SWIM Book 1 (Complete three-hundred pages)

Day 12 Thursday, November 30, 2017

"Here, Brett, you do It," said Travis Gibbs. "You're the strongest and I don't exactly have a surgeon's dexterity."

Right before my eyes Travis passed the chainsaw to Brett. It wasn't the kind of chainsaw that scary villain Jason who wears the hockey mask uses to kill his victims. The chainsaw was small and extended along a pole which I had seen before on camping trips when I would go with my neighbors to a lake in Sacramento, and they would use the extension to cut off low hanging tree branches so we could set up our tents.

Nonetheless, a chainsaw is still a chainsaw, and when everyone's face turned white to watch Brett perform the operation, beads of sweat lined Brett's forehead, and he revved up the chainsaw with a strike of courage. "So how am I supposed to do this?" he said.

Travis Gibbs pointed to certain section of the wardrobe, and announced, "We don't know where her legs are, so cut off chunks of the top, one at a time. We'll remove the weight, bit by bit, and once there is only a sliver left, we'll have to find a way to remove it while keeping sterile."

None of us knew how we could possibly remove the wardrobe from inside my abdomen while keeping the procedure sterile, but as far as the chainsaw massacre went, it wasn't a piece of cake. George and Craig covered their mouths as Brett descended the spinning blade onto the wardrobe above me. I had no clue where my legs were either, nor what position they were in. I hoped they were lying flat as opposed to with my knees bending upward. I wouldn't want the chain to catch my kneecaps, because then it would all be over.

I felt the first chunk of weight alleviate from my abdomen when Brett cut off a triangular sliver of drawer. Piece after piece, some small, some larger than others, my abdomen filled back up with air and I covered my face with my hands as the chainsaw got closer to my body.

"Be careful now," said Travis to Brett. Brett snapped at him though-- "Does it look like I'm being careful?"

Travis apologized and took a step back from the operation. Sawdust started shaving toward me and I coughed and waved my hand over my face, before Brett nearly cut my hand with the blade and I screamed. Brett cursed and turned off the chainsaw. Brett said, "Okay, I think that's enough for now."

George clapped in the corner of the tilting balcony (he wanted to be as far away from the action as possible). "That was amazing Brett. You really got a steady hand, makes me want to do sports. . ." (We all looked at him and then he acknowledged that our town was submersed in ocean water.) Turning red, George finished ". . . I wonder if I can still join the surf team."

A flock of seagulls flew overhead, squawking down on us, laughing at us. Damn, those lucky seagulls can fly.

Travis stepped forward and inspected the remaining block of splintered wood encased in my stomach. It was an ugly, dark bloody sight. I tried not to look at it, and Travis and Jack seemed to be the only ones who could. Brett, I might be sure, had been cutting away at the wardrobe with his eyes closed during the final moments of the sawing process.

"We need to cut a little deeper," said Travis.

"God, no!" said everyone in unison, including me.

But Travis shook his head at us and pointed with a look that clearly showed that he thought we were just a bunch of idiots for not agreeing with him. "If we don't cut the block to a smaller size there is no way we'll be able to operate on it to pull it out."

Jack finally stood to his feet. He had had enough. "Stop pretending you're some kind of surgeon, Travis. This isn't a game."

Travis rolled his eyes at Jack. Travis was never fond of a lover's irrationality when it came to their partners suffering medical problems. Travis appreciated clarity of thought and he recognized that Jack was not at all thinking straight while I lay here with a wooden block killing me inside.

"Just calm down, Jack" said Travis. "This is what we've got to do to make sure she makes it out alright. If we don't, then by the time help arrives, she'll already be dead--"

That is not what I wanted to hear, thank you very much. "Um, excuse me," I chimed in, "I'm right here." However, I was fading mentally.

Travis rolled his eyes and looked over to Brett who rubbed the tender sweat off his forehead. "Brett, finish the job so we can move on to the next step and save Zara's life before time runs out and she gets an infection."

George, Brett, Jack, Travis and Craig all looked at me with worry, and I thought I might have had a funny red clown's nose on my face. That, or they could tell the blood was draining from my face and I was losing the ability to keep my eyes open.

Brett took a deep, nervous breath, and revved the chainsaw back up. Slowly, ever so slowly, he moved the chainsaw down over the wooden wardrobe block that was stuck in my stomach, and chipped away at the foot-long object, until getting only inches close to my stomach. I gasped and shook like a frightened kitten, and Travis said, "Don't suck your stomach in like that, Zara. Stay still."

"I'm trying--" I said. What I wanted to say to Travis was, Shut the hell up.

Jack lowered to a squat and held my hand. Our palms were sweating and he started rolling his thumb over my hand so as to divert some of my worries to the stimulus. It was a kind distraction, and it was working.

"Almost there, Brett," said Travis, "we want only an inch or so left on that thing." It looked like someone had nailed a wooden board vertically into my belly and only the top was showing out the surface.

Jack pressed my hand even tighter and kissed my fingers, staring straight at the blade. "Be careful, Brett."

Brett gulped. His sweat made his chest show through his white shirt. The rain began again under a crackle of thunder, and Brett said, "Are we done now, Travis?" He pulled the chainsaw away and everyone was visibly shaking as they looked to Travis for approval.

Travis's mother was a surgeon, and Travis had seen his mother extract bullets from gang members, wooden blocks from construction workers, and railroad spikes from train connoisseurs. What he said went, and no one was going to argue with him, despite him not being a surgeon himself or really knowing at all what he was doing. When he inspected the inch-thick mess covered in blood, sawdust, and drizzling rain, he scrunched his face with dissatisfaction, but looked up to the rest of us, and then faced me directly, and nodded.

"We're done. . . Now we need to create a sterile room." 

Every one of us peered at my wounded stomach, and no one said a thing as they followed Travis inside to create a sterile room. Whatever sterile room meant, I had the feeling my time had already run out.