and care and we have children coming into this world constantly and repeatedly to environments, parents, circumstances, etc. that aren’t financially, emotionally, or physically fit or stable to give them good lives. We need to stop having children at such a rate whilst we shift our focus to advocating for better health care and support for our women. Having a child is a privilege, some people may not agree, but just because we love them does not mean that we should all be having them because at this time we do not have the proper resources to bring them into this world correctly or provide for them.

There’s a lot going on here and a lot we need to advocate for. And those who are chronically ill or have been intense physical ailments and pregnant women who are giving birth to babies are just the tip of the iceberg. This isn’t even including the chronically mentally ill or those with developmental disabilities whose families have to pay thousands of dollars just to get them what they need. Since we’re changing the world and there is a shift happening, it’s time we start having the right conversations at the right time. There’s no time to change the world like today.

[cbirt]

Researchers from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in collaboration with researchers from Denmark, Canada, the USA, Spain, Slovakia, and Israel, have designed Drugst.One, a platform that transforms complex computational tools into user-friendly, web-based utilities for finding novel applications for existing drugs. With as little as three lines of code, Drugst.One can convert any gene or protein-based computational tool into a powerful, web-based toolkit that helps in visualizing how medicines interact with proteins and diseases, which can aid in repurposing already existing drugs. It has already been implemented with 21 different tools, including ones specializing in drug repurposing for irritable bowel disease (IBD) and investigating the smooth muscle cell (SMC) proliferation pathway.

Due to increasing medical demands, technology, over the years, has advanced and catapulted the emergence of tools that enable the identification of the genes or proteins responsible for a particular disease along with the visualization of their interactions contributing to the progression of the disease. This visualization enhances the precision of pharmaceutical treatments and minimizes side effects. It also enables drug repurposing, which eliminates the expenses required for developing new drugs.

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[naturalist-doctor]

[ J:\\ HELLO AGAIN. QUESTION FOR YOU. YOU STUDY PLANTS AND THE LIKE, CORRECT? I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS RELATING TO MUSHROOMS AND FUNGAL-LIKE NETWORKS. ]

[ Sketching at his desk, Winston stops upon hearing Jota’s voice. He doesn't look up to him as he speaks. ]

❝ Sure, I do sometimes. What’s on your mind? ❞

[ He keeps sketching. He seems to be drawing a crosssection of a crow’s brain. ]

[light-gayber]

Hi, uh-

*Scoots closer to the glass in my little aquarium*

Did you know that visual snow syndrome is a real syndrome discovered in 2013 that effects an estimated 2% of the population and it causes you to see the world as if it was from a telly that has a lot of static, or as if it's a shaken snowglobe?

Some other apparent symptoms or comorbidities are (According to Healthline and EyeWiki):

Photophobia or Pain when you are seeing bright lights (I just thought I was antisocial)

Problems seeing in the dark

Palinopsia, Seeing an afterimage of things after they're gone, or moving (I thought it was normal to see smear frames)

Migraines

Tinnitus

Impaired field of vision

Enhanced entopic phenomena, or Visual changes from within the eye that may be the following items:

• Self light of the eye, or having colorful clouds in your vision when you close your eyes or are in the dark (I thought I could see people's "Colors")

• Blue field entopic phenomenon (Seeing squiggly lines from bright blue areas like the sky)

• Spontaneous photopsia (bright flashes of light)

• Floaters in both eyes

This disorder has an Unknown cause, but is guessed to be a neurological disorder of the brain's visual processing disorder, but we know it can develop in childhood, with people saying they've had it as long as they can remember, or it can develop from brain trauma, infection, or taking medication.

It is recommended if you think you have symptoms of this to talk to a doctor or optometrist, because it can affect your quality of life or even be disabling. The static can be black, white, colored, transparent, or flashing.

[adelaidedrubman]

update on #MoldWatch2023 for all my little spores: went to the doctor today and she didn’t even feel the need to run any tests she just listened to my symptoms and was like “yeah bestie that’d be the mold” (#BelieveWomen win) and offered to write a letter advocating for me with whatever language i needed if i choose to address it with my employer.

i think my next step is going to be consulting an employment lawyer because ya girl knows when she’s outside her practice area and i have a lil bit in savings and at this point it’s mostly a principle issue and i just need to find the best way to die on this dumb moldy hill.

