Revision

Anatomy
Though I was once a man, now all that remains of me is dust, and a stray rib bone. I am, as you can surmise, dead, and buried. Several years ago, in fact. I don't know exactly how many, but I know they’ve been plenty. It takes time to turn into dust. My death was a rather stupid one, looking back. I worked on ships, you see, and I was going to jump unto a row boat, from the ship, to row back into the city. The ship I was working on was big, and needed deep waters. It had to anchor further out that port and to get there I had to take a row boat. I went that far out, just enough. Just enough that there were no others around, nobody to help, enough water to drown. I stuck my leg out, trying to reach the small boat and I fell. The world kind of spun on me. I fell into the water, which was looking rather black that day. I remember it was cold. I must’ve hit my head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in some room. I was warm, because there was canvas sheet on top of me. I drearily realized I was dead, and the shock wasn't really there in the way you'd expect. Maybe it was the fact my heart was no longer pumping, so no adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, I lay there, awake but not, there but not, and noticed I maintained some feeling in my body, in the nerves somehow, like a sort of tingly sensation. As if I was straining to feel, and, well, losing the struggle. Then someone came in, maybe two someones. I think I heard two voices, came, and I was moved, I'm not sure how, into an adjoining room. I was laid on a cold wooden table, and men crowded around me. One man began to speak to the audience, and I realized he must be the oft commented Dr. Tulp. And I, an honorary, and unnoticed, member of his mostly captive audience. Unfortunately my mind tuned the beginning conference out and it thought of rotting meat instead, like they kind I’d see tossed out of butcher’s stand in the market, black and stinking, covered in worms and wondered if the maggots and bugs were coming for my soon to be rotting corpse too. Sounds morbid, yes, but I knew then, somehow, that I was just part of a grand design, drawn by a master’s hand. My death would feed the worms, they would in turn make the soil fertile, the soil would bear grass, grass feed cows, cows would feed humans, and the circle would start again. It was beautiful, and I had to die to fully understand. Funny, really, if you think about it. Then Tulp and his spectators moved closer and I saw, or felt I saw, like out of the corner of my eye, Tulp move towards my side, and felt air in or on my hand, but softly, like breath. I don’t know what he did; only the tinglyness was fading. I know I seem dreadfully aware for a dead man, but memory is all I have. I seem to have gotten it back in full force after I died, perhaps because my mind was no longer preoccupied with issues of the present, or fearing the hypothetical future. I was no more, so memory was the only place I could live. There is knowledge, wisdom that comes with death. Wisdom of all things, of what grand design we are working towards, and the simply intelligence to objectively look back on our lives and judge them for meaning. I remember things I’d forgotten, like the way my daughter first lock of hair smelt, or the exact color of the sky on my wedding day. To be honest, I lost all track of Tulp’s lesson, and my burial. I was there, but not. I existed, and did not. Then I was in a cold coffin. The last ghost of feeling I had was a coldness on my face that may have been a worm, but I’m not certain. With the remnants of consciousness that I do, did, will, have I wondered whether there was a heaven or hell. Was I being punished by this sort of here-and-not state, or were we all? Or is this what heaven looks like? Now I wonder, if this I the end for all, are we all sinners? Or are we simply more magical than we believe? I do not know. But I do know that my final time of rest is coming and I will finally be no more than bone dust. Hopefully.



