be wares!
A Shot of Misery #8
We’ve met before. We know you well. We know what scares you. We know what makes your skin crawl.
I am the writer. Let me tell you what they’re doing to your body now that you’re dead.
You don’t remember how you died, do you? You were alive one moment, and then the next you were dead. All you can see is black. That’s okay, that’s normal. Death can be scary, but you’re safe here. I promise.
I find that explaining what is happening to your physical body, now that your dead, can help to make you feel more at peace. But make a noise if you find it too distressing.
There’s a man standing over you. He’s holding a small silver cylinder to the back of your head. The cylinder, via a tube, is connected to a gas tank. There is a small hole in your skull, a hole that extends up through your brain.
The man is now binding your legs together with rope. He’s taking a hook and forcing it through your achilles. The hook is attached to a chain that travels up to the ceiling. The man presses a button and the chain retracts and hoists your body into the air.
Your body sways, but the man steadies it. He takes out a large knife and, with a swing of his fist, has just punctured your pelvis. With great difficulty, he is pulling the knife downwards, slowly.
The knife traces a long line down through your abdomen, parting the flesh with careful, practiced strokes. The man works methodically, his movements precise and unhurried. He has done this many times before.
He sets the knife down and reaches inside, separating the organs from your cavity wall with his hands, working around your ribcage. Your stomach, intestines, and other digestive organs are removed first, carefully set aside. Your liver, heart, and lungs follow. Nothing is wasted. Each organ has its purpose, its destination.
He returns to the knife now, working along your spine, separating your carcass into two symmetrical halves with a long, practiced cut. A bone saw takes over where the knife cannot go. The sound will be distant to you. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Your two halves are washed down with water, a cold rinse that cleans the exposed surfaces. They are inspected closely under bright lights by another man in a white coat, who makes notes on a clipboard. He is nodding approvingly.
What remains of you are moved into a cold room. The temperature is just above freezing. In pieces, you will hang here for days, perhaps weeks. The darkness here is different. It is a purposeful darkness, a patient one.
You are being divided further now. Shoulders. Ribs. Loin. Round. The man knows exactly where to cut, following the natural lines between muscles. Each section is wrapped, labeled, and moved along.
You are being sold. People will take chunks of you home. Fry you. Bake you. Burn you. You will feed people. Not a lot of people. Not enough to excuse what they did to you. But, at the end of the day, that is what they bred you for.
Rest now.
We’ve met before. We know you well. We know what scares you. We know what makes your skin crawl. Help me feed this beast. It lives off what makes your stomach turn.
Like a shot of misery that slithers down, its tendrils contain the unborn upset of not knowing til it’ll tear more than just my throat apart. That is, unless you keep it fed with your distress.
We’ll be seeing you soon.
About halfway through, I realized what was really being described. That perspective shift smacked me upside the head. Nicely done.