[apparitionism]

Decalogue 5

I’ve been chipping away at this “story” for three years now—it’s more a conceit that got out of hand, really, but ten years’ worth of regular fanfictional postings can send the conceptual car into some unreasonably esoteric cul-de-sacs. This one, as the title makes clear, has to do with ten commandments—not THE Ten Commandments, but one for each year of the Bering-and-Wells situation (I started this excursion on the tenth anniversary, intending to finish it soon after and wind up the ten, but...). Part 1 covered years one through five, with commandments as follows: one, meet at gunpoint; two, thou shalt not touch; three, suffer in silence; four, make mistakes; and five, thou shalt not hold grudges. Part 2 was year six: Thou shalt not damage. Part 3 dealt with year seven and instructed, “Thou shalt take nothing for granted.” Most recently, part 4 yielded year eight’s “Remember the anniversary,” which is always good advice, so here’s year nine, which via time’s-arrow shenanigans and bizarro chapter-math is part 5, being posted on the thirteenth anniversary.

Decalogue 5

Year 9: Calm down.

It would of course have been wise for Myka to have applied such a directive, spiritually, throughout most of her years with (and without) Helena. It would have been wise for her to have applied it throughout most of her interactions with Helena... and if anyone had asked her, she would have said she’d tried to do so. But apparently her efforts hadn’t met the universe’s expectations: such that by their ninth year, said universe saw fit to insist, insistently, that she work much, much harder at it.

That insistence came over time to manifest as an incessant tapping against her consciousness... naturally (or was it artificially? and was there a salient difference?) everything that happened served as a commentary on everything else that happened, for Myka would over the course of the year come to understand the heavy significance of a particular tapping sound.

Circumstances began to converge—though Myka didn’t realize they were converging, and that in itself ended up being salient—when she and Pete were driving home, late at night, from a retrieval that hadn’t mattered at all. Late at night, though: that mattered. Nearly midnight, in fact, which mattered most.

“Helena hasn’t called me yet,” she said. She hadn’t really intended to say it aloud, but there were only five minutes left in the day. And when Helena and Steve were away on a mission, Helena called Myka at some point during each and every day: a compromise, one designed to mitigate Myka’s urge to smother, at least as far as Helena’s health and safety were concerned. It wasn’t that Helena wouldn’t call, left to her own devices. But Myka was able, was allowed, to expect it. To rely on it.

Pete snorted. “Charlize Theron hasn’t called me yet, but you don’t see me checking my phone every ten seconds about it.”

Myka had given up trying to explain to Pete what a non sequitur was. Instead, she asked, “Why would Charlize Theron call you?”

“Why wouldn’t she? It’s like you’ve never looked at me. But also: get it?”

“I think there’s a significant difference with regard to roles in lives.”

“Only because Charlize hasn’t got the memo on her destiny with me. Don’t be acting snooty just because you and H.G. got all the memos. ‘Agent Bering,’” he pronounced, high-voiced, “‘we’re forever destined to meet at gunpoint.’”

Another thing she’d given up: getting offended and telling him his Helena impression was atrocious. Instead, she said, “I really wish Claudia hadn’t told you about that.” She did wish it. But she knew it was—

“Pfft. Water, bridge, under,” Pete said, reading her mind. “I really wish you’d quit checking your phone every ten seconds. You’re making me nervous.”

“You check your phone constantly!”

“But not for a reason.”

“I just want to know why she hasn’t called yet,” Myka said, hearing herself sound not a little desperate, aggravated that she hadn’t scrubbed—apparently couldn’t scrub—all that evidence from her voice.

Pete didn’t seem to care. “Maybe she’ll tell you when she calls. Or hey, I just realized, phones work both ways.”

That wasn’t the deal, but with three minutes—no, now two—to go, Myka gave in and called. Straight to voicemail. She then went entirely in-for-a-penny on it and called Steve, who picked up quickly, only to say, “Can’t talk; call you back when—”

And then the phone went dead.

Myka’s throat wasn’t really closing in panic, was it? It couldn’t have been. Through the obviously nonexistent clutching choke, she said to Pete, “I called Helena and she didn’t answer and then I called Steve and he said he couldn’t talk and he’d call me back but the line went dead. What do I do now?” She wasn’t really looking for advice, but she had to ask to at least try to force her heart back down.

He didn’t turn his eyes from the road. “Here’s an idea: calm down.”