Meat
The day I lost my hand started like any other. Waking up in the old bed, in the same old town, with the same old morning rain turning everything outside my window gray. I swung my foot over the edge of the bed, onto the frayed old woven rug on the cool wood floorboards, stared at the same point on the wall. Behind me, like any morning, my wife Louise was still asleep, curled up in the little concave dent in the center of the mattress, looking tired even then. Then, like any morning, I got up, got in the shower, washing away the sweet scent of dreams and replacing it with the acrid stench of reality. No way up and no way out, just the same old road, heading nowhere fast in the same old rundown miserable town. Like any kid I’d had dreams, but not anymore. No college came my way, no great job offers, or bombshell women. Just my plain old neighbor Louise with her less than average looks and her secretarial position at an accountants’ office and my own job at the meat packing plant like every other guy in town. Men you used to be dreamers now spend their days elbow deep in the flesh of animals. A five to ten job, that’s am to pm. With that I managed to scrape enough together for a house and kids and a decent enough wedding. Like everyone else. Anyway, that morning, it was a Saturday I remember, though it’s not like it matters, I went downstairs, grabbed some coffee and a lunch pail, and headed out, into the usual morning downpour. My truck was cold, as always, and the radio off. I put both my hands on the wheel, turned the key, and started out. I turned on the radio and the let the dial spin on its own, like a little top, trying to find a station, not really caring where it ended up landing. I thought of kids in the momentary silence, still asleep, tiny bodies in tiny beds. They must be dreaming, I thought. That morning, it’s amazing what you remember, the song playing was a sad old song, sung in a woman’s voice, talking about love. It was probably older than my father was, but it was a good song. Slow, steady, had good backing musicians. I heard a piano, and a flute, maybe a trumpet or an oboe. Memory can surprise you. I can remember those little things, but I can’t remember what went wrong that day. Something must’ve gone wrong; I remember the feeling in my gut. Anyway, I pulled up, parked and walked in. went to the lockers, pulled off my flannel coat, and put on the white smock thing that counts as the uniform, and my one blue glove. See at the plant I worked a small lonely station in the assembly line. I couldn’t see anyone, as there was a white chute on my right and a white machine on my left. I knew there was a guy beside that machine, on the other side, but I couldn’t see him because of the machinery’s sheer size, so it made no difference. My job was to make sure the meat got cut properly. A big square of meat came down the chute every few minutes, landed on the belt. I pushed a blue button and the meat moved to the center of the belt, in front of me, and stopped. A big shiny bade came down and cut the meat in half. Then I stuck out my blue glove and moved the meat. Waited awhile, the blade came down again, and you get four pieces of meat. Four neat little squares. No fuss, no sound, no bleeding. Just a big square, a blade, and four small squares. The conveyor belt came to life then and moved the meat into the machine on my left. Repeat. It goes on forever, from five to ten, meat comes in, meat goes out. Slice, slice in the middle. Supposed to be safe. Anyway, that must have been piece one hundred that day, right before noon, when it happened. Slice, meat in two pieces. Then a blank. All I remember is my vision going shaky and red and white. I look down, and my glove is gone with my hand still inside. The meat was still in two pieces, I hadn’t moved it. Remember puzzling as to why I hadn’t done that, as my vision grew increasingly hazy and taking to time to stare and then meat, then watching my stump. Someone screamed. Then I remember only blackness and silence. I woke up at four pm the next day, in the county hospital, my hand gone, Louise by my side. There were a couple of officials from the plant, babbling about freak accidents and employee safety and whatnot. I wasn’t interested. Then they gave me a check, a check for a bunch of money, for my “disability settlement requirement” or some such thing. Hush money. Still I took it and ran. Ran, chasing after the sun, chased it all the way to California. I drove, not caring about the fact that I only had one hand, one was good enough. It was like waking up from a long slumber to realize you were living in a dream, roaring down dusty roads, a beautiful woman in the front seat, money in your pocket, kids in the back. That trip was a good, fun thing that still warms my chest when I think of it. We drove like there was no world, no responsibilities. The windows down, radio up, kids strapped up in the back, Louise in front next to me. I had one hand on the wheel, one eye on the horizon, the other on Louise, all four of us singing the songs on the radio. The moon and stars winking up above, the kids asleep, Louise’s head on my shoulder, the sun coming up in a pink mist, the engine purring. All the possible colors in sunrises and sunsets painting the sky, white fluffy clouds making shapes above. Louise looking beautiful in the evening sun, the world looking like a play ground. Looking back, and thinking, I see now that driving like that, you could drive forever and never stop, never look back. Forever. I like the sound of that.