How many have read this? http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=356476. Much as this gives me the heebies, I can understand it. I believe that in terms of surface area, at least, skin is the largest organ of the human body. We transplant the organs we can't see from the dead, it follows that skin should not be excluded from Club Transplant.
The real problem is the psychological wounds that cannot be reversed with a shiny new face.
Since I can remember, I have a dream. I have a dream in which I know the people around me, but cannot communicate with them. I am literate unto myself only. We are in the kitchen of a house and I understand we are a family. Four of the five people leave: my sisters and brother off to school; Father to work. My mother disappears, at least I don't see her leave the room with the others, but I am alone.
I am not at all clear how, I end up in the basement. I have never been there and am curious, so I explore. To the left of the stairs, in the middle of the wall are two plain beds separated by a nightstand. In the far right corner a walk-in closet set into the concrete. Otherwise the room is unremarkable. I feel a bit afraid and head for the stairs. I know that's the way in and out of this tomb-like room. As I near them, I realize I have never climbed stairs and don't know how. All at once, they become a ladder, increasing my fright of being trapped. Insitinctively, I look over my left shoulder. A ghost comes from the closet and flies at me. I see my face and know fright. I run or fly- I can never tell which.
As I escape the ghost, I see my family at the entrance to the basement, cheering for me. I note the ladder is gone and they can't help. This is my battle alone.
I stop, turn to face the ghost and awake.
Okay. Just a dream, right? A few years ago I was having lunch with my mother and told her that story. As I did, I watched her blanch. I finished and she gasped a bit then related to me what really happened. I won't go into details, suffice it to say I was just under six months old when that happened. I was in my walker and pushed myself down the basement stairs when she stepped out of the kitchen for a moment. When she found me I was not moving or making a sound at all. Only when she picked me up did I cry out. We moved from that house shortly after and I never saw it again. After I told Mom, the dream stopped.
The psychology of that is still with me. How little we know about the human mind. To meet Death so young and be so familiar with Him all these years, I grew accustomed to Death's presence and witnessed His work everywhere. I have always had an attraction to and a detachment from Death as a result. I know it's painful to have a loved-one die. I have had friends die, family. There is nothing about their passing that made me particularily sad except that I would not be able to be with them again. At the same time, I knew that they would be with me in my memories, in my heart. I was pleased for them and inside rejoiced for them. They escaped the confines of this existence.
I would wager that most people have died a thousand times and more. Each time we grow, a part of us dies. Each failed relationship (internal and external), each loss of innocence, each breath we take, a deer in a ditch along the highway: all these small pieces of Death we meet daily. We are born that we will die. It seems to me all the little deaths we encounter throughout our lives should prepare us for the larger ones.
I have always wondered why I was not taken; why I was able to face Death and escape His grasp. I'm still not sure and might well never be. As far as I know, I've not done much good for humankind, and doubt I will. I'm just a man, struggling like everyone to understand what I can and eke out a decent existence.
Maybe there was no reason at all. It was chance. Then again, a man, arguably the most intelligent person in history, once said, "God does not play dice."
Although my psychology was not adversely affected by the event, I understand why one who is need of a new face might be. In the article, they say we don't recognize ourselves until we're five or six. I know that to be untrue. In my dream I clearly saw and recognized my face. It was not the face of the dreaming person nor the face from photos of my early days, but the face of a frightened baby involved in a great struggle. From that fact, I can extrapolate that even a child who comes into such a necessity would be traumitized from losing their unique identity. It might not surface for years after, perhaps never. I'm sure as the technology advances, the transplant will be performed in such a way there will be no noticable differences between the old face and the new one. But the knowledge of wearing another's skin will still be there, stored away in electrical impulses behind their eyes.
10:35:17 AM 
|
|