“I’m very calm,” Myka lied.

Now he did look at her, with an eyeroll of oh please. “Another idea: quit lying.”

“As ideas go, you should quit Steving. And answer my question!”

“I don’t remember the question.”

Myka exhaled with purpose. “What do I do now?”

“Finally an easy one. Wait till Steve calls you back.”

She didn’t have much choice.

Myka had always taken pride in being practiced at simulating calm; that kind of fakery was practically part of an agent’s job description. But she was being forced to learn (and resisting being forced to learn) that such simulation wasn’t enough to resolve every situation... or, more broadly, that appearances unfortunately weren’t reality.

Not until nearly two in the morning—after Myka had showered, changed into her pajamas, pretended to read some pages of Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time (she and Helena were mutually bookclubbing that), and finally given in to doomscrolling news, because at least that didn’t require an attention span—did Steve call and say, “Everything’s fine. She’s about to call you, but I told you I’d call you back, so I am.”

Helena opened her own call by saying, “Via miscalculation, I broke our deal. I know it, and I apologize.”

“Miscalculations happen,” Myka said, because of course they did. Then she said, “I’m too rigid,” because of course she was. Probably.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Helena said, with a fervent affection.

“By calling twice tomorrow?” Myka asked, her own affection rich.

“It’s already tomorrow, and I’ll be home then. Or now: it’s today.”

“You make no sense.”

“Be that as it may, and it may, but: how was your appointment with the physician yesterday?”

Myka had figured that was going to be on the agenda, whenever this call happened. Earlier in the day, she’d been happy enough to put off talking to Helena about the results of her physical; now that wish for postponement returned full force. “Better than your retrieval, I bet,” she hedged, hoping that Helena might just... drop it. Drop it and regale Myka with retrieval exploits.

That was a vain hope, of course: first, Helena had an uncanny ear for reluctance and would seize it and shake it till it yielded a why; second, a full physical, with its palpations, percussions, auscultations, and analyses of the living breathing body, was jam-packed with the sort of trackable data Helena found endlessly enthralling.

“Steve and I are fine,” Helena said, of course declining to elaborate on the mission, of course dashing Myka’s hopes. “Are you?”

That was without question a shake in search of a why. “Do I look unhealthy to you?” she countered.

“I can’t see you. This isn’t a video call.”

“If the answer’s yes, just say it.”

“The answer is that to me, you look reasonably healthy. I’ve certainly seen you look far less healthy.”

“You have?” Because Myka had hardly been sick at all, these past several—

“I suspect you’d rather I didn’t talk about that.”

“I would?”

A breath. Then: “Boone.”

Stupid mistake, Myka chastised herself. You should have understood immediately. Should have understood—which still often took the place of “did understand”—even now, after so much time. She breathed out heavily, trying for that elusive calm. “Okay. Yes.” They had talked, at first poorly, about the cancer. Talked, continually poorly, about Pete’s role in making it go away. Talked about—argued about—who had the right to, who deserved to, save whom. “I can’t change the fact that he did,” Myka had said.

To which Helena had said, not enraged but resigned, “I can’t change the fact that I resent his doing what I couldn’t.”

“Because you didn’t know,” Myka had tried.

“For which I blame myself,” Helena had gloomed in response.

“Blame both of us,” Myka had tossed into the breach. Before, she would have said “you should,” but she’d seen how time could stretch the boundaries of fault, of responsibility, for so many acts. In this case, she’d made sure to push those boundaries herself. On purpose, hard and away. “Blame the Warehouse. Blame everybody everywhere. There’s so much blame to go around...”

Now, Myka was at least able to follow up with, “I can honestly say I’m glad I looked worse then. Because comparatively, this is not a big deal.”

It wasn’t. At any rate, it didn’t seem to be. Her primary care doctor, whom Myka trusted because he’d steered her through the non-Warehouse parts of the cancer without making any of it weird, had been factual: “Most everything looks fine, but your systolic blood pressure falls in a range we refer to as ‘elevated.’” He then perked up, like he’d been itching for an opportunity to have something to do, in these years she’d been untumored: “In younger people like you, this generally results from lifestyle issues, so I’ll link you to some articles in the portal outlining changes, steps to take so you don’t develop dangerous hypertension.” Myka had thought he’d sounded overly enthusiastic on the word “dangerous”... but she’d hoped that was a figment of her hyperactive imagination.

