[lumberjim]

Awake. I try to open my eyes, and the pain comes in place of the light. I remember it now, and this blackness is forever. The pain will end, but the dark won't. Again, I feel the panic. I see in my mind the last thing my eyes ever saw. The chrome blades moving steadily toward me. Unable to move my head even a fraction of an inch in any direction, I await their approach. Two sets of four triangular blades like stump pullers, set in a swiveling cradle on the end of a protrusion from the machine. Closer they came, no faster, no slower. It seemed like hours pressed into seconds. The ring of blades opened slowly as it came nearer, like wicked steel flowers blooming in time lapse. Paralyzed, I can't even scream as the first blade pricks my left eyelid first, and ever so slowly increases pressure, and the contact area grows, the blade biting deeper. It came on so slowly and those blades were so sharp, that at first it felt feather light, just a vague pressure, but as the blood flowed into my eyes, i felt something catch, stretch, and pop, and the pain exploded into my brain like sparks off of a welders torch.

I recall praying to pass out or die. The blades bit deeper and deeper until i felt them come together behind my eyeballs with a jolt as the last bit of nasty was snipped. As though the fact that I had remained conscious and felt every inexorable millimeter of the machine's progress weren't torture enough, I then felt something going up both of my nostrils. All at once, all of my nosehairs were pulled out, but in such a way that I felt each one individually and all at once. I DID blackout then, and now upon waking, i realize that I can move again, but I seem to be lying on my back in a low and narrow box like a coffin. Oh shit it IS a coffin.