Professional Lurker's Hiding Place

UPDATING THE BatB UNIVERSE TO NOW

By cb mcwhorter

After the amazing hour we spent Thursday night discussing what would be different if our show was produced in 2019 instead of the late 80’s, I did a lot of extra thinking. BatB fans are unequaled in imagination, and ideas flew fast and furiously (oops, wrong fandom) and kept going at our family dinner table and on into my dreams. 

I decided it was worth recording, perhaps. Just for fun. 

It was immediately mentioned that there’d be less of a platonic relationship between our lovers (ahem). They would have more ways to contact each other, especially if Vincent had a computer. And would he have a computer?

Which led to: the first difference in the world around them that we thought of was how the rise of technology would affect everybody. Would the hyperspace jump of communications technology leave the Tunnels further behind, or would Tunnel residents figure how to participate? If the community was established 30-something years before the start of the story, when the Information age was just getting its momentum, the chances would be pretty good that as people joined the group, they would find ways to get computers and video players Below. The usefulness of video tapes (or DVD’s) for education was discussed, and whether Father would allow them. 

HAPPY WORLD CHOCOLATE DAY!!!

(One must always note the essential holidays...)

Give you liberty or give you death. It should acceptable to lose 2% of schoolchildren in order to keep the economy ‘open’. The elder generation should be happy to die for the financial welfare of the younger generations. The maladaptation of the first sentence would make Patrick Henry cringe. Don’t believe me? Read his writings. And remember that he was offering no one else’s life in that speech but his own. 

Whose lives are the people saying these awful sentences offering? Not theirs. The heinous moral bankruptcy of the other two sentences belongs in an archive that includes most of the Marquis de Sade’s essays, Mengele’s research and Jeffrey Dahmer’s statements about how satisfying it was to orgasm as his ‘partner’ gasped his last breath.   

But, fine. It's inevitable that people will get tired of this, and since they can't argue with a virus, some are yelling at the rest of the multicellular — or even just cellular, since a virus isn't even a cell — organisms. 

You want to stop the practice best proven to save a large population and practice ‘liberty’. This isn’t political, it’s a pursuit of free will, and quite human. Cain exercised free will when he murdered his brother. Everyone since then has as much right as he did to commit a dreadful, dreadful crime. Keep in mind every criminal has the same right that he did to be made to pay for a crime.

Ziva David is alive!!! 

Squeeee!!!

Modesty is an interesting symptom. Comatose people have none, which really shouldn't be a surprise. As they swim up to the surface, certain stereotypical things happen. They alert to a familiar voice before they alert to a stranger. If I call such a person, I may not get a response, and two minutes later, the patient's son or daughter calls, and the head turns toward that voice. Eyes might not open, but the reaction is there. 

Withdrawal from pain is the usual first motor response. And very soon after that comes a motion to cover up. They may not follow commands, but expose a groin or bosom, and a hand will move to re-cover. We usually don't use that as a purposeful test, but when we move a gown aside to fix EKG leads or check on the state of a catheter, we'll get the response. And we grin like idiots. It's a wonderful, hopeful sign. 

Except for certain men. And this is where Valentina will become politically incorrect. It's unusual for an educated man to do this. But an older blue-color man, apparently raised to believe that a woman who works as a nurse or doctor must be of loose morals and therefore available, will pull away sheets, blankets and hospital gown to let it all hang out. 

The Activities Director stopped me as I was leaving from a visit. A lady was singing hits from the 1940’s and dad was happily singing along. He barely noticed that I left. 

“I have something for you,” said Activities Director. “He made it this morning.”

She ducked into his room and brought out a construction paper Valentine’s Day card, covered in painted hearts and glitter and ribbon. The wobbly “Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you.” wasn't his usual handwriting, but it surely wasn’t anyone else’s. The thing that hurt my heart was the name. I’ve suspected that he’s lost my name, but I avoided the thought because he always lights up like a Dad when I walk in and he knows I’m his daughter. But it wasn’t my correct name at the top. 