“And yet you’re telling it to me,” Helena said, after Myka explained what he’d said, trying to downplay it, omitting in particular his use of the word “dangerous.” Trying and failing to downplay it, apparently, despite the omission, because Helena followed up with, “And you sound a trifle agitated, most likely a bit about my failure to call as I should have... also a bit about the diagnosis itself. But perhaps something else as well?”

She was discerning, Helena was, reading Myka not like a cipher, rendering a single message, but like a novel, allowing for varying interpretations. What could Myka have done but reward her by telling the truth? “He wanted to know about family history,” she said. “I had to call my parents. Well. My mom’s blood pressure’s fine. I mean my dad.”

“Ah. A still-fraught proposition.”

“A useless proposition,” Myka said. “I got myself all geared up for it, but he wouldn’t tell me much of anything. Like I was trying to pry military secrets out of him.”

“You two do often seem to be at war.” And Helena added, as if she’d seen Myka’s immediate nod of agreement, “In keeping with that, perhaps you should try another sortie.”

“I’ll need to gear up again. Which I guess is in keeping too.” She harrumphed. “Won’t be good for my blood pressure, I bet.”

“Nor is being awake at this hour of the morning. We should end this call, and you should sleep.”

“But you’re on this call, and so am I. I don’t want to end it.”

“Nor do I, but you should sleep.”

“So should you,” Myka said.

“Lost cause. But we’ll both sleep better tomorrow night. No, tonight. It’s today.”

“You make no sense,” Myka accused again, but drowsily.

Helena rewarded her with a low chuckle. “And you make nothing but sense?”

“You wouldn’t know,” Myka said...

They continued on in that vein that for some time, until they finally agreed to end the call at a three-two-one same moment. Myka felt grateful, as she often did, for the way in which her life with Helena gave her access to some very typical experiences, ones that she probably wouldn’t have appreciated if she’d had them as a teenager. As an adult was better. As an adult with Helena was better still.

But just as Myka was about to slip into sleep, her mind began to race: she realized that she hadn’t asked Helena again about the retrieval, which had to have been more than a little fraught, and while she knew she wasn’t supposed to smother, she berated herself for what must have seemed like a total absence of real concern.

Thus when Helena and Steve arrived home, met by the cadre of Myka, Pete, and Claudia, the first thing Myka said, with a carefully calibrated mix of casual interest and earnest apology, was “I should have asked you before: what was the artifact, anyway?”

Helena didn’t say anything, but she glanced at Steve.

“You... what?” he said. Their imperfect communication—but communication all the same—reminded Myka of herself and Pete. What they’d had before they got it all wrong... what they were ever closer to fully getting back.

Helena shrugged, the very picture of resignation. “Go ahead.”

“It’s Nikolai Korotkoff’s sphygmomanometer—his Riva-Rocci cuff, they called it in his day. He’s the guy who discovered the sounds doctors listen for when they’re taking your—”

Myka’s knee-jerk response, she had to admit, was not ideal: exasperated, she interrupted, “This was about blood pressure? You’re kidding. You’re actually kidding.”

Steve turned to Helena, and while he wasn’t exactly panicked, he was clearly unsettled. “I want to tell her I am. I really want to. I feel like it would make your life easier if I do.”

Helena shrugged again. “Well. ‘Easier.’ Sorting out life’s relative ease, moment on moment, is a tricky business.”

“Is that a dig?” Myka snapped. “Why didn’t you say something last night? Or no, I mean this morning, because it wasn’t last night, which doesn’t matter now, but...”— she glanced at Helena, in a little apology for the snap—“...did. Look, if this thing lowers blood pressure, wrap it around my arm right now.”

That got her an eyebrow. “As someone tends to intone: not for personal gain.”

“Wouldn’t it be personal loss here though?” Claudia asked, with a surprising absence of snark.

That made Myka laugh, and she applauded, a triple-clap for emphasis. “See, this is what the Warehouse needs: a Caretaker who knows a loophole when she sees one.”

Claudia’s jaw dropped. “Who are you? The Myka I know and mostly love but am also driven nuts by because she’s such a rule snob hates loopholes.”

Obviously Myka was going to have to rethink her relationship with rules, if only to get some benefit from... something. “You know what? I’m just going to say—to postulate—that the Warehouse owes me one. Or several. I think it owes me several.”

