I am excited for today! My girlfriend splurged on my 23rd birthday present and got me a certificate for one procedure in the MediClave!

The MediClave is such a feat of engineering. I’ve been hearing about it all over social media and it really is the future of cosmetic and preventive medicine. Almost anything you can think of can be accomplished by the machine, which is basically just a large box you lie down inside so that it can scan your entire body and come up with a perfect procedure for you—for whatever you want done. I’ve seen boob jobs, tattoos, lifesaving surgeries—like I said, almost anything!

I was nervous the morning my girlfriend, Lidya, and I were scheduled for my appointment. I had always felt very self conscious about the ridge on my nose and I decided to have it smoothed out. Not too much! Just a simple contouring.

“Ready darling? You know, I am really going to miss that nose of yours!”

I laughed, “You weirdo! I’m still going to have a nose after today!” We both chuckled at the joke.

If you’ve ever been to a float spa, this is very much the same. Private rooms each have their own MediClave. You are given all the privacy and time you need to get undressed, shower, and lay in the machine while soft meditative music plays over the PA. You’re then put into some sort of trance where basically your next memory is waking up after the procedure. Something to do with interrupting the neural pathways using the same technology.

Lidya came in with me and helped me in. It was a bit strange that I had to get completely undressed and cleaned up before getting in. I guess it’s a cleanliness thing—I wasn’t worried though, it’s not like anyone but me and Lydia were in the room with me.

I got into the mediclave and lay down flat against the contoured bottom of the machine. Tiny actuators beneath the surface tweaked their position, shaping themselves perfectly to every square millimeter of my body. The material felt like hard plastic, but the actuators made it as comfortable as egyptian cotton.

“I’m gonna miss you!” Lidya said, trying to shed a mock tear.

I blew her a kiss from inside the box. “I’ll be right back!”

Lidya smiled and closed the door over me. The inside of the box was dim. Very serene, really. The same calming music played over a speaker inside the box.

A computer screen faded to life, “HELLO, SUMMER,” Two buttons appeared below the message: “Continue” and “Cancel Procedure”. I tapped to Continue.

“You have one credit. What part of the body are you here for today?” A silhouetted image of my entire body appeared on screen. It was very accurate too! The image must be determined by the actuators, I thought. I tapped the general area of my nose, but nothing happened. I tapped again, but still nothing.

“Stupid computers!” I yelled from inside the box.

“What? Are you okay in there, Summer?”

I replied, muffled, “I’m fine, just a crappy touch screen is all.”

I tapped the area again but it didn’t work. I tapped a little harder, still nothing. Frustrated, I slapped my entire palm on the screen and it finally updated!

“CONFIRMED. What would you like to do in the selected area(s)?” A few choices appeared: “Reduction, Addition, Modification”

I came to have a slight nose contouring and thought for a second. I guess you could consider some simple shaving of the cartilage in my nose a reduction. I tapped the button. The screen seemed to be working again.

“How much would you like to reduce?” The options were “Flat, Short, Rounded, and Custom length”

Custom length? I thought to myself...what could that even mean? What a bunch of weird Chinese computer engineers—it’s either a mistranslation or some strange procedure that’s just popular in Asia. I chose Flat for a straight contour.

“CONFIRMED. Please relax.” The music turned up a little and a mist filled the chamber. I had read a lot about the process. It’s always completely painless and you always wake up minutes later completely healed. Something to do with nano-bots.

The mist made me feel drowsy and I soon fell asleep. I felt woozy and blacked out for a moment.

“PROCEDURE COMPLETE. It’s time to wake up, Summer.” The computer spoke softly and sweetly to her as she woke from what felt like a very refreshing nap.

I opened my eyes slowly. My entire body felt warm, like I had been in a jacuzzi for a half hour. Slowly the door to the machine unlocked and I immediately saw my girlfriends smiling face, looking directly at mine. Within five seconds, her sweet face turned from a huge grin, to confusion about my nose, and then horror as she looked down my body.

“Holy shit, Summer! What happened?? What did you ch...what...wh..” Lydia's eyes rolled back and she fainted.

I was suddenly scared, “What? What’s wrong? Are you okay? I had my nose shaved straight like we talked about! I reached up to feel my nose, to prove to Lidya exactly what I had done...but nothing happened. I reached up with my other arm. Again, nothing happened, “Um, am I not supposed to be able to move afterward? I can’t touch my nose.” The anesthetic mist was still wearing off and I realized I was not as freaked out and nervous as I would usually be in a situation where I cannot move my body.

Finally there was rustling from below the edge of the table. Lydia finally stood on rickety feet and looked at me with the same horrific expression. Slowly she composed herself and mustered the energy to say, “Baby...your nose...it’s the same. It wasn’t changed.”

“Of course it was. I chose for the machine to flatten it. It was really….ohhhh” I let my head lull back into the perfectly shared contour I was laying in, “I had trouble pressing the buttons on the screen. When I tried to choose my nose on the selector it wouldn’t budge. So I kinda mashed all the buttons at once and assumed it was right. I guess I get impatient at stuff like that sometimes, huh.” I felt a wave of peace wash over me as I had learned a lesson today to be more patient with technology, “So what happened? It can’t be that bad, right? Being a miracle machine, anything it did must be beautiful. ...right?” She continued staring without responding, making me scared.

“Well--I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I’m getting the feeling you don't know what actually happened.”

“Why? What actually happened? What the hell does that even mean? Help me out of this thing so I can see myself in a mirror!” I pushed myself up to a leaning position, except...nothing happened except a bit of squirming.

“Okay, I’ll have to help you out. Promise you won’t freak?”

“That I won’t freak?? Get me the hell out of here!”

Lidya reached into the box and wrapped her soft hands behind my back and lifted. I was confused why she didn't just grab my hand, but not for long. Unexpectedly, I began to lift out of the machine. “Oh my god, do you lift or something?” I laughed, “How did you just pick me up like that?”

Lidya hugged me close and stood up straight. I tried to reach my arms around her but couldn’t. I was confused at the lack of dead weight. Even if I couldn’t feel or move my arms or legs, there was a curious lack of swinging from my shoulders, which I could still feel.

She walked with me over to the mirror, still hugged close so that I couldn’t see past her arm held snug around the back of my neck. I saw my reflection and noticed my nose was the same as it ever was, “Aww my nose really is the same. Bummer!”

“Summer…do you seriously not see what happened?” I must have still been groggy because it took a few seconds to register that I was now just a head on top of a limbless torso.

My eyes widened and my heart rate went through the roof, “Ahhhhh! Lidya! Help!” I tried to reach out for anything at all to ground myself but the brutal truth was staring me in the face, I didn’t have anything to reach out with!

“Baby, baby, it’s okay! We will figure this out.” Lidya whispered to me reassuringly. She rubbed my back and tried to stroke my hair. She didn’t sound convincing.

“Fix this?? I fucked up and the machine clipped my arms and legs! Fuck!” I looked down at my body to see that absolutely no thigh extended from my hips. I looked at my shoulder and saw no arm, all the same. I quickly realized I didn’t even have bones in the joints anymore—there was literally nothing left to move attached to my torso except some remnant muscles to give my empty shoulders and hips shape. I was helpless.

I started sobbing. My girlfriend held me tight and I tried to hug her back. All I needed was to wrap around her for safety but I no longer had the requisite limbs to do so.

“It’ll be okay...we’ll find a way to fix this...I’m not going anywhere” I kept sobbing.