paralysis victim.”
But she’s still a prisoner in this cylinder,
I thought,
with only eighty-seven cubic centimeters.
So what did it matter if she could have a baby? All those moms out in Los Angeles who had had babies — they could never cuddle them, hold them. I had read that in Japan’s imperial family, the emperor and empress’s babies were taken from them when they turned three years old and raised separately — away from their parents. This was what being a mom in an iron lung must be like. Like an empress mommy no longer permitted to hold or touch your child.
Emmett had explained to me that eighty-seven cubic centimeters of air was the volume the machine could contain. This air was somehow mechanically pumped into the iron lung through bellows. As it was sucked into the machine, the pressure increased, squeezing down on her body at the rate of fifteen pounds per square inch, pushing the air out of her lungs. She could not do this herself because her chest muscles didn’t work. Then in the next whoosh, the pressure would decrease and her chest would expand automatically because of the low pressure, and allow her to take in a thin stream of air. And to this thin stream of air, while zillions of gallons of it gallivanted around in the sky, Phyllis was tied by a cable no thicker than a thumb. And if that cable broke or came unplugged, there were alarms that would sound and generators that would kick in so that the strange mindless mechanical whooshings would never cease; a breath would never be missed. So what did all the reading mirrors and the other gadgets mean or really matter? The iron lung was like a hateful insect with its gleaming carapace. I heard a taunt in its measured rhythmic breaths, a hiss beneath its whooshes, and all the mirrors gleaming and casting spangles of light glared with lies and deceptions of life.
The machine had totally swallowed Phyllis. Her parents believed in the iron lung and not in Phyllis. And now I was thinking that Emmett too believed in the iron lung more than in Phyllis. The unthinkable had happened. Phyllis had been sidelined! This was not the way it was supposed to be. I wondered what Evelyn thought.
“Come over here closer, Georgie,” Phyllis said suddenly, interrupting her father. “And bring Saint George up here.”
“But I got the reading mirrors all set up. Don’t you want to try them?” her father asked in a pleading voice.
“I want to see Saint George and the Dragon, Dad.”
I brought it close to the mirrors.
“How did you make the dragon?”
“I used a dinosaur mold and plaster of Paris, and then I stuck sequins on for scales.”
“Oh, the knight is great, too! Look at it, Dad.”
Dr. Keller’s brow furrowed, and the jolliness of his face seemed to dissolve into a kind of confusion. “Of course, dear, of course.” I could tell that Dr. Keller was not often confused. For his daughter, he would bear with anything. He would bring the whole world right to her. No, that is not accurate. With his clever mirrors mounted on gyros, he would bring the reflections of the whole world right to her. But right now she wanted to see the small world I had created.
Phyllis made a sort of ugly little joke when I brought the Saint George diorama up close for her to see on the rolling table. “I guess you could say I am my own small world.” I was the only one to hear the joke. She whispered it to me. Evelyn was a few feet behind me. In a way, the small worlds became my passport into Phyllis’s world. She was clearly fascinated and wanted to see more. I went over a few more times. Just me, no one else, as basketball practice had started to crank up for Emmett, and Evelyn had to go to a family wedding out of town. I learned a lot about Phyllis’s life in that small world of hers.
Here was what Phyllis could move aside from her head and neck: one muscle in her left foot and one in her thigh. She called that thigh muscle Ralph. I was formally introduced to
But she’s still a prisoner in this cylinder,
I thought,
with only eighty-seven cubic centimeters.
So what did it matter if she could have a baby? All those moms out in Los Angeles who had had babies — they could never cuddle them, hold them. I had read that in Japan’s imperial family, the emperor and empress’s babies were taken from them when they turned three years old and raised separately — away from their parents. This was what being a mom in an iron lung must be like. Like an empress mommy no longer permitted to hold or touch your child.
Emmett had explained to me that eighty-seven cubic centimeters of air was the volume the machine could contain. This air was somehow mechanically pumped into the iron lung through bellows. As it was sucked into the machine, the pressure increased, squeezing down on her body at the rate of fifteen pounds per square inch, pushing the air out of her lungs. She could not do this herself because her chest muscles didn’t work. Then in the next whoosh, the pressure would decrease and her chest would expand automatically because of the low pressure, and allow her to take in a thin stream of air. And to this thin stream of air, while zillions of gallons of it gallivanted around in the sky, Phyllis was tied by a cable no thicker than a thumb. And if that cable broke or came unplugged, there were alarms that would sound and generators that would kick in so that the strange mindless mechanical whooshings would never cease; a breath would never be missed. So what did all the reading mirrors and the other gadgets mean or really matter? The iron lung was like a hateful insect with its gleaming carapace. I heard a taunt in its measured rhythmic breaths, a hiss beneath its whooshes, and all the mirrors gleaming and casting spangles of light glared with lies and deceptions of life.
The machine had totally swallowed Phyllis. Her parents believed in the iron lung and not in Phyllis. And now I was thinking that Emmett too believed in the iron lung more than in Phyllis. The unthinkable had happened. Phyllis had been sidelined! This was not the way it was supposed to be. I wondered what Evelyn thought.
“Come over here closer, Georgie,” Phyllis said suddenly, interrupting her father. “And bring Saint George up here.”
“But I got the reading mirrors all set up. Don’t you want to try them?” her father asked in a pleading voice.
“I want to see Saint George and the Dragon, Dad.”
I brought it close to the mirrors.
“How did you make the dragon?”
“I used a dinosaur mold and plaster of Paris, and then I stuck sequins on for scales.”
“Oh, the knight is great, too! Look at it, Dad.”
Dr. Keller’s brow furrowed, and the jolliness of his face seemed to dissolve into a kind of confusion. “Of course, dear, of course.” I could tell that Dr. Keller was not often confused. For his daughter, he would bear with anything. He would bring the whole world right to her. No, that is not accurate. With his clever mirrors mounted on gyros, he would bring the reflections of the whole world right to her. But right now she wanted to see the small world I had created.
Phyllis made a sort of ugly little joke when I brought the Saint George diorama up close for her to see on the rolling table. “I guess you could say I am my own small world.” I was the only one to hear the joke. She whispered it to me. Evelyn was a few feet behind me. In a way, the small worlds became my passport into Phyllis’s world. She was clearly fascinated and wanted to see more. I went over a few more times. Just me, no one else, as basketball practice had started to crank up for Emmett, and Evelyn had to go to a family wedding out of town. I learned a lot about Phyllis’s life in that small world of hers.
Here was what Phyllis could move aside from her head and neck: one muscle in her left foot and one in her thigh. She called that thigh muscle Ralph. I was formally introduced to
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