Helena said, “Keeping score with the Warehouse is the very definition of a fool’s game.” That was her you are overreacting voice, rarely deployed except for when they were in Colorado. “But more importantly, that isn’t the cuff’s effect. It matters not at all to the one being measured, but rather to the measurer, in whom it increases sensitivity to, and the ability to interpret, diagnostically informative bodily processes. Hence our difficulty persuading the doctor who relied upon it to... relinquish it.”

Myka, reacting poorly both to the news and to the tone in which it was delivered, said, “It absolutely figures that the Warehouse would ping out something completely useless at a time like this.”

“Ping out?” Claudia asked. “Do we say that now?”

“I will say what I want. Stupid artifact,” Myka muttered.

Pete and Steve had been notably silent during all this. “Um,” Steve now said. “I feel like something’s out of proportion here, for reasons I’m not getting.”

Pete, apparently similarly confused, said, “Since when are you weird about blood pressure? Used to be anything about H.G. was your trigger, but now mostly it’s anything you think triggers her. So what gives?”

Myka was tempted to let him go hard on painful nostalgia, just to avoid having to talk about this ridiculous medical situation. But Helena gave her a look, one that said both “your reaction is out of proportion” and “you can’t hide this forever and certainly not if this is your response to related stimuli,” and even though Myka would have much preferred to hide it forever and was pretty sure she could if she worked hard enough, regardless of stimuli, she had to acknowledge that the whole thing was about what could stay hidden but would probably have adverse consequences if it did. So she grumped out, “My blood pressure. Is elevated. It’s a term of art,” she added, to try to forestall—

“Wow. That’s a biggie,” Pete said.

Oh well on the forestalling. “No it isn’t,” she told him.

“Except it is.”

“Except it isn’t. This is just a preliminary-warning type of thing.”

“A ping!” Claudia shouted. “Ping out!”

Steve said, “You sound a little too enthusiastic about that.”

“Kind of like my doctor,” Myka said, “who started going on about ‘lifestyle issues.’ I would like to state for the record that I do not have ‘lifestyle issues.’”

“Except for isn’t stress a thing? Working here’s a big part of your lifestyle,” Claudia pointed out, unhelpfully.

“And... you know,” Pete said. He nodded toward Helena, who spread her arms in an angelic “who, me?” gesture.

“‘Lifestyle’ is a stupid word,” Myka grumbled. “So I guess I’ll quit my job and break up with Helena, so I can live to a ripe old age and be broke and miserable. Excellent ideas. Thanks for the help.”

Steve—being his wise, confrontation-avoidant self—said, “I think I’ll just take this little artifact to the Warehouse so it can settle in.”

That had the unfortunate effect of reminding Myka of the artifact’s identity. “Did we all get whammied a long time ago with something that makes everything that happens in our lives rhyme in the most annoying way possible?” she asked. “Or was it just me?”

“I think it’s more repetition than rhyme,” Steve said, though in an I don’t want to be implicated in this way.

“Repetition with variation, however,” Helena said, and Myka wanted to be able to want to smack her.

“Right,” Steve said. “Would that be reprise? Maybe? Or am I thinking of something else?”

“None of this is lowering my blood pressure,” Myka informed them. Pointlessly.

Steve, to his credit, hotfooted it out of the situation, but Pete said, “You should look into stuff that would.”

“ON IT!!” was Claudia’s response.

Myka tried to head off whatever that was going to be with, “I’m supposed to check the online portal for links to what the doctor rec—”

“Links?!?” Claudia enthused. “I got all the links! Let’s run through some together!”

“Let’s not,” Myka said. Pointless again.

“Here’s the first one: ‘Lose extra pounds.’”

“She’s a pretty skinny drink of water,” Pete said. “Not much extra.”

“I guess,” Claudia said, sounding disappointed. “Next one: exercise regularly.”

Helena tilted her head a bit and said, “The regularity of her exercise is indisputable.”

“Come on,” Myka said. “I try really hard not to wake you up when I leave for my run.”

“I was not referring to your run.”

Claudia’s face pinked, and she said a quick, “Okay, okay! Moving on! Next really good idea: Eat fewer processed foods.”

That was patently ridiculous. “When was the last time I ate a processed food?” Myka asked.

“When I made bean dip in the food processor,” Pete said.

