Part of the Procedure
Anna Mavromati
You’re not hurting anything; you’re just taking it apart. Think of it as a machine you are dismantling. Just dig into it.
That’s the speech I gave to myself, looking into the bathroom mirror, before my first day on the job. I haven’t really thought about it much since. But today that prep-speech has been playing over and over again in my head like a broken record all afternoon.
The real reason I came here tonight is to talk. So far that’s been a bust.
Harold enters the room with the diener as he wheels in our subject for the evening. They briskly swipe away the thin white sheet. Rise and shine.
Something bobs and sways in my abdomen like a buoy in the ocean. The smell is even stronger than usual. A horribly stale and putrid stench that I can’t quite define. Everything here is bright and metallic and shiny.
The diener shoves the subject off of its tray and onto our table. It’s not that the subject is heavy, it’s just that it’s difficult to hoist so much of what is quite literally dead weight. The subject tumbles off the diener’s forearms. One of the subject’s arms is bent awkwardly backward at the elbow. We knock it back into place. A pale leg dangles limp off the side of the table, we heave that back on. Except for the sound of bare skin flapping against the metal table, all is silent.
Remember: None of it’s personal.
I take notes. Subject is a Caucasian female. Eyes blue. Hair brown. Found in a hotel bathroom. Do we have a name?
“Another Jane Doe for now.” Harold’s dark eyebrows are flecked with gray and wrinkled skin crumples his forehead and the flesh along his cheekbones, but his eyes are stunningly childlike. He adjusts his plastic face shield for no reason. He snaps his gloves dramatically after he puts them on. “You sick, Fallon? Looking a little pale.”
He could call me Candace. But he doesn’t. In response, I tell him that I always thought you were supposed to look rosy and glowing on nights like this. Harold’s eyebrows squeeze together in a puzzled expression or possibly just a frown. It’s hard to tell which. I assure him I’m fine.
I swallow a lump of saliva and take a deep breath to gain control over my gag reflex. I’ve never hated anything as much as I hate this god damn smell.
The diener lifts the subject’s waist, causing the body to bend and the midriff to swell toward the ceiling. He places a rubber brick beneath the subject’s upper back and its chest arcs in an uncomfortable-looking manner when it rests upon the body block.
Remember: It’s all just part of the procedure.
I ask Harold if it’s just us today. The diener raises and eyebrow before turning to cough into the crease of his elbow.
“Yes,” Harold answers. For a split second his eyes meet mine over our surgical masks. I hold my breath and take a moment to observe his expression. Then I ask if he’s busy this evening.
“My wife will be expecting me early tonight.” His response is abrupt. “So let’s make this quick, shall we?”
Everything feels so cold through my plastic gloves. The subject’s flesh is so pale and pure white it’s almost light blue. And we’re about to mar it forever. I begin making the Y-incision. Cut shoulder to shoulder. Meet at the breastbone. Just as I was taught. The subject is a woman, so the incision curves beneath her breasts. Then a long, deep slice down the center of the body, all the way to the pubic bone. The slices are smooth and clean. My gloves aren’t dirty yet. I glance up at Harold to see him nodding, examining my hands as I work. He places his hand less than an inch above mine and seems as though he’s about to guide me along the incision, but quickly removes himself.
When the cut is made, I dig the scalpel beneath the surface of the flesh to peel it away. My fingers follow the thin, sharp object beneath the skin, into a cold, moist abyss, scraping to tear cold flesh off of bones. It makes a squishing sound with each movement of my hand. I feel like something is wriggling around beneath my own skin. My fingers emerge a dark shade of red. The taste of bile is strong in my mouth. I swallow it back. Harold’s hands grazes mine as he reaches out with his clear, clean gloves to join me in the mess. Every once in a while our hands brush against one another. They aren’t much warmer than the subject’s cold body.
We peel open the skin like it’s some sort of strange, gory banana peel. We strip the subject bare. Completely exposed. Its outer abdomen is inside-out, draped across the sides of its torso. The flesh from its chest folds upward and covers its face, exposing the solid, ridged surface of its ribcage. When the subject’s white flesh is pulled away, everything beneath it is dark red, slimy and even a bit foreboding. Some of the blood has already splattered the table and the front of my scrubs, staining me.
The scent is not quite as strong now. There’s a rich aroma of stale blood replacing it. I feel a twitch in the lower part of my gut.
“Good, Fallon.” Harold is telling me in a low voice. “Very nice hands.”
He passes me the bone cutter. I use it to crack the bones on each side of the subject’s ribs. We remove the chest plate.
The body smells a bit like raw lamb meat. I feel lightheaded and am coming to a sickening realization that despite the queasiness I’m actually a little bit hungry.
“Are you sure you’re up for this today, Fallon?” Harold’s youthful eyes narrow at me over his face shield. “I could get one of the boys in here tonight.”
