# The surgery (language)



## Donald (Jul 29, 2015)

Some dreams are just different from the others. They startle you and give you a new perspective on something and when you wake up, you feel as if a radical change has been made to your life, even though all you did was lie somewhere with your face in a puddle of drool. They open a secret door in your subconscious that had gone unnoticed for years. The dream points the direction and suddenly you have discovered a whole new room in your brain you didn‘t even know was there. Often, such a dream can have a very powerful and positive influence. For instance, I once heard about an alcoholic who had lost his kids and wife in a terrible car accident and hadn‘t left the house ever since. But then one day, he dozed off on the couch, drunk as fuck, and he had a weird dream about his family who watched him from heaven. They wept and cried over his lethargy and grief. They shouted down to him, that he must wait until his own time had come and that they will wait for him. They told him that he would go to hell if he continued to slowly kill himself with the booze. When he woke up, he felt reborn. He got sober, applied for a job, worked his ass off and within three years, he was a millionaire and started a charity project that took care of people who had lost their loved ones and couldn‘t bear the sorrow. 
So, while most dreams fly by unseen and probably don‘t mean much at all, others can have a great effect on one‘s life. The dream I recently had and would like to tell you about was the scariest thing I ever saw. But it changed my life.


My remembrance is blurry. I can recollect an operating theatre. It was very uncanny, all white and sterile. I know, that is how a surgery room is meant to be, but this one felt strange and mysteriously unsettling. I wore white scrubs and surgical gloves and in my hands, I found a bone saw of enormous size. I looked at it in bewilderment; it was truly a caricature of a bone saw. Then, from the corner of my eye, I noticed the operating table and turned around.


I guess this must sound strange to you, not to say, batshit crazy, but on the table was another me. It was a colossal me, at least twice as large as my regular size. The body, covered with a huge white sheet, lay there like an anesthetized goliath, breathing slowly and deeply. Each gasp lifted the sheet in a noisy manner which I found really distracting and eerie.


I walked around the table until I reached my avatar‘s head but it wasn‘t me that walked, I felt remote controlled. The goliath‘s skull was shaved bald and some strange lines had been sketched on it. Robotic and unable to govern my own movements I positioned the bone saw on the uppermost mark. 
How can I describe the horror? I was unaware that I was dreaming, everything felt really natural, despite its weirdness. And I really didn‘t want to open that skull of mine with a damn bone saw. 
Nevertheless, my arm began to move, slowly, back and forth, back again ...
It was an awful, blood-curdling sound, raspy and grinding. The other me that lay on the table winced almost imperceptibly when the saw burst through the bone for the first time.	
After minutes of horrendous working I grabbed the skull and with a powerful tug, I removed the upper part of the cranial bone. An awful, sweetish stench effused from the head in an instant. I gagged. 
Suddenly, I was in charge of my body again. I plucked up the courage and glanced at the inner part of the skull.


In hindsight, I must say, it was a strange view, even for a dream of such kind. My brain was like a topview plan, segmented, so that sundry realms were visible. There were labels affixed to each individual part of the brain, small notes which read ‚sexuality‘, ‚language‘ or ‚memory (long-term)‘. One lump caught my eye, for a green, translucent smoke-like stuff ascended from it and a brownish liquid oozed out from under the lid that sealed the area. The label on the lid read ‚Ideas‘. I was certain, this was where the stink came from.

Reluctantly, I grabbed a suitable tool from the table to my left and lifted the lid some centimetres. Sorely disgusted by the viscous stuff that dripped from it, I grabbed the lid between the tips of my finger and thumb and removed it, revealing a pit-like recess. Immediately, the stench intensified. Something was moving down there. On closer inspection, I could see that the movement consisted of ideas, horrendously disfigured, either dead or dying. They looked like tiny humanoids, despite their contorted, grotesque visages and withered limbs. Those who were alive made a great effort, they trampled and climbed constantly over those dead or incapable of movement, so they would not drown in the brown glutinous sediment that almost half-filled the chamber. Some of them had sewn up mouths, others were blind or had no eyes at all. In a corner of the pit I spotted a group of the tiny creatures that appeared to be physically unimpaired. One of them looked up at me apathetically. He stared. His lips trembled, almost imperceptibly, as he whispered something. I did not understand his words; I was too ruffled, too busy looking at all the struggling others. I dropped the lid and screamed. 
The falling cover squashed two of the human-bodied ideas who were trying to climb out of the chamber. Agitated, I pushed them back in, I pushed them down, I broke their spongy bones without effort and I smashed the lid back on its place. I lifted the breathing mask and puked right before the table, utterly nauseated, devastated by the smell of the dead and the sight of the dying ideas. I cried for help, but no one was there, no one helped.