Myka sighed. “Look, this isn’t helping.”

Claudia nodded, despondent. “Yeah, you’re also supposed to quit smoking.”

“Like I said,” Myka agreed.

“But wait, here we go,” Claudia said, perking up, “like I said: reduce stress! And there’s a whole list!”

Myka waited for enlightenment.

For once, Claudia didn’t seem inclined to read aloud; in fact, she perked back down. “These are just... tips. Life-hacky,” she said, frowning. “How’s ‘plan your day’ supposed to do anything? And this one totally contradicts it: ‘Don’t experience future pain.’ Aren’t plans all about future pain?”

“Myka’s sure are,” Pete said. “So she’s doing everything right and wrong?”

“This is not a surprise,” Myka said.

“Maybe what’s next is simpler,” Claudia said. “Like, philosophically: ‘Make time to do the things you enjoy.’”

At that one, Pete leered, Myka groaned, and Helena objected, “I am not ‘things.’”

“I should’ve seen how that would go,” Claudia said, managing to refrain from turning red this time. “Okay, but this last one’s for all of us, except Steve, king of zen: practice gratitude.”

“Huh,” Pete said. “You know, I could probably stand to work on that.”

“I as well,” Helena agreed.

They all looked at Myka. “Fine,” she said. “I could too. In that spirit, thank you, Claudia, for caring enough about my blood pressure to find at least one thing that might lower it.”

“Score! And thank you for understanding how helpful I am.”

“Steve might not approve of your mixing gloating and gratitude,” Helena told her.

“No, no, I’m grateful for the gloating: it means we’re done,” Myka said.

Claudia said, “The internet’s a big place. I could find more!”

“Let’s end on success,” Myka said. “For everybody.”

She didn’t actually do very much practicing over the next while, not until she one evening received a surprise call from her father, right before she was ready to head upstairs to bed. She was tired—tempted to fend him off with “I’ll call you back tomorrow”—but it was a ready-made, if challenging, opportunity to practice. So she said, “Hi, Dad. Are you okay?”

He said an expectedly brusque “fine,” but then: “So, about what you were... asking about. The other day. I don’t like to talk about this kind of thing.”

Myka couldn’t quite hold back a dry “Really.”

“Don’t get smart with me,” he said, but with far less snap than he would have in the past. “Sorry. Look. Your... wife. Convinced me I should be a little more up front.”

“She... okay.” That presented a truckload of issues to process—and, she had to admit, to be grateful for.

First, the word “wife.”

That was new, as a word that applied—newly, quietly, it applied.

“I don’t want a wedding wedding,” Myka had said to Helena, once they’d got down to talking about the actual logistics. She knew it was likely to be a problematic position: knew and felt a powerful anxiety rise as she articulated it.

Helena had said, “Claudia does, and—”

“I know,” Myka began, her rebuttal at the ready, “but—”

“And,” Helena had interrupted. “Yet. While we owe her a great deal, that does not include dominion over how we enter into a legal union. And given all I’ve come to understand about modern weddings, I agree with you.”

Thus small it was, with Steve and Claudia—who continued to insist that she was, in fact, the flower ninja—their only witnesses.

Small, yet legal. About which Helena had evinced something very close to wonder: “A binding contract,” she had said, after words were pronounced and papers signed, as if the idea had just struck her.

“You’re the one who proposed,” Myka had reminded her, floating, light; she was in a bubble of something like wonder herself.

“I beg to differ,” Helena reminded back.

“The one who intended to propose. I have to believe you knew about that binding-contract endpoint of the proposal process.” That they could be these people. These word-trading, contractually bound, wonderstruck people.

“Of the proposal process,” Helena agreed. “Endpoint. Yes. But otherwise: beginning point.”

She’d said that last part quietly. But in the silence that followed, it swelled to a clarion.

Steve cupped his hands, as if to have and hold a bit of the air in which the words resonated.

“And here I was worried this—” Claudia had said, gesturing around the small conference room, which they would soon need to vacate for whoever was solemnifying next, “wouldn’t be enough.”

“Enough for what, darling?” Helena asked, though Myka was pretty sure they all knew the answer.

Now Claudia gestured at the two of them. “This.”

A decent enough word for it all, as words went.

Word-wise, and more salient to the present phone call, “wife” was new as a syllable her father would willingly pronounce of someone who was Myka’s. So: gratitude. There was also the matter of Helena having “convinced” her father of anything, although Myka was really unsure about where to place any appreciation for that. Further... well, no, that about covered it.

