her left arm useless and her right shoulder injured, she couldn’t even manage to push herself up to all fours. She fell over onto her back, letting out another hoarse yelp as her head struck the thinly-carpeted floor. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. She began to weep silently, hating herself for it, feeling even more miserable and useless with each tear. When she looked up, Natsinet was standing in the doorway staring down at her.
“You’re pathetic. Is there any wonder why the White man has been kicking your people in the ass for the last four hundred years?”
“Well, let’s get you cleaned up.”
The nurse reached down and grabbed a handful of Adelle’s hair, which was still long and thick despite being almost completely grey. She began dragging Adelle across the room into the adjoining bathroom. Adelle had to use her right arm with the injured shoulder and her good leg to scramble as best she could to keep from getting her hair pulled out by the roots. Several times she fell flat onto her face. Blood trickled from her nostrils and she was panting heavily when she finally made it into the bathroom and Natsinet dumped her into the tub.
“Sorry about that, but your hair was the only thing on you that wasn’t filthy.”
Adelle had no more energy to fight back as she was manhandled out of her nightgown. When Natsinet turned the showerhead on full blast and the cold water struck her, Adelle’s breath once again caught in her throat. The nurse tossed her from one humiliating position to the next as she scrubbed her skin raw with a coarse brush like the kind Adelle’s mother had once scrubbed floors with in the White folk’s houses she cleaned for a living, using it even in areas so tender that they swelled and bled as the rough bristles scoured the delicate flesh and Adelle cried out in anguish. The water quickly went from cold to scalding hot and Natsinet made sure that she exposed every inch of Adelle’s skin to the searing spray.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the water stopped. Adelle could sense Natsinet looking down at her. “There. All clean now. So, can you manage to crawl your lazy ass out of that tub and over to your bed or do I have to drag you again?”
The nurse was standing above her, tapping her orthopedic white shoes impatiently as Adelle pulled herself out of the tub and then inched across the floor on her belly using only one arm and leg to propel herself forward, adding rug burns to the abrasions caused by the scrub brush. By the time she’d made it back to the bed she was sure that she was going to have another stroke or a heart attack. She was also sure that this was exactly what Natsinet was hoping for. No one would question it if an old woman, who had already suffered a stroke, died of another. There would be no coroner’s inquest, no autopsy at all. Adelle closed her eyes and fought like hell to get her breathing and heart rate back under control. She refused to go out that easily.
“I don’t suppose you can make it back into your bed now, can you? That’s okay, we’ll work on that soon. Now go ahead and catch your breath. I’ll be right back.”
Natsinet left, once again leaving Adelle huddled on the floor in misery. This time Adelle had no strength within her to attempt any type of escape. She was so tired and sore. She just wanted to sleep. Her eyes closed and her head began to nod against her chest. She was fast asleep when the nurse returned.
“Wake up! Time for your physical therapy.”
Natsinet knelt down and gathered Adelle in her arms. Adelle’s mouth was inches from the nurse’s neck and she was calculating whether she had the strength to rip out the woman’s carotid artery with her jaw partially paralyzed. She doubted it. In all likelihood it would do nothing but earn her another beating, or worse. Natsinet tossed Adelle down roughly on the bed and eyed her suspiciously, as if she were somehow aware of what Adelle had been thinking.
Natsinet began with some light physiotherapy, lifting Adelle’s limbs and rotating the joints through their full range of motion. Taking her time, and with surprising patience, she guided each limb through several repetitive movements and stretches. She then asked Adelle to wiggle her fingers and toes while she pressed against them providing a counterforce to intensify each muscle contraction.
“These are the therapy techniques your doctor recommended. Conductive Education, a type of physiotherapy where we use repetitive movements to help reeducate your brain on how to use the muscles, hopefully creating new neuropathways in the brain to replace the ones blocked by the stroke. And Muscle Energy techniques utilizing a voluntary contraction of the patient’s muscles, like the one you use to wiggle your fingers and toes, against a controlled counterforce like the resistance of my hand on your fingers. These are all great techniques, and if they work you can expect to see results in as little as two weeks. They say that pretty much whatever movement you recover in the first thirty days is all you will ever recover. That’s why I’ve decided to try a new technique.”
Natsinet reached into her purse and pulled out a small black plastic box with prongs sticking out of the top of it. Adelle recognized it almost immediately. It was one of those stun guns they sold at Army surplus stores and gun shops for self-defense. She’d carried one herself once. Natsinet tapped the trigger on the side of the little box and an arc of electricity crackled between the prongs.
“It’s called electromyographic triggered Neuro-muscular Electrical Stimulation. It’s like Electro Convulsive therapy for the muscles. Usually it’s done with a Stem device and low grade electricity, not the 700,000 volts that this little thing is capable of. But I figure the more electricity the better and quicker the results.
“See, electromyographic signals are electrical impulses originating in the brain and transported via nerve cells to the muscles. These signals cause the muscles to contract. When you have a stroke, the parts of the brain that send and receive these signals no longer function properly, resulting in paralysis of the muscles. During Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation, an electrical impulse is passed from a device such as this little stun gun placed on the skin over a targeted muscle or muscle group. The stimulation causes the muscles to contract. This type of stroke treatment is used to re-learn which part of the brain to activate and to re-develop spontaneous muscle control. It’s actually quite effective, though undoubtedly painful.”
Adelle shook her head, panicked at the idea of being shocked with a taser gun. Natsinet pressed the trigger on the stun gun again and the blue-white burst of electricity cracked between the electrodes, leaving a burning scent in the air. Adelle tried to scramble away. Adrenalin dumped into her bloodstream, giving her a momentary burst of energy that she quickly wasted trying to scamper away on her two good limbs, leaving her once again exhausted. The nurse smiled at her, watching Adelle’s pathetic attempt to save herself with perverse amusement.
“Now where do you think you’re going? Believe me, this is for your own good.”
Adelle was nearly blind with panic, heart thundering in her chest, short shallow breaths bursting from her lungs as she hyperventilated. She threw her good arm over her head to protect it from any electroshocks.
Natsinet smiled.
“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be sending any shocks through your skull. That’s not how it works. At least, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Then she shoved the two electrodes against the naked skin of the old woman’s left leg, and pulled the trigger.
Perhaps it was worse because she was still wet from the bath. Perhaps it would have felt the same had she been dry. Adelle wasn’t sure. All she knew was that all the muscles in her body suddenly felt as if they had a will of their own.
She began to convulse almost immediately as pain tore through her nervous system, every muscle contracting involuntarily, causing her to thrash and flail like a fish on a hook. It was like having some type of painful orgasm. It felt as if her nerves were on fire.
Adelle’s left leg where Natsinet held the stun gun kicked straight out. Her right leg did the same. Her arms went rigid and her fingers clenched. Her teeth ground against each other and her bowels released a flood of excrement. The pain was too great for Adelle to care.
The nurse was staring at Adelle’s legs. Watching with clinical detachment as the muscles contracted and her legs kicked.
“So, I guess you can move those legs after all.”
Natsinet held the trigger for a mere ten seconds but it felt like a lifetime. When she released the trigger, Adelle was breathing like she’d just run a marathon. Her eyes rolled up in her head and her tongue lolled stupidly from her open mouth, drool running down her chin. It took almost another five minutes for Adelle to regain control of her senses.
“Here’s the good news. Both of your legs moved when the electrical current went through you, which means
