| Author | Message | ||
| M
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4130 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Before the Wake Graeme Mullen They look like meat dolls, covered in flour, he thinks- maybe just the hard of the scrubbed steel that makes them look so soft? And the bleached light from the pale lamp- He pulls the wool from the plastic bucket, clumps it in his fist, so his arm looks like a dwindling stick of cotton candy. His free hand hovers for a second, plucks a clump of white to pad a loose cheekflap. His thumbs press for limp patches, the same way they check fruit for bruises. He stuffs the soft spots firm to make the face suitably indignant. At death, for the rudeness of its interruptions. His scalpel glints like a scale as he draws a red line along the rubber stomach. Gases spill, like from a hot fissure in the soil- A smell like burning tires that he is used to. His hand moves inside the slice, like a spider creeping under the crack of a door. He pushes through the wet pulp feel of piled organs, finds a parachuted flap, presses down- a last breath hisses out through dry teeth. He threads the mouth shut, needles through the lower gum and upper lip, out through a nostril. The thread wrinkles down the face, spittle-thin. Readying the pump, he notices the stare- off, slightly. He prods the guilty eyeball, pads a piece cotton in the socket, turns it back, and then cements the lids together. Finicky, but- it would have worried him. He starts the pump, and the flow ripples into the doughy neck. Satisfied, he tugs the dangling thread, pulls blue lips up into a smile resembling, perhaps, gratitude. |
