TORPEDO ✓

woe is the author's catharsis; side A

THIS ELEVATION IS AT LEAST three stories high, towering over and equally snuggling beneath a fairly industrial landscape. Cars zoom by, minding their business of the day. A dozen of Boys Scouts, accompanied by their leader, wait impatiently for the traffic. A flock of senior citizens are huddled around a gazette, bantering to the heartbeat of the city.

Dorian is sitting on the window, his head resting on the glass, one leg over another. He turns to the sky, to the unforgiving nimbus as it sobs on mankind. He is lost in thought, catharsis just waiting to be triggered from within.

It takes another clap of thunder to wake Dorian from his reverie.

"Dorian."

"Yeah," he says tiredly. "Doctor."

"Did you grab anything I just said?"

"You were talking?"

"Dorian!" Mercy scolds.

Dorian just sighs. "Can we go over it again? No offence, please. I need to be very much reminded this isn't a nightmare I'm living."

The doctor looking like a magazine cosplay model, the nurse who Dorian has grown to know as Janet, his mom who has barely slept a wink for forty-eight hours now; all cast him a look of pity and his chest gets even tighter.

"Like I said earlier, tomorrow is the surgery."

"Surgery," Dorian reiterates with a raspy voice.

"We are going to perform an hysterectomy along with complete removal of your internal female genitalia."

"So, ovaries and shit," Dorian deadpans. "This is fucking ridiculous because how can I conceive; how can my ovaries work when I don't even menstruate?"

"Your ovulation was triggered by contact with the male gamete, for some reason we still don't understand. Implantation was due to a passageway we discovered in your rectum."

"I'm a freak, aren't I?" Dorian asks himself more than the adults in the room.

"Don't say that," Janet chirps in. "You see, research on the intersex is nebulous and can happen in so many forms and degrees. I mean, some people die as intersex and will never figure it out, even after they die. Most claims are from autopsies or accidental encounters during scans."

"Exactly. In your case, your body has been suppressing those hormones. You have a...makeshift system that can conceive and accommodate foetus to your own peril. Let's just say it shouldn't be there in the first place."

"Of course, Sherlock," Dorian rolls his eyes, his mood turning even more bitter. "What else is new? I should go by the pronoun, they, now?" He doesn't know whether to blame his mood swings on the truckload of pills circulating in his system, the thing inside his body or the fact that he is just realizing it.

Somehow, he feels insecure and naked, just with a pint of claustrophobia. Like he has been shoved in a tiny space with eyes all over him, and eyes literally inside him. Dorian reclines into himself again, hugging his knees and toying with the needle siphoning the drip in his veins.

The doctor just flashes a knowing smile. "And you've been pushing yourself while unaware of your recent gravidity. Doing strenuous exercises that has forced you into a miscarriage. The baby can't survive but you must."

"Is there any point?"

"Dorian, please." Mercy groans, running to wrap him in her arms. She's such a drama queen but Dorian can see past her act. There are places she will rather be than babysitting her queer son who christian karma has just bitten in the ass.