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Chapter 7
Her Grace willed her left hand to move enough to grasp the joystick on her powered wheelchair. At first her hand didn’t move at all. Then it flapped like a fish gasping for water. In her exhausted frustration she let emotions drive up her blood pressure. Before she could use her iron will to soothe and calm herself, her doctor strode back into the room.
“Your Grace, we can’t afford to lose you. If I see another spike in your blood pressure today, I will be forced to sedate you. Please, please, rest?”
Her Grace fought the urge to lash out at the doctor. She smiled, still able to control her facial muscles, and forced herself to relax. The doctor checked her catheter, made sure the colostomy bag was empty, and left. She faced the indignities with calm, and maintained the calm state for minutes after the doctor left, making herself relax even more. She brought up pleasant memories from her childhood.
She and Poppa would often go to baseball games together. Her older sisters were probably out fornicating. She and Poppa had a special, secret bond. She knew that thinking of their special times together, at home in the evenings with no one around, would most certainly raise her blood pressure. She thought instead of those baseball games. Even as a child she often became frustrated by some problem or task and let herself became angry. Poppa would quote one of his baseball heroes-George Brett.
You don’t get hits by trying hard. You get hits by trying easy.
She tried easy, picturing her left hand becoming still and then slowly, ever so slowly, moving to grasp the joystick on the arm of the powered chair. She watched her left hand grasp the stick and tilt it slightly forward. She heard the click of the servos and the hum of the motor. Her Grace felt the chair move slowly forward across the smooth parquet floor. She maneuvered the chair into place in her computer enclosure. The huge screen contained very few lines of print and those were in 30-point type.
“Open email!” she said in her angelic voice.
The computer questioned quietly in its robotic voice, as if it were ashamed to speak.
“Do you want to open email?”
“Yes,” she said, even the one-syllable word a musical note.
Her email program opened with a password form.
“Let me in!” she said. The computer asked her to confirm. She did as she was asked.
The first email had an invisibletrail.net address. She recognized it and eagerly said: “Open first new message!”
She read the first few lines with excitement. She translated the code quickly. A single tear rolled down her smooth cheek, then another tear, and another as she sobbed and sniffed.
“Please repeat command?” The computer asked.
She ignored the computer and the beauty she could only see as a blur through the window. She continued to cry.
“Please repeat command?” The computer asked.
“Please repeat command?” The computer asked.
“Please repeat command?” The computer asked.