Then the nurses slide a giant needle into the center of my knot, a painkiller, it spreads through me, a perfect springtime, flowers blooming inside of me to block the pain, sweet relief, the drugs a sun shining all through me, my body suddenly a song.

ON THE WAY HOME, I FEEL LIKE AIR, NO pain. I feel the light of heaven rushing through me. I buy a single slice of cake, pure white icing, and take it home with me, the sensation of a parade. I crawl into bed, drug smiling, giant fork, and slide the cake into my mouth, sugar teeth, a laugh escaping my lips.

“SOPHIA,” I SINGSONG INTO THE PHONE. “I’m having my knot removed!”

“Wait, what? You sound strange. What are you talking about?”

“I found a doctor, and he can get rid of it!”

“Are you... are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Of course it is! Why would I want to stay like this?”

“Sometimes, we just get used to things...” she trails off. “I thought maybe you had gotten used to it.”

MY MOTHER ARRIVES TO BE MY CAREtaker.

“What’s all this?” she asks, lifting up the papers and pamphlets from the doctor’s office.

I must: Fast, eat only ice, strip my fingernails and toenails bare so they can monitor the amount of oxygen in my body.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks.

I don’t answer. We both know there is no other choice.

I WAKE UP BEFORE THE SUN RISES. IN THE dark of my bedroom, I prepare for surgery like a strange bride.

I soap myself carefully in the shower. I wash my hair deeply, down into the scalp. I shave my body with the sharp razor.

I towel my body off and dry my hair. I put on my simplest clothes: black cloth pants, black t-shirt, black sweater. I wear no makeup, no jewelry, stripped down to just a body. Each nerve in my system knows it faces a knife.

“Are you ready?” my mother asks, bleary eyed.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say.

We climb into a cab. The driver is quiet in the early hour. I can smell the morning on his breath from the back seat.

“Are you nervous?” my mother asks. “I’m nervous.”

“I just keep wondering where will I go when they put me under,” I say. “Where does the person in me go?”

“Don’t think like that. It’s going to be fine. They do it all the time.”

She reaches over and holds my hand. The sun starts to crest over the horizon. My body presses deeper into the seat with each mile we pass, my fear growing the closer we get.

◆In the 1500s, the first German physician successfully synthesized ether

◆In 1846, a doctor created “The Ether Dome,” where patients were first successfully put under ether anesthesia

◆General anesthesia may cause amnesia