☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות
"AND MY MOTHER / SOBBED EACH DAY AT FIRST; HER SWEET FRIEND / GONE AIMLESSLY CAUSTIC. AND FEAR / opens the body the way of a fist / through teeth. the chicken wire / one morning blown open, mouth / of strewn feathers and jagged space. Probably coyotes / in the coop, but his tenderling body / was never found, and we who know / the way of once-gentle boys think maybe / he ripped a hole in leaving and just left."
"AND MY MOTHER / SOBBED EACH DAY AT FIRST; HER SWEET FRIEND / GONE AIMLESSLY CAUSTIC. AND FEAR / opens the body the way of a fist / through teeth. the chicken wire / one morning blown open, mouth / of strewn feathers and jagged space. Probably coyotes / in the coop, but his tenderling body / was never found, and we who know / the way of once-gentle boys think maybe / he ripped a hole in leaving and just left."
He barely stirs, when I walk into the room, but, when I speak, my brother is a statue given life.
He laughs, and, much as I would prefer to ignore it, it makes him sound insane. Dear Ruth. Your manners are, as always, impeccable. I don’t tell him that sounds like something Pilate would say, but I think it. His eyes are glossy and bright on me, but, in spite of his burst of enthusiasm, he is quick to wilt back against one of the marble statues, and, though he is quiet for too long, when he speaks again, there is a hint of something distinctly unpleasant evident in his tone.
Well, I am here. Look at me, and tell me what you see.
Apparently, Adonai is feeling irritable. I arch my brow at him, very slightly, but otherwise I am expressionless, even as I stride closer to him, each step of my hooves against the marble almost painfully loud in the silence of the party’s wake. I walk close enough to make out each detail of his skin, the cloudy blue of his eyes, his waning physique; I walk close enough to smell alcohol on his breath, however faint.
“Fine,” I say, flatly. “Your symptoms are aggressively general, but not when taken together. Some of these I know; some of these I'll guess, on the basis of what I think must ail you. Partial paralysis; almost full, when you first fell sick. Impairment of speech, at least at first. And, I’m going to guess – heart palpations. Feverishness?” His brow is surely beaded with sweat. I can see it from here. “Wasting. Headaches? General weakness. Numbness; perhaps not constant? Failures of memory and vision. Delusions. Loss of speech. Erratic or compulsive behavior or thoughts. Paranoia? Confusion – difficulty thinking straight.” I pause, for a moment, fixing him with an even, deliberate stare. “Irritability.”
With a shrug of my shoulders, I stride back and forth around Adonai and the statue that he is leaned up against, examining him from each and every angle. “There are plenty of things that you could associate with some of the symptoms. Periodic paralysis would make very little sense on you, and it would not explain most of your symptoms. I suppose it could be some other genetic issue, but most genetic conditions would have appeared when you were younger, and I doubt you would have recovered from any of them; a prion disease would have certainly killed you.” I pause, for a moment, with a considering tilt of my head, and my tone turns thoughtful, before it grows dismissive again. “Now, it could have very plausibly been the result of a protozoan parasite, but I like to hope that someone would have caught that, by now, and feverishness would be very unusual for it besides. It just doesn’t quite match.”
I stop, finally, and stand directly in front of my brother, looking him dead in the eyes. “This is hardly a mystery. You’ve been poisoned.” The notion of poison has been rejected already, I know; but not on the basis of any scientific evidence, so I care very little. “Almost certainly by something neurotoxic, given your symptoms. Heavy metals, or certain fish, or a few plants, or certain poisonous snakes…. I’m not sure how much your poisoner knew about neurotoxins, but I do wonder if they knew that you can recover from them, in certain cases. Sometimes – sometimes even fully.” I don’t want to get his hopes up too high. That is rare, and this was surely a targeted attack. (You don’t often accidentally suffer from extensive exposure to neurotoxins.) However, given Adonai’s near-miraculous recovery from his initial exposure, I am willing to believe that he can recover further, much as he looks like death wherever he goes.
I look away from Adonai and, almost unconsciously, I begin to pace again.
“The court threw out poisoning. They were wrong. I can only assume that they weren’t very clever, and that your other doctors haven’t been, either –they’ve probably bent themselves over backwards to come up with some alternative explanation.” I’ve wondered, at times, how much we were paying them. (Certainly too much.) It’s probably not worth considering; I’ve never paid too much attention to our financial matters anyways. Regardless, the assumptions that the poisoning must have been gradual and that the gradual poisoning was implausible besides were wholly ridiculous. “I suppose it could have been something done slowly; like the way that someone generally uses arsenic. I think that the court’s assumption about that might be wrong, though. Slow poisoning isn’t an implausible method of assassination, but it’s subtle – it has gradual impacts. They don’t generally happen overnight. Either you were being slowly poisoned and the poisoner gave you a particularly aggressive dose the night before you fell sick, or – and I think this is more likely - they poisoned you once and used something strong, probably in a dose meant to be lethal.” I pause, shaking my head. “Perhaps they poisoned you in slighter doses for some time before that, attempted to weaken your immune system…it would have been a clever way to throw any authorities off their trail. Who would be so subtle for so long, only to do something so extreme?” My gaze slowly drifts back to Adonai, where it lingers, running his frame again. “I can’t say for sure why you’ve improved, or survived. Perhaps they were using a more obscure type of poison, or they dosed it incorrectly; perhaps you were simply particularly healthy, and you fought through it. Perhaps it was simply luck.”