Her father then said, “I told you numbers. Befores, afters, but not what I did to move them.” He paused, and Myka had no trouble picturing his facial reluctance at having utter whatever might come next. What did come next: “Meditation.”

Not a word she’d ever expected to hear him utter—on a par with “wife” in its new application.

“Your mother makes me,” he said. “Thirty minutes a day, strictly enforced. You could try it.”

“Could,” he’d said, not “should.”

She knew she ought to have appreciated the call for what it was: seemingly sincere, part of an overall positive trend. But instead she worked herself up to offense, marching upstairs to find Helena—brushing her hair, innocent of any intent—and demanding, “You called my dad?” Petulant. An uptight whine. Definitely not her finest hour.

“I did not,” Helena said, not pausing her strokes for even a millisecond. “He called me.”

“He did?” So she’d climbed up to offense for no reason. The climb back down involved an awkward reset of her face and her breathing, but she did it, ending on a cringed, “Sorry.”

“He wanted to know if you were well,” Helena said, still conducting the stroke, stroke, stroke. “This was after he called your sister and asked her the same question.”

“He told you that?”

“No. Your sister did. When she called me to warn me that your father would be calling me, because she had told him she had no information on the point but that I most likely would. I asked her if she wanted me to tell her anything about said point, and she said no, that she would get it from your mother after your father told her what he found out from me.” Now she stopped the hair show and turned in Myka’s direction, brandishing the brush. “Your relations seem to take comfort in communication that is as indirect as possible.”

“I can’t even begin to argue with that. I sort of hate that everybody in my family—but especially my father—likes you more than they like me. But obviously I’m grateful for it too. It’s a slow-motion relief.”

“If your father’s concern for your health is any evidence, he likes you a great deal. I’ve never heard him inquire about my health.”

“Then again, maybe he doesn’t like you,” Myka said. “He thinks it’s your wifely duty to force me to meditate.”

“Coercion seems antithetical. And yet I do have every intention of fulfilling my wifely duties, including such new ones as arise—including this one. Given that it... has?”

“I guess it has. And I appreciate the intention. It’s important. Required, even. I honestly have a hard time believing this particular one’s going to have any tangible effect on the future, but I appreciate it.”

“Well, the future. What did Claudia say? ‘Don’t experience future pain.’ You should experience future effects—even pain, if necessary—when they happen. Not before.” Helena turned back to the mirror. She set the brush down and watched herself breathe in and out, very deliberately.

“Are we still talking about me?” Myka asked.

“I confess I’ve had to put effort into... braking trepidatious anticipation. With regard to effects.”

“Effects?”

“I can, for example, report that my blood pressure is fine.”

“Of course it is,” Myka groused, because of course it was.

Helena ignored that. “Fine for now, that is, which I know because Dr. Calder keeps a close eye. As part of her unplanned, yet obviously necessary, case study of the long-term effects of the Bronze, which she records as I... experience them.”

Myka felt her pulse speed at the thought. Not helpful.

Nor was the overall fact that the future, whatever pain it would or wouldn’t deliver, was unknowable.

“I try—often unsuccessfully, but more successfully with the passage of time—to remain securely in the present moment,” Helena went on. “Steve’s a great help.”

“Pete wouldn’t be,” Myka said immediately.

Helena turned fully around to face Myka; she leaned forward and said, “Wouldn’t he?

“Of course not,” Myka said, because the idea of Pete being helpful in some mindful pursuit of present-ness? Helpful like Steve would be? Preposterous.

“I believe you’re mistaken. Pete has many habits that vex every one of us, but you of all people should know that he does not fret. Certainly not about the future.”

Myka had to think that out for a minute, then a minute more. “You’re... right,” she said. “If something’s unknowable, he doesn’t try to know it. He forgets about it and reads a comic book.”

“A lesson for the both of us?”

“I don’t like comic books,” Myka said. “And neither do you.” But formulating this basic fact about her partner sparked Myka to think of her childhood, the way she would turn to a book in order to soothe herself, so as to simultaneously leave and fully inhabit as many present moments as possible... to Helena, she admitted, “It is a lesson. I used to be able to... lose myself. More. Better.”

A very small smile ghosted its way onto Helena’s face. “You lose yourself quite well.”