No. I tell him I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. But I wish I could wipe the beads of sweat from my forehead without smearing blood across my face.
The two halves of the ribcage open like double-doors and splay out. And there’s everything. All of the insides, a collection of dark goo and lumpy organs lying there static, framed by broken rib bones.
I ask Harold if we could talk after this. The diener coughs indignantly as he exits the room.
Harold’s eyes seem to go dull for a moment as they meet mine. He blinks. I don’t.
“I told you, my wife is expecting me,” he replies casually.
He stabs into the pericardial sac, the soft, fleshy area protecting the heart. He forcefully shoves his hands into the open chest, penetrating the heart with his fingers. Invading the arteries. Defiling the muscle that is no longer beating. My own heart flutters.
I really, really need to talk to him. It’s important, and it will take only a minute.
“My wife.” Harold thrusts into the open heart once more before his hand emerges, covered in blood. “And my kids. They need me tonight. I am very sorry.”
My heart becomes something heavy. Its pounding seems strong enough to make my body quake, like a fist banging against a flimsy door. Something else is throbbing like a heart beat inside of me. But I must be imagining that. I feel another wave of nausea.
Under Harold’s instruction I begin to free the organs. Detach them from the spine. Divide the connections. Cut away. Harold tells me to dissect this woman as I work. Top to bottom. The esophagus and the larynx first. Work your way down. Everything is removed, leaving the subject an empty shell.
I pass off the organs to Harold and we very carefully and systematically rip them apart one by one. Everything is weighed and dissected. He slices the heart open and places it on the scale. The heart is then scooped off as quickly as it was positioned there and is immediately replaced. I’m holding my breath as he breaks apart the lungs. My stomach sinks as he cuts one open in his hands, releasing its dark goo. There’s a sharp pain on one side of my midriff when I see him slice into the spleen. Each item leaves a little red puddle in its wake
Coming here was a bad idea. I’m only going to make myself sick and I know that the formaldehyde is probably unhealthy for my current condition. I’ve spent the past three mornings throwing up and peeing on smooth white plastic sticks, waiting to see if they became pink or blue. Minus or plus. Trying to figure out what the fuck all of that means.
I guess I came here to prove something to him. I said I was coming here to talk to him. I look at him over our corpse. He’s ignoring me, busy dissecting kidneys. I rub a sore area beneath my chest with my bloody-gloved hand.
Every time I begin to feel my innards tumbling over each other in my waist I make a deep, oozing cut into the pieces of this woman’s body. Breathe and cut. That’s all I need to do right now. I feel like a child on Halloween, shamelessly removing the innards of a carved pumpkin.
Pretty soon, I’m not even breathing anymore. I’m carving out the appendix when I accidentally nick it with the scalpel.
I’m sorry.
His eyes turn to me in this metal and aluminum room.
Sorry. I’ll fix it. Sorry.
Dizzy, I grasp the open rib cage on the table with one slippery gloved hand. Harold’s mouth is moving but I can’t seem to make out the words. My gloves are slick with blood and my clenched fingers are sliding clumsily. My neck gives out. Every muscle in my body gives out. My head fall into the subject’s open chest, and I swear I can feel her missing heart beating against my left ear.
When I open my eyes, Harold is looking down at me. His face shield is removed, and I can see his soft mouth. His eyebrows are low, heavy with anger.
“God damn it, Candace,” he says. “If you have a problem, go and fucking take care of it.”
Moist strands of hair stick to my face. My skin feels wet, cold and sticky. There’s blood all down the front of my scrubs. None of it is mine. Bloody handprints are smeared on my clothes. I’m sure it’s on my face, too. It looks as though the body on the table has reached up and grabbed me.
Still spinning, I help myself rise to my feet. I am eye to eye with him. I begin: I think you need to know—
Harold cringes and steps backward, away from me. Afraid of me.
“I have a wife and kids,” he seems to be making a statement of this. It sounds more like a plea. “I have a career.”
He already knows and it doesn’t even need to be said anymore. Suddenly I can breathe easily again, but it hurts my chest to do it. I tell him he won’t be hearing from me after tonight. I tell him I will handle the situation. I tell him that this has to end. He nods.
“Remember, none of it’s personal, Fallon,” he says, clearing his throat and composing himself. “It’s just a procedure.”
I go to the subject and pull the large flap of chest skin off her face. Her eyes are blue. Her hair is brown. She has a name. I just don’t know what it is yet. I replace her flesh as well as I can over her destroyed breastplate. The surface is uneven, sinking into her open chest in some areas and flapping out awkwardly in others. I run my hands over the skin to smooth it out as best I can. Once, it fit flat against her frame. I try to put it back, to make it perfect again. My fingers leave little red trails on her body. The chest plate doesn’t close right. Her waist is lumpy. I can’t fix her.
(2008)