I lick the taste of salt and a thin coat of sweat off my lips, considering.
“The doctors keep saying that you are recovering. You might be now – I can’t say for sure. I think you might have been poisoned after the initial incident, with something more mundane, perhaps in smaller doses. It’s hard to be certain, since I have not personally been monitoring your condition,” I say, “but you recovered impressively regardless, given that you were paralyzed, mute, and barely capable of basic function. I find it strange that you are still so weak, and that I see so little of you.”
Perhaps that is the most troubling part of it. Not the poison – we’re nobility. I think that Ishak can attest to how frequently we come into contact with it, or, at the very least, the threat of it. No, it is the way that my brother has simply disappeared, the way that this is the first time I think that I’ve seen him in weeks (possibly longer), when I should probably be seeing him daily. I know that they let him out of his room, at least. I still never seem to catch more than a passing glance of him.
All of us have been treating him like the living dead. I don't feel guilty; but I know, at least, that I should.
“If I were the one in charge of your care, I’d make sure that anything that was served to you was served in silver. At least it would rule out arsenic. You need to be outside more often; if you aren’t exposed to enough sunlight, it can make you far more ill, and, if you are, it will help you improve. You should probably be outside of the manor more often, and not confined to specific parts of it. I suspect that your diet could be adjusted. You certainly shouldn’t be drinking-“ I stare at him pointedly. “-for now. Extensive physical therapy is necessary, too, of course, if you hope to recover any further movement; you probably need less bedrest and more structured movement and some amount of physical strain. You should also be socializing more often. Who do you see regularly, apart from your servants? You can move, and you aren’t infectious, and I’m sure that it does your mental state no good to keep you so isolated and so purposeless. Perhaps you need a job, or…something to do with that lyre. You should be busy, as much as you can be.” Patients do not thrive when they are left idling, particularly ones with mental ailments. Adonai’s, I’m sure, is as much a problem of the mind as of the body; it is a particularly vicious consequence of neurotoxins.
Here is where I pause and look back at Adonai.
“I know that our brother has put himself in charge of your care. Should I speak with him about your condition?”
My comment is a simple throwaway; a polite offer.
It doesn’t mean anything, of course.
@Adonai || ruth : fine would you like a whole entire essay with cited sources || erin slaughter, "all the gentle boys grow spurs"
He laughs, and, much as I would prefer to ignore it, it makes him sound insane. Dear Ruth. Your manners are, as always, impeccable. I don’t tell him that sounds like something Pilate would say, but I think it. His eyes are glossy and bright on me, but, in spite of his burst of enthusiasm, he is quick to wilt back against one of the marble statues, and, though he is quiet for too long, when he speaks again, there is a hint of something distinctly unpleasant evident in his tone.
Well, I am here. Look at me, and tell me what you see.
Apparently, Adonai is feeling irritable. I arch my brow at him, very slightly, but otherwise I am expressionless, even as I stride closer to him, each step of my hooves against the marble almost painfully loud in the silence of the party’s wake. I walk close enough to make out each detail of his skin, the cloudy blue of his eyes, his waning physique; I walk close enough to smell alcohol on his breath, however faint.
“Fine,” I say, flatly. “Your symptoms are aggressively general, but not when taken together. Some of these I know; some of these I'll guess, on the basis of what I think must ail you. Partial paralysis; almost full, when you first fell sick. Impairment of speech, at least at first. And, I’m going to guess – heart palpations. Feverishness?” His brow is surely beaded with sweat. I can see it from here. “Wasting. Headaches? General weakness. Numbness; perhaps not constant? Failures of memory and vision. Delusions. Loss of speech. Erratic or compulsive behavior or thoughts. Paranoia? Confusion – difficulty thinking straight.” I pause, for a moment, fixing him with an even, deliberate stare. “Irritability.”
With a shrug of my shoulders, I stride back and forth around Adonai and the statue that he is leaned up against, examining him from each and every angle. “There are plenty of things that you could associate with some of the symptoms. Periodic paralysis would make very little sense on you, and it would not explain most of your symptoms. I suppose it could be some other genetic issue, but most genetic conditions would have appeared when you were younger, and I doubt you would have recovered from any of them; a prion disease would have certainly killed you.” I pause, for a moment, with a considering tilt of my head, and my tone turns thoughtful, before it grows dismissive again. “Now, it could have very plausibly been the result of a protozoan parasite, but I like to hope that someone would have caught that, by now, and feverishness would be very unusual for it besides. It just doesn’t quite match.”
