To X-rays

You, like so much of science, were an accident. No one was looking for you directly. But scientists are trained to ask “What’s this?” so that when something odd shows up, like a shadow on a plate, they don’t throw it away and think it’s just one gone bad. They study it, seek an answer, try to recreate it.

Imagine that day in the lab when they realize exactly what it is they are looking at. A bone, the skeleton of a living person. It’s exact shape and size. The curves and edges. The way one fits into the next. To be able to detect, without surgery or waiting for the patient to die, to detect by sight, disease growing . To not have to rely solely on the rubric of symptoms.

The scenes in the TV medical drama are common enough: two doctors in front of the lighted screen on the wall. One is pointing to an area in the lungs. Another is nodding, squinting, hands shoved into white lab coat pockets. This could be our doctor, our dentist; the bones could be ours, the prognosis could be ours.

This thing right here? That should not be there. That’s not normal; healthy people don’t have that. What is it, we don’t know, but it may be the problem. It may not. But likely, it is.

The truth is, we live with a lot wrong with us. We live with growths and abnormalities and things out of place. If we all did x-rays and scans of our whole bodies, we would be shocked, wonder how we can function with so much wrong.

You reveal the truth about us, the truth we didn’t know we were and didn’t know we were hiding. But, dark against the light screen, it’s there. Maybe it explains the pain, the discomfort, the change. But you can see the outline, the break right there, the spot that hovers like it’s suspended in mid-air. That’s not supposed to be there.