I Only Have Nothing to Give
A short story
The surgeon stooped over me, we locked eyes, and then I wasn’t myself anymore. I wasn’t even around enough to be confused. I experienced feelings that weren’t mine and eventually came back to myself. I can remember what I perceived during the episode, but what I felt was completely out of line with my situation. I had just woken up from brain surgery, but my fingers and hands hurt more than my head. I felt exhausted, euphoric, and worried. I was staring at the surgeon when the worry exploded into terror. We both screamed before staff stormed the room in a hushed flurry.
The surgeon dropped to a seat on the floor and sobbed. I sank back into the hospital bed in bewilderment. “What happened? Are you okay?” One of the nurses began inspecting the surgeon. “I…” He took off his mask and wiped his tears with his shoulder before starting again. “I felt…” He shook. “I felt… Nothing.” Trembling, he turned his entire body to face away from me. “We’ve done something horrible,” he whispered to another surgeon. The second surgeon was pale. Her eyes flicked to me. “How are you doing?” She finally asked, hesitantly.
“I feel okay. My head kind of hurts.” It was true, the pain hit me after the surgeon averted his eyes. The scientist had mentioned that the experimental surgery might have some abnormal neurological effects. He’d asked me to sign a form agreeing to be studied intensively if it did. I didn’t know what had just happened, but, if my cancer was really gone, then there was no way I was spending my reclaimed time as a lab rat. It was probably just the exhaustion of the operation for the surgeon and the disorienting effects of the anesthesia for me. I daydreamed about new life outside of death’s shadow.
That didn’t last long. My best friend Penelope came to visit. She arrived before anyone else I knew because she worked as a radiologist at the hospital. I saw her walking up the hall through the glass windows. I smiled, “Hey Penel-”
It happened again. I vanished into her soul. I became Penelope’s tranquility. I had always admired her peacefulness, but now I inhabited it. It was like I was floating over the earth.
She dropped her purse in the doorway and stood frozen a few feet from my bed. I was so calm that I lost touch with time. Eventually, she started to cry mascara and the trance ended. Her soft features contorted into a horrible look of painful disgust. She cupped her hands over her ears and doubled over, groaning through clenched teeth. She fell to the floor and cried. The cries convulsed her whole body, jolting it sharply at irregular intervals. She looked possessed.
I returned before the terror struck her, dazed from the blissful encounter. When the violent shift in her demeanor caught up to me, my stomach dropped. Nausea enveloped me as I pulled out the IV and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
Several nurses rushed into the room. The nurse who had tended to the terrorized surgeon earlier blocked my view of Penelope and began hurriedly putting on gloves. I glanced at the syringe sticking out of her front pocket. “What are you doing?” She ignored me and pulled out the syringe. I tapped her thigh and glared into her surprised expression. She wasn’t feeling fear, anger, or confusion, but crushing guilt. I withdrew into myself, startled. She knew this would happen to me.
She didn’t react like the others. She was frozen, holding the syringe in midair, smiling strangely. “Kate? Are you good? Kate?!” Another nurse called out to her with growing alarm. I couldn’t discern what Kate was feeling at this point. Thank you, she mouthed at me before stabbing the needle into her thigh, going limp, and smacking the tile.
I panicked.
What happened during my escape from the hospital still haunts me. I remember what I did, but I can’t recall consciously thinking anything until I made it outside. It was the most chaotic experience of my life.
I inhabited anyone who stood in my way. Most people were terrorized. They sobbed on the floor, fainted, or just stood frozen in place with their mouths agape and their eyes widened. Others responded like Kate. One such person, an older doctor, yelled “I feel Nothing!” and kissed me on the lips.
There was relatively greater heterogeneity in my experience of the inhabitations. Some people had feelings I could easily recognize, mostly fear and guilt. I didn’t register this in the moment, but many of the people I inhabited felt feelings that I couldn’t name. A stern, muscular security guard who blocked my path to the stairwell was experiencing something that I couldn’t relate to or even begin to categorize intellectually. The inhabitation left a highly energetic but unfamiliar impression on me.
The sun greeted me harshly as I finally stepped outside the high-security building. The succession of inhabitations had profoundly distorted my sense of time. The world moved slowly for the absent-minded janitor, quickly for the overworked front desk worker. It seemed like days had passed since I saw Penelope.
Today is the 20-year anniversary of the surgery. Thankfully, the brain cancer hasn’t recurred. It took me years to learn how to use my power. I still have no idea how it works, but now accidental inhabitations are rare and I can control the power’s intensity. Still, I try to stay as isolated as possible when I’m not working to reduce the chances of inhabiting the wrong person. When I’m tempted to go out, I stare at a picture of Penelope until I re-learn what inhabiting her taught me: I only have Nothing to give.
For over a decade now, I’ve been working in a secret location in South America. Since the service I provide is unlike any other, people try to understand it using familiar categories. I’ve been labeled a doctor, a priest, a psychic, and even an angel.
I call the service erasure. Those burdened by existence come to me and I give them Nothing. They arrive enslaved to guilt, shame, and regret and leave free of everything. Devoid of past connections to people and things, they start their lives entirely anew.
I work with monsters. In their reality or imagination, my customers are all the worst people. Of course, it’s logically impossible for them all to be the worst, but it doesn’t matter. Their disease is their shameful self-understanding. Customers who have merely thought about attacking others often feel more ashamed than actual murderers and rapists. I erase my customers’ self-judgement regardless of its merits.
This isn’t always well received. Many say that I’m either a demon or possessed by one. In my confident moments, I’m justified by my erasures’ success. Shame, guilt, and regret inhibit the capacity for joy. Without joy, people self-destruct. I have prevented thousands of suicides and hundreds of mass shootings. I frequently erase the one person dooming a family or group, thereby keeping entire social networks intact. Most of all, I transform suffering into potential. Society gives me a murderer who would have killed himself in prison out of guilt. I return an empty man who has a chance of actually contributing.
Some days, I am ridden with doubt. Maybe the surgeons just inverted my cancer, transforming something that poisoned me into a power for corrupting others. Maybe it is better for certain people to stay joyless… I see Penelope’s terror. She’s standing in that hospital doorway, her inky eyes penetrate my emptiness. I feel something monstrous pulling at me. That’s when I stare into my reflection. I’ve tried to escape Penelope’s ghost by erasing myself, but it’s never worked. I cannot inhabit myself. I can only face Nothing until the monster is gone.
The scientist’s team finally found me. They pretended to be customers. Right before I began their erasure, they revealed themselves and asked me to return with them to the States so that they could investigate my power.
“If you let us study it, we can save you from it,” the female leader of the group offered. She continued. “There are risks, but we’ve developed a procedure that we believe will bring you back to normal.”
Silence. I looked at the picture of Penelope on the wall. I’d never felt a peace like hers, even after all this time. I remembered her violent thrashing, and how I found what was once her years after the incident. That new person was profoundly ashamed and I erased them out of pity. I had stolen and lost my best friend in that hospital room.
“So…what do you say?” The leader asked, apparently confused by my hesitation. “We are trying to help you.”
“Nothing is all I have to give,” I said quietly. “It’s the foundation of my life here.”
“I know what you did to Penelope,” she said menacingly. I jolted. I turned to face her and briefly noticed the long scar on the top of her bald head before falling completely into her dark, awaiting eyes.
Nothing.