That was welcome, if (still, even now, a bit) embarrassing. “Thank you? But for the purposes of peace, maybe not ideal.”

“Well then, I suppose I’ll have to force you to meditate,” Helena said, and was that enthusiasm in her voice?

“Now?”

“No time like the present.”

Myka allowed herself to be manipulated toward the bed, then to be situated there cross-legged, even as she complained, “It seems like it’s going to take up a lot of time. Like the present. Thirty minutes a day, my dad said, but wasn’t one of Claudia’s tips about making time to do things I enjoy?”

“You just now rejected that,” Helena said. She put out the light and joined Myka on the bed, facing her, sitting similarly cross-legged.

“You’re just lucky ‘Things’ isn’t your new nickname. But come on, when you think about it, half an hour’s half an hour. Wouldn’t it just be stealing time from, you know, us?”

“Stealing present time—minimal present time—yes. But to increase the likelihood of maximal total time. For, you know, us,” she concluded.

It was a low blow; Helena knew how susceptible Myka was to having her own speech patterns mimicked by that voice. Nevertheless, she tried, “Didn’t you just say there’s no time like the present?”

“I did, and I was correct. Now focus.”

“Fine.” She closed her eyes. Then she cracked one open. “On what?”

Helena gave that some consideration. “At the risk of adding insult to injury, we might try Korotkoff sounds. I’ve been thinking on them since encountering Mr. Korotkoff’s instrument. We didn’t know them in my day... we could have produced them, used them for diagnoses, at any time. Yet to us, in our ignorance, blood moved ever silent.”

“My ignorance too. I’ve had my blood pressure taken a million times—and there’ll be a million more, and now more often—but I don’t know how it works. Tell me.”

“One imposes pressure by inflating the cuff around the arm, then one releases it, slowly, and listens. Silence at first, then five distinct phases of sounds, telling sounds, emerge as blood begins again to flow. The phases, the sounds. The same in all bodies. Yours. Mine. Everyone’s. Five. In succession.”

Her voice was slow. Lulling. This might not be meditation, but it was an easing. “Tell them to me,” Myka said. She closed her eyes again, imagining a wrapping, enveloping density, an inflating push of an determined cuff... yet even as she did so, a tendril of unease slipped its way in, an instinctive pre-flinch of discomfiture at what the release of pressure might reveal. She reheard “you lose yourself quite well”—felt the reflexive, nervous rise of self-consciousness—but she pressed against it, willing it down, down and away.

“In phase one,” Helena began, “the blood signals its return with clear taps, low but clear, knocks of announcement.”

Myka reached for the lull again, working to hear the silk-low voice both for itself (to be here) and for what it gave (to be elsewhere).

Helena thwarted her for a moment, becoming less hypnotist than lecturer as she said, “The pressure at which phase one occurs is the top number, that troublesome number of yours.”

Eyes still closed, Myka reached her hands out, feeling for Helena’s body, reaching her arms, and at the contact Helena seemed to understand. “In phase two,” she said, slow again, “the knocking softens, joined by a new sound, a swishing, soft, long, the blood taking its time, finding its way...”

Myka let her hands move, just a little, wayfinding.

“Phase three,” Helena said, with a small hitching throat-clear. “Here the knock returns, insistent now, the blood knowing its way, impatient to resume its course, pushing itself to phase four: an abrupt muffling, as if reassembling for a final push of sound.” Her hands now met Myka’s body, grasping her arms, tightening as she said, “But no, no final push, for phase five is the disappearance of all sound, the reestablishment of what the doctors of my day knew only as unrevealing silence. Yet not so unrevealing after all: that restoration is the diastolic pressure, the lower number, completing the diagnosis, culminating the story of how the blood speaks as it relearns to move: sound to less sound to more sound to no sound.”

That repetition of “sound”... it rang in Myka’s head. Sound, sound, sound...

She opened her eyes. Her hands were at Helena’s waist, and Helena’s hands had moved to her shoulders; now they were locked in the pose, statues waiting for a spell-break.

Myka willed herself not to move her hands as she said, “I didn’t meditate.”

Helena wasn’t moving either, but it seemed to be taking just as much effort. “I’m grateful,” she said.

“Are you calm?” Myka asked.

“Not at all.”

“Good.”

But later, later, in the still: yes. Calm. No sound.

TBC