The Last of the Mayflies

Chapter 4

A day or two passed, and I resigned myself to the life of a flower farmer. (Or "flower boy" as the stronger chickens in school had often called me.) There was much to do this time of year, as I discovered, with fields to clear and till a final time before the frost began, and seeds to collect and store for planting in spring, and a cart that needed repainting to cover the mysterious tinge on the floor. It kept me sufficiently busy, which most importantly, kept my mind from wandering to thoughts of my very brief and even more unsuccessful career as a resurrection man. My dreams, however, were another story, and I often saw the right handed Irishman forced to become left handed when I tried to close my eyes for the night. Despite the obvious horror, it was actually sort of refreshing to not see my father's dying face for once.
I had given my mother the $20, claiming I had done some odd jobs in the city (not a complete lie), and had decided I would just forget the whole ordeal (and that maybe after sufficient psychotherapy I would one day even laugh about it). But I couldn't shake the bitter aftertaste that arose when I saw the relieved tears leak from her eyes, and the way she had just stopped short of hugging me, knowing that I could easily get her more money, if only I just "grew a pair" (another clever line from my schoolyard chickens).
But how did one return to a place in which they had mucked it up as horribly as I had?
There was a knock at the door, and my mother and I exchanged a look of puzzlement over our breakfast before she rose to answer it.
"My son?" I heard her ask the mystery visitor, her shock evident.
And that was when it hit me that I had participated in illegal activities a couple days prior, and in fact been spotted while participating in such activities, and my heart proceeded to lurch into my throat. But surely criminals wouldn't report other would be criminals to the authorities, right? Even if one of them had made claims of defilement against the other's mother?
"Eli, there's a visitor for you," My mother had a strange look upon her face. "A girl."
Dear god, it was even worse than I thought.
"She's very beautiful," My mother added, and she quite nearly smiled for the first time in months. I choked on my spoonful of gruel. Would I ever manage to stop disappointing this woman?
I rose, and walked to the door with as much excitement as I imagined someone might walk the plank. Had my church suitor come back for more? Perhaps the rabbits would be hidden up her skirt now.
But to my surprise, and also horrification, it was not the rabbit girl, but Delia, who awaited me, wearing a wide brimmed hat of which the morning's rain dripped off of, and clutching a basket in her hands.
"Hello," She said in that awkward way you greet someone you've only met once before but have a shared a traumatic experience together of which no one else knows about.
"Hi," I replied, and then we both stood there, uncomfortably shifting on our feet and avoiding eye contact.
"So," My mother hovered behind me (which did little to ease the awkwardness) like a hen brooding her weak and rather unfortunate looking chick, who was also (unfortunately for her) her only chance at biological grandchildren. "How do you two know each other?"
"Work," Delia said.
"Work? Eli, you didn't tell me you had a job. Why didn't you tell me," My mother was mere seconds from a full on nervous fit, and possibly chaining me to my bed as well. "What kind of work?"
Delia and I exchanged thousand yard stares. (What did we say? Oh nothing much, just a little dabbling in raising the dead with the occasional late night surgical procedure. Yeah, that would have gone over well.) A high pitched whine began to escape me, but luckily the girl was much sharper than I.
"Flowers," She said, quite calmly. "Eli is making the flower arrangements for my wedding in May. They're quite intricate, and I quite picky, so we're beginning the design process early."
"Eli? Is this true?"
"Absolutely," I blurted. "One hundred percent."
"Oh," And my mother visibly deflated, let down once again. "Well that's lovely. Congratulations, dear. I guess I will let you both get to your work then."
"Thank you, Mother," I said.
"Eli, you will be home tonight," She paused. "For certain?"
"Yes, Mother," I swallowed hard. "You have my word."
My mother left for her bedroom and I stepped outside, where as soon as the door slammed, I shoved Delia's arm, and she in turn shoved me back, which knocked me to my feet.
"What are you doing here?" I yell-whispered as I brushed the mud from my buttocks. "How do you know where I live?"
"There's not many flower farms owned by the Smith family, with a son called Eli," Delia hissed back.
Fair enough.
"You are the only person I can speak to about... what has happened," Delia shuddered. "I can not speak to my father or my fiancé about this or they both will disown me."
Fiancé?
"Wait," I resumed talking at a normal volume, my brow wrinkled in confusion. "So you weren't lying? Who's the unlucky man?"
"Matthew Morrisey."
"Him?" I was shocked. In fact, I believe I was more alarmed by this than the sudden removal of Burke's arm the other night. For a girl who had prattled in my ear for hours about her disgust of marriage and the bore of the average man and the threat to her uterus—him? But perhaps what shocked me most of all, was the fact that I felt in my little old heart, a pang of sympathy for Burke.
(Now, I'm sure you must all be thinking Mr. Morrisey was some sort of bridge goblin, but that is anything but the truth. He was, perhaps, the ideal husband as thought by many in that era—handsome but not overly so that woman would fawn at his feet, aged enough to be mature but no so old that he had one foot in the grave, wealthy enough for servants and a life of comfort but not so rich that bandits may target his money, and most importantly, a firm believer that a woman's work was limited to pleasing her husband, primarily in the bedroom, with the production of small humans. In short, terribly boring.)