I knew that I had to do something. I grabbed a bucket and bottle of disinfecting alcohol and after some moments of dither, I flung open the lid and began to grab the bodies and threw them into the bucket. I dug and grabbed, I threw and flung until the entire chamber was empty. I got hold of some tissue and began to wipe the chamber‘s interior.
Then I noticed the tube. A small hole in the chamber‘s wall. A nasty, slurping noise emerged from it as another tiny, bloody body tried to shove itself through. His chest was torn open and inside a rotting heart was beating slowly. The idea pushed and pushed, but it had only one arm and one leg, and failed to deliver itself from the tube that was by far too narrow. I grabbed it. I pulled. I don‘t know whether I wanted to save or kill it, but I will never ever, not in a thousand years, forget the feeling when the ideas‘ body tore apart between my fingers and made some final gulping sounds before its guts spilled out on the floor. Again, I puked. I scraped out the body and cleansed the tube. Then, I looked for an appropriate tool and found a needle and sewed up the tube. I made sure that never again one of those abominations would be able to emerge into the chamber of ideas. Finally, I hammered the lid back on the chamber and fastened it.
The goliath that was me snarled and winced. As I drew back from him and removed the gloves from my hands, I woke up.


It took me weeks to get over that dream. 
But the more time passes, the more glad I am that I‘ve done the surgery.
When I wake up in the morning, I feel composed, balanced. After all these years of depression and feeling like a fish out of water! I had never worked at one job for more than three months. Everything was pointless to me, I thought I had a vocation, something that I must find or I would never achieve happiness.
But now, after years of stagnation, I have finally found a decent job. I love it! 
I‘m saving for a house and I have bought a new car. It feels really good to come home in your own car after a long shift, you know. I‘m looking forward to my holiday. From vocation to vacation: Pretty good deal, isn‘t it? 
The dubiety is gone. I‘m a functioning member of society; I am no longer holding myself back from achieving goals. The goals themselves have changed. And I feel cleansed.


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## jtgrall (Aug 2, 2015)

Thats crazy. Im having surgery in two days. Some heavy stuff.


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## jenthepen (Aug 4, 2015)

Ooooh, it's gonna take me weeks to get over that too! Good writing and a fine horror story. The pace was perfect, you moved the story along and yet lingered over detail just long enough to extract every morsal of terror from your reader. I liked the conversational style too - perfect for this kind of anecdotal tale.

I noticed a few typos which you'll probably catch when you edit. I'll elaborate if you want me to?

Good quality writing and I look forward to reading more of your work. Maybe something a little less traumatising next time? 

jen


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## Donald (Aug 5, 2015)

Hi Jen,

You would do me a great favor! I'm a non-native speaker and I'm certain there are lots of typos, mistook idioms and suchlike. I am also very unsure about the way the story is perceived by a native speaker, so if you have any stylistic sggestions, I would love to hear them, too!

I have edited the story, some of the mistakes should have vanished.

jtgrall,
Sorry ffended:

I hope everything went well!


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## jenthepen (Aug 5, 2015)

Hi Donald, I would never have guessed that you were not a native English-speaker. Your writing reads as very natural and the few places that could be worded better, I honestly mistook for a simple lack of editing. I'll take another look and come back with a fuller crit later.

jen


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## jenthepen (Aug 5, 2015)

*The surgery (language) *
  [FONT=&Verdana]Some dreams are just different from the others. They startle you and give you a new perspective on something and when you wake up, you feel as if a radical change has been made to your life, even though all you did was lie somewhere with your face in a puddle of drool. They open a secret door in your subconsciousness (subconscious) that had gone unnoticed for years. The dream points (in) the (right) direction and suddenly you have discovered a whole new room in your brain you didn‘t even know was there. Often, such a dream can have a very powerful and positive influence. For instance, I once heard about an alcoholic who had lost his kids and wife in a terrible car accident and hadn‘t left the house ever since. But then one day, he dozed off on the couch, drunk as fuck, and he had a weird dream about his family who watched him from heaven(s). They wept and cried over his lethargy and grief. They shouted down to him, that he must wait until his own time had come and that they will wait for him. They told him that he would go to hell if he continued to slowly kill himself with the booze. When he woke up, he felt reborn. He got sober, applied for a job, worked his ass off and within three years, he was a millionaire and started a charity project that took care of people who had lost their loved ones and couldn‘t bear the sorrow. 
So, while most dreams fly by unseen and probably don‘t mean much at all, others can have a great effect on one‘s life. The dream I recently had and would like to tell you about was the scariest thing I ever saw. But it changed my life.