It’s always been confusing to strangers. In my mother’s family, the first daughter is always given the same name; it’s been established as a pattern for more than 500 years. The first was a duchess in Aquitaine. My mother bore the anglicized version. I was given the three-syllable Italian version. Considering that at the time of my birth, there were eight others in the family, we all had nicknames. I learned I had a real, formal name when I went to kindergarten. Took me two weeks to start answering to it. 

So I can understand his being confused about what he should call me: the family nickname, my proper name, or perhaps his own nickname for me (Muffin)? He could have chosen any one for the card. 

While it wouldn't be anything profound, it must mean something that I have managed to wear out a popcorn popper. 

A manila folder with third grade spelling tests. A brown folder with fourth grade arithmetic homework. Two hairbands, one leather with brass horses on it and one blue with edelweiss embroidered on it. A golden bracelet, bent and corroded, with my family nickname etched on it. A hairbrush that was bought in London when I was 14, hand carved, with boar bristles. It was considered very expensive. My sorority lavaliere. 

These items are lined up on the kitchen table, saved from my excavation of a box marked "Guest Room Drawers". Other things from the box include a half-used box of talcum powder, some handmade Christmas ornaments (made by me) chewed ragged by tiny creatures, a few bud vases and bed linens chewed by larger creatures. There is evidence of habitation by creatures that stocked their nest with seeds and things. Just about everything in the box will be tossed in the trash. The things on the table, except for the brush and the necklace, will go with the rest. 

But the collection on the table confuses me. Nearly 40 years ago, when she became incapable of living alone, my grandmother was moved to live near us, from the home she and my grandfather built when he retired. She was set up in an apartment with whatever of her furniture she wanted around her, and the rest of the household boxes were stored in my parents' attic and never given another thought. This was one of those boxes.

The lady is 68, but she looks 80. As an old professor of mine would say, she's already gotten a lot of her living done. She had a(nother) heart attack that resulted in cardiac arrest. The following code was long, but ultimately successful, if you call getting spontaneous heart motion successful. That was ten days ago. She hasn't waked up since. Her brain function is so weak that she doesn't trigger any respirations on her own - the ventilator does all the work. Because of her poor heart function, her kidneys are failing. Her liver wasn’t working so well because of the cirrhosis, and now it doesn’t work at all. Her EEG is awful: severe encephalopathy, otherwise known as there are a few neurons firing, but not in any order. At this point, one can statistically say that if she hasn't waked up, she's not going to. Besides, her heart can barely beat at all. She is slowly dying. 

But her son, who has been inebriated whenever anyone has had contact with him, by phone or on the few occasions he's come into the hospital, is convinced she's faking her coma to get out of paying her taxes. Any attempt to tell him otherwise has met with near violence. 

Ultimately, what's left of that heart will give out, and no one will be able to restart it. We stood around imagining what kind of reaction Crazy Son will have, and succeeded in scaring ourselves. Call me a coward, but I'm hoping against hope that I will be out of the building when that happens. 

I've decided that Mother's Day is weird for me. 

For the last five years, it's a day of odd relief. Not that I don't miss my Mom, I do. Sometimes more than I can stand. But I always hated Mother's Day. She lived in terror of being abandoned, and she'd start pressing about what I was going to do before any significant day like birthdays or Mother's Day until her expectation could never be fulfilled. Nothing I did would be enough, except perhaps the year I was 12 and announced that I was cooking dinner. Cornish game hens, and I did a good job. She was surprised then. The bar of expectation was set higher every year after that. The pressure became awful. 

On the first Mother's Day without her, three months after her last birthday, I had no obligation. (I totally blew it on the present for that birthday, by the way, a breathlessly soft teal green infinity scarf that at the time of her disappointment I offered to take off her hands. I wear it every winter and tell myself it was hers.) No crisis. No judgment. I missed her. But I was appallingly relieved. 

My son is singularly inattentive to holidays; I have wistfully learned to expect nothing from him regarding special dates. I swore that I'd never do what Mom did, and perhaps I went too far the other way and didn't impress him that these things do have meaning to people. Er, mothers.