Frens.
I have been through the Stargate and back and will now divulge the secret to having a pleasant experience inside the MRI machine.
Feel free to use this, unless you already have a process. This requires good brain muscles. Your mileage may vary.
FIRST! Do not, I repeat, do not open your eyes. When they push you into the magnetic womb, keep those peepers unpeeped. There is a nice flow of cool air spraying near your face and you can delude yourself into thinking you’re lying in an open area. That’s fine. NO PEEKING.
SECOND! Do not accept the gift of music. I have no idea what kind of playlists MRI technicians have available, but for this plan to work, you must not allow competing beats into your muffled earholes. NO COMPETING BEATS!
C! There will be some alarm sounds. That’s fine. That’s your signal to start the show in your mind theater. Take a deep breath. You are ready.
NEXT! There will be some thumping. Rhythmic thumping that once in a while will be paired with a second, deeper thumping. This is good. Don’t jig with it – you can’t – but move with the beat in your brain. This beat is permeating the depths of the earth, the only part of the EDM coming from a hedonistic celebration in your honor many miles above. You hear it. Your embrace it. Soon it will stop, for the ritual will be complete. For you are the…
VAMPIRE QUEEN!!!
(Now, I’m not the Aaliyah “Queen of the Damned” type, more of the Brienne-of-Tarth-as-a-Vampire type, which, let’s be honest, would have ended that show in Season four. ALL HAIL THE BLOODY QUEEN OF THE SEVEN * crash * SIX KINGDOMS!!)
So, you, the Vampire Queen, lying in your coffin in the depths of hell, awaiting your resurrection. Your most dedicated followers are engaged in a deadly disco (picture the “Bloodbath” scene from “Blade”) and you hear them calling you from your black soul.
The beat stops. For a moment, silence.
Suddenly an insistent “rat-tat-tat-tat-tat” echoes overhead. You know that the forces of good have come to break up your ceremony. These are the machine guns, silver bullets blazing, mowing down the weakest of your kin. Fine, you think, safe in your sunken cocoon. Their flesh will be the centerpiece of a celebration feast. Two more short rounds of “rat-tat-tat” are heard – then a long, nearly insufferable staccato of noise. You try to shift, but the long centuries of sleep have left you stiff and sluggish. And as you begin to think of the loss of your brethren, a feeling of peace diffuses through your blood. Of course, you realize, the tables have been turned and the human interlopers are now the ones staring down those metal missiles of misery.
FOURTH!…FIFTH! It is quiet again, for a moment, and then the EDM returns. Here, your brain projector switches from the crimsons and whites of the previous disco to the browns and tans of the overlong, sweat-stained dance frenzy of that one Matrix movie. You forget which one.
YOU HAVE EXISTED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS AND IT IS DIFFICULT TO RETAIN FILM FACTS.
I AM THE ULTIMATE PREDATOR BUT BAD AT BAR TRIVIA.
The beats are not as insistent now and then more “rat-tat-tats.” But these have a distinct sound, as of a long heavy chain being pulled through an infinite chasm.
SIX! As your chained coffin is being pulled upwards through an infinite chasm, you begin to sense an end to your stillness, the bulbous stress ball some smarty-pants buried you with in 1987, now feels like the soft completion of a promise. You rise….RISE, noticing for the first time, a cool breeze across your face and you hope, desperately hope, that these dancing morons timed this right. No one likes being resurrected at dawn.
SEVENTEENTH!! In your ears a kind voice says, “okay, you’re all done” and you smile, knowing that you’ve successfully passed through the gate from undead to, well, technically you’re still undead, but now you’re ANIMATED UNDEAD and hey, lady, you said that like ten minutes ago. It’s time to release me from my IMMORTAL PRISON and let me out. Seriously, how far away are the operators from this thing? And if they’re that far away, should I even be in here?
END!! Not a moment before, but when you feel the table move out, out of the area, then, and only then, should you open your eyes, dismissing the previous twenty minutes and returning to a certain reality. Pluck out those ear plugs, thank the staff for their kindness and professionalism and emerge into the sunlight, ready to take on the day.
You squint at the sun. “Idiots!”