My remembrance is blurry. I can recollect an operating theatre. It was very uncanny, all white and sterile. I know, that is how a surgery room is meant to be, but this one felt strange and mysteriously unsettling. I wore white scrubs and surgical gloves and in my hands, I found a bone saw of enormous size. I looked at it in bewilderment,(semi-colon) it was truly a caricature of a bone saw. Then, from the corner of my eye, I noticed the operating table and turned around.


I guess this must sound strange to you, not to say, batshit crazy, but on the table was another me. It was a colossal me, at least (two times larger than) twice as large as my regular size. The body, covered with a huge white sheet, lay there like an anesthetized goliath, breathing slowly and deeply. Each gasp lifted the sheet in a noisy manner which I found really distracting and eerie.


I walked around the table until I reached my avatar‘s head but it wasn‘t me that walked, I felt remote controlled. The goliath‘s skull was shaved bald and some strange lines had been sketched on it. Robotic and unable to govern my own (moving) movements, I positioned the bone saw on the uppermost mark. 
How can I describe the horror.(question mark) I was unaware that I was dreaming, everything felt really natural, despite its weirdness. And I really didn‘t want to open that skull of mine with a damn bone saw. 
Nevertheless, my arm began to move, slowly, forth and back, forth again ... (it’s more usual to say ‘back and forth’)
It was an awful, blood-curdling sound, raspy and grinding. The other me that lay on the table winced almost imperceptibly when the saw burst through the bone for the first time. 
After minutes of horrendous working I grabbed the skull and with a powerful drag (tug), I removed the upper part of the cranial bone. An awful, sweetish stench effused from the head in an instant. I gagged. 
Suddenly, I was in own charge of my body again. (or maybe simply say, ‘I regained control.’) I plucked up the courage and glanced at the inner part of the skull.


In hindsight, I must say, it was a strange view, even for a dream of such kind. My brain was like a topview plan, segmented, so that sundry realms were visible. There were labels affixed to each individual part of the brain, small notes which read ‚sexuality‘, ‚language‘ or ‚memory (long-term)‘. One lump caught my eye, for a green, translucent smoke-like stuff ascended from it and a brownish liquid oozed out from under the lid that sealed the area. The label on the lid read ‚Ideas‘. I was certain, this was were (where) the stink came from.

Reluctantly, I grabbed a suitable tool from the table to my left and lifted the lid some centimetres. Sorely disgusted by the viscous stuff that dripped from it, I grabbed the lid between the tips of my finger and thumb and removed it, revealing a pit-like recess. Immediately, the stench intensified. Something was moving down there. On closer inspection, I could see that the movement consisted of ideas, horrendously disfigured, either dead or dying. They looked like tiny humanoids, despite their contorted, grotesque visages and withered limbs. Those who were alive made a great effort, they tromped (trampled) and climbed constantly over those dead or incapable of movement, so they would not drown in the brown glutinous sediment that almost half-filled the chamber. Some of them had sewn up mouths, others were blind or had no eyes at all. In a corner of the pit I spotted a group of the tiny creatures that appeared to be physically unimpaired. One of them looked up at me apathetically. He stared. His lips trembled, almost imperceptibly, as he whispered something. I did not understand his words; I was too ruffled, too busy looking at all the struggling others. I dropped the lid and screamed. 
The falling cover squashed two of the human-bodied ideas who were trying to climb out of the chamber. Agitated, I pushed them back in, I pushed them down, I broke their spongy bones without effort and I smashed the lid back on its place. I lifted the breathing mask and puked right before the table, utterly nauseated, devastated by the smell of the dead and the sight of the dying ideas. I cried for help, but no one was there, no one helped.