I stop, finally, and stand directly in front of my brother, looking him dead in the eyes. “This is hardly a mystery. You’ve been poisoned.” The notion of poison has been rejected already, I know; but not on the basis of any scientific evidence, so I care very little. “Almost certainly by something neurotoxic, given your symptoms. Heavy metals, or certain fish, or a few plants, or certain poisonous snakes…. I’m not sure how much your poisoner knew about neurotoxins, but I do wonder if they knew that you can recover from them, in certain cases. Sometimes – sometimes even fully.” I don’t want to get his hopes up too high. That is rare, and this was surely a targeted attack. (You don’t often accidentally suffer from extensive exposure to neurotoxins.) However, given Adonai’s near-miraculous recovery from his initial exposure, I am willing to believe that he can recover further, much as he looks like death wherever he goes.
I look away from Adonai and, almost unconsciously, I begin to pace again.
“The court threw out poisoning. They were wrong. I can only assume that they weren’t very clever, and that your other doctors haven’t been, either –they’ve probably bent themselves over backwards to come up with some alternative explanation.” I’ve wondered, at times, how much we were paying them. (Certainly too much.) It’s probably not worth considering; I’ve never paid too much attention to our financial matters anyways. Regardless, the assumptions that the poisoning must have been gradual and that the gradual poisoning was implausible besides were wholly ridiculous. “I suppose it could have been something done slowly; like the way that someone generally uses arsenic. I think that the court’s assumption about that might be wrong, though. Slow poisoning isn’t an implausible method of assassination, but it’s subtle – it has gradual impacts. They don’t generally happen overnight. Either you were being slowly poisoned and the poisoner gave you a particularly aggressive dose the night before you fell sick, or – and I think this is more likely - they poisoned you once and used something strong, probably in a dose meant to be lethal.” I pause, shaking my head. “Perhaps they poisoned you in slighter doses for some time before that, attempted to weaken your immune system…it would have been a clever way to throw any authorities off their trail. Who would be so subtle for so long, only to do something so extreme?” My gaze slowly drifts back to Adonai, where it lingers, running his frame again. “I can’t say for sure why you’ve improved, or survived. Perhaps they were using a more obscure type of poison, or they dosed it incorrectly; perhaps you were simply particularly healthy, and you fought through it. Perhaps it was simply luck.”
I lick the taste of salt and a thin coat of sweat off my lips, considering.
“The doctors keep saying that you are recovering. You might be now – I can’t say for sure. I think you might have been poisoned after the initial incident, with something more mundane, perhaps in smaller doses. It’s hard to be certain, since I have not personally been monitoring your condition,” I say, “but you recovered impressively regardless, given that you were paralyzed, mute, and barely capable of basic function. I find it strange that you are still so weak, and that I see so little of you.”
Perhaps that is the most troubling part of it. Not the poison – we’re nobility. I think that Ishak can attest to how frequently we come into contact with it, or, at the very least, the threat of it. No, it is the way that my brother has simply disappeared, the way that this is the first time I think that I’ve seen him in weeks (possibly longer), when I should probably be seeing him daily. I know that they let him out of his room, at least. I still never seem to catch more than a passing glance of him.
All of us have been treating him like the living dead. I don't feel guilty; but I know, at least, that I should.
“If I were the one in charge of your care, I’d make sure that anything that was served to you was served in silver. At least it would rule out arsenic. You need to be outside more often; if you aren’t exposed to enough sunlight, it can make you far more ill, and, if you are, it will help you improve. You should probably be outside of the manor more often, and not confined to specific parts of it. I suspect that your diet could be adjusted. You certainly shouldn’t be drinking-“ I stare at him pointedly. “-for now. Extensive physical therapy is necessary, too, of course, if you hope to recover any further movement; you probably need less bedrest and more structured movement and some amount of physical strain. You should also be socializing more often. Who do you see regularly, apart from your servants? You can move, and you aren’t infectious, and I’m sure that it does your mental state no good to keep you so isolated and so purposeless. Perhaps you need a job, or…something to do with that lyre. You should be busy, as much as you can be.” Patients do not thrive when they are left idling, particularly ones with mental ailments. Adonai’s, I’m sure, is as much a problem of the mind as of the body; it is a particularly vicious consequence of neurotoxins.
Here is where I pause and look back at Adonai.
“I know that our brother has put himself in charge of your care. Should I speak with him about your condition?”
My comment is a simple throwaway; a polite offer.
It doesn’t mean anything, of course.
@
HE FEEDS ME RED MEAT / HE WATCHES THE BLOOD POOL IN MY MOUTHlaughs at my red teeth❂please tag Ruth! contact is encouraged, short of violence
