Meatspace
Joy may be ethereal, but pain is a thuddingly corporeal thing.
The Skipster is looped on muscle relaxants. The traps and the next are rigid, scream at motion.
I have always had a very high threshold for physical pain, whether that's an actual threshold (meaning I just don't feel pain so severely) or a logical one (I feel pain but I have learned to abide it). Quite an upside when you can just 'walk it off' when something hurts. The downside is that once the threshold is crossed, I basically fall apart, defeated.
I am at that stage right now, near to crying because matter is trumping mind, because the pain is so high there is no escape. Still, I am nowhere near annihilation fantasies. Tomorrow I'll see my doctor, the incomparable Lisa Capaldini, if I can snag one of her"emergency" same-day reserved appointments.
I look forward to seeing her, though my composure may simply, totally, collapse when I see her. She gets in, has always gotten in. And I have no defenses this time. Trust and faith run high between her and me, so I don't dread it, though.