the art of letting go

eleven - fragile

the art of fragility

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Avoiding Nico worked extremely well when you were in the middle of a mental breakdown.

Translation: I had to dissect a cadaver.

The dead body in front of me made my nose crinkle in disgust. The nauseating stench indicative of the long-term assigned-death status. Judging by the sickly, concrete-colored skin tone, it was safe to say that Dr Victor Frankenstein would not be making any sudden endeavours into reviving the dead. It already looked like a zombie anyway.

It.

Using the word It helped me forget that this was once a living, breathing human. That this middle-aged man who had been assigned to my group was once a person who laughed and walked and smiled just like the rest of us. I could've walked past him years ago and not even realized that in six years time he'd be lying on a table in front of me, stark naked, being studied by the students of NYU's Medical School. No longer with a pink flush to his cheeks or a strut of a walk. Just dead. Gormless. A lifeless monument of the man he used to be.

I just knew that if Shaylah was here, she'd have fainted within seconds. While everybody around me was trying to feign nonchalance, I could see the pale cheeks and averted eyes. Nothing said acknowledging the circle of life like taking a scalpel to deceased skin.

It was a sharp reminder of what we became when our brains finally stop functioning or our hearts fail to beat. When we die, nothing else matters. Not what we wore, not our legacy, not the people we came in contact with or the time we spent building a pointless legacy.

When we die, we rot. We all bleed the same, we all end up in the same place. Either six feet under or in a pile of ashes.

That being said, Brayden would definitely be poking at the cadaver and trying to wake him up.

The list of muscles and nerve vessels that we'd been tasked with seeking out was laminated and taped to the table, so it was easy to move onto the next person without having to think about relocating the sheet.

Someone in my group shoved their hands into the man's chest, the insides releasing squelching sounds that made bile rise in my throat. I watched silently as everything took a turn to cut, shove their hand into the cavity, and seek to find something interesting.

I'd never been a squeamish person. Blood didn't bother me. Needles looked more harmless than anything. Yet watching a man's insides be cut open for the sake of medical education left me with a sour taste in my mouth. The fragility of human life lay out on a display as though it was simply a painting in a gallery, free for individual exploration.

I signed up for this. One simple episode of Grey's Anatomy at fifteen years old and I'd already mapped out my entire future. I wanted to dedicate my life to helping others get better, giving them a spark of hope in a world full of misery. I wanted to help the vulnerable, and I was already on my way there. Two and a half years left of my program before I could officially move into my residency. Paediatric Neurosurgery, here I come.

When my turn to take the blade finally came, I accepted the scalpel from one of my team members, whose name I didn't remember, and headed closer towards the body. The scalpel was clutched in my right hand as my breath caught in my throat, eyes set on the neck.

Left carotid artery.

Why was this one saved for last?

Thank Fuck this man wasn't still alive.

The tissue opened up easily as I glided the blade across the side of the neck.

It was so easy to do. So easy to cut just away at the layers of skin and tissue and muscle that make up the human body.