I knew that I had to do something. I grabbed a bucket and bottle of disinfecting alcohol and after some moments of dither, I flung open the lid and began to grab the bodies and threw them into the bucket. I dug and grabbed, I threw and flung until the entire chamber was empty. I got hold of some tissue and began to wipe the chamber‘s interior.
Then I noticed the tube. A small hole in the chamber‘s wall. A nasty, slurping noise emerged from it as another tiny, bloody body tried to shove itself through. His chest was torn open and inside a rotting heart was beating slowly. The idea pushed and pushed, but it had only one arm and one leg, and failed to deliver itself from the tube that was by far too narrow. I grabbed it. I drew. (I pulled.)I don‘t know whether I wanted to save or kill it, but I will never ever, not in a thousand years, forget the feeling when the ideas‘ body tore apart between my fingers and made some final gulping sounds before its guts spilled out on the floor. Again, I puked. I scraped out the body and cleansed the tube. Then, I looked for an appropriate tool and found a sewing kit. I sealed needle and sewed up the tube, I made sure that never again one of those abominations would be able to emerge into the chamber of ideas. Finally, I hammered the lid back on the chamber and fastened it.
The goliath that was me snarled and winced. As I drew back from him and removed the gloves from my hands, I woke up.


It took me weeks to get over that dream. 
But the more time passes, the more glad I am that I‘ve done the surgery.
When I wake up in the morning, I feel composed, balanced. After all these years of depression! I felt like a fish out of water. (that expression usually denotes something bad – a feeling of not belonging. Maybe something like, ‘I feel renewed’ ) I had never worked at one job for more than three months. Everything was pointless to me, I thought I had a vocation, something that I must find or I would never achieve happiness.
But now, after years of stagnation, I have finally found a decent job. I love it! 
I‘m saving for a house and I have bought a new car. It feels really good to come home in your own car after a long shift, you know. I‘m looking forward to my holiday. From vocation to vacation.(colon) Pretty good deal, isn‘t it? 
The dubiety is gone. I‘m a functioning member of society; I am not no longer holding myself back from achieving goals. The goals themselves have changed. And I feel cleansed. [/FONT]




I've now been through your work pretty thoroughly, Donald, and picked out the errors and also some wording which is not 'wrong' but doesn't sound as natural as it might. I've given suggestions as to how you might change things to make it read better to an English ear.

I hope this helps. 

jen


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## Donald (Aug 5, 2015)

Thank you so much Jen, I owe you one! 

I have just a single question left:



> Those who were alive made a great effort, they tromped(trampled) and climbed constantly



Is 'tromped' utterly wrong (like, it can't be used to describe walking but only to express a foot being stomped on the ground) or does it only sound wrong here?

Regarding the fish out of water, this was actually intended. I think I messed up the sentence, so I altered it a little.


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## jenthepen (Aug 5, 2015)

Donald, you've taught me something too.  I never heard the word 'tromped' before and thought you were mistaking it for 'trudged' or 'tramped' but I just Googled it and discovered that tromped is an American word meaning _to walk heavily or trudge._ I'm English and I'd never heard that word before. On this forum we get used to the differencies in spellings and words but that was a new one on me. In fact, it was not wrong at all.

Glad to have helped and I'm always at the other end of a PM if you need any advice in the future. 

jen


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## Bard_Daniel (Aug 5, 2015)

Very interesting and original piece. I think jenthepen covered most of the things that I would have cleared up. 

The narrative tone was also very effective. 

Keep writing!


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## Moody (Aug 8, 2015)

Hey Donald, I just gotta say that I loved this. So original and unique. I, too, would not have guessed that you weren't a native english speaker. I loved the imagery and the disgusting feelings it gave me. Made me cringe on certain parts. 

I think instead of at the ending talking about all the outward and mundane things that changed in his life, you could talk about how he changed on a deeper level since this really is a deep piece about how thought affects us. Talking about jobs, cars, being a functioning member of society feels a little out of place after the surreal journey you took us through in the middle. 

:read: I will never again be able to think of my thoughts/ideas without personifying them into little dirty monsters again.


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## Donald (Aug 9, 2015)

Hi Moody, 

thank you so much for your kind words. I'm glad that the disgust was properly conveyed :biggrin: 

You are right, the ending is definitely improvable. I failed to project the narrator's fight that he had fought with himself for many years and that was sealed when he surrendered. Instead of following his dreams and ideas, he numbed himself. In the end, he's weak because he chose the easier path. He didn't listen to this one idea that talked to him, he was too busy being repulsed by all the crippled ones.


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