When I opened my eyes on the operating table, I knew I’d been away a real long while, and not just knocked out, not unconscious or comatose. I felt like I’d fallen down a well so deep you couldn’t see the bottom, landed in soft sludge. Stayed there so long that dark and time were just concepts randomly combined. A nurse took my vitals and I asked questions, but she just tucked a plastic card in the pocket of my shirt. The card displayed words when I squeezed it, like an e-reader, but most looked like Chinese and half the…

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