"Yes, my father is quite excited about it," Delia waved her hand dismissively, as if wiping the whole thought of it away. "And we will need floral arrangements for it, but that is not what I am here for."
No. Absolutely not. I could see where this was headed quite clearly, and I began my escape, walking towards the barn with an emphatic shake of my head.
"My mother will try to shove me back into her womb if she finds out of what happened," I myself cringed at my own words.
"We ruined that man's life, Eli," Delia chased after me. "Oh my god!"
"In our defense, I don't believe he had much of a life to begin with."
"He needs our help now more than ever."
"No!" I spun and yelled at her, flailing my arms. "He does not want our help, and even if by some miracle of hitting his head too hard that he changed his mind, no! I want nothing more to do with this! I am quite content with remaining in the safety of my home, amongst the living, and planting flowers, thank you."
At this, Delia seized me by my collar and lifted me several inches off the ground, and a chicken like squawk escaped me. I could count every freckle on her tawny skin, and observe every wrinkle that anger caused on her countenance as she held me threateningly close.
"You are just as much at fault for this as me, and I am not going to apologize alone," Her voice was as sweet as usual, but somehow managed to impede upon the strength of my sphincter. "I still want to help.This is supposed to be my last bit of fun, and I will be damned if anyone takes it from me."
I sweated and suffocated under her unnerving stare.
"Eli," Her expression softened. "He's trying to cure cancer. Is that not a noble cause?"
And perhaps it was the lack of airflow, but I felt the sting of tears hit my nose again, and my voice came out small and weak when I said, "It is."
"What?" Delia released me.
I busied myself for a moment pretending to examine Fig, who had just exited his stall into the adjoining paddock. He caught sight of the two of us, and with a nasty pin of his ears and swish of his tail that screamed Don't you fucking think about it, fled to farthest corner of his field.
"I said," I cleared my throat. "I assume you are here to request passage in my royal chariot to see the cripple?"
Delia guffawed at this, with a rather unladylike snort that more so resembled a donkey. She opened her basket and showed me the contents.
"I baked him a cake. Do you think he'll like it?"
"Oh, absolutely," I said. "I know whenever I have a limb removed, I immediately get a hankering for a nice shortcake."
"Well, what would you suggest then," She closed the basket with a huff. "A single mitten?"
The two of us promptly fell into a fit of laughter at the imagination of such a sight, and what surely would've been a legendary joke, had there not been a very real concern that it would drive the man to suicide.
It took about a further hour, and several cans of oats to capture Fig, and a further thirty minutes to secure the harness as he tried his best to remove my head with his hoof. I assured him that this would be a simple, brief voyage, and that he could have two spoonfuls of molasses that evening. It seemed to placate him, or perhaps it was the death stare from Delia, but either way, we eventually were hitched up and trotting down the driveway. Delia leaned off the edge of her seat, the breeze whipping through her hair as she surveyed the fields with a smile on her lips. She had missed the sunflowers in the peak of their bloom, with their yellow heads standing tall and swaying in the summer breeze, whereas now they were brown and shriveled, their heads hanging low, heavy with exhaustion and seeds that I still needed to collect before the birds ate them.
"Magnificent," Yet somehow she still found beauty in their death.
And then she saw the pond, the water bright red as it reflected the foliage that surrounded it, and nearly jumped from her seat.
"What a lovely pond! Does it freeze well in the winter?"
"Yes," I replied. "My father and I used to go ice skating on it."
"I've never been," There was a wistfulness to her words, but then she became somber. "I heard about your father, when I was asking where you lived in town. I'm sorry."
I meant to say "It's fine" or "Thank you" or "Please don't remind me of it" but it came out as a garbled mess instead.
"It must be exciting to be the man of the house, at least," She said.
"I don't know," I nudged Fig faster (which got me another hoof aimed at my head), hoping to leave that conversation behind. "It seems tedious and stressful to me."
"Whatever it is," She stared back at the pond until it vanished on the horizon. "I'm sure it's better than being the woman."
We shared the rest of the ride in mostly comfortable silence, and eventually trotted up Barnsby's long driveway. The house, strangely, looked far more sinister and abandoned in the daylight. (Although this view could have been biased from my tremendous fear of having to now face these two men in such uncomfortable circumstances)
Delia hopped down from the cart, but I hesitated for a moment longer, the morning's gruel stirring in my stomach, until she looked behind and very forcefully gestured for me to join her.
And so together, two near strangers united by common bloodshed on their hands, we knocked and stood at the door waiting.
Barnsby, clad in ordinary clothes (and by ordinary for him, I mean what the ordinary person might wear to a nice church service), opened the door and greeted us with a warm smile, and not a shred of surprise on his face.
"Oh, how wonderful to see you two!"
Delia and I exchanged hopeful, and mildly confused glances, and my partially digested gruel quieted and proceeded to continue its way towards my derrière with little fuss. This was going better than anticipated.
"Um," Delia twirled a curl around her finger. "Can we see Burke?"
"That would be wonderful," The Englishman's smile widened further. "I am sure he will be most delighted to have company."
Somehow, I doubted that.
But anyhow, the Englishman beckoned us inside, which for once was clear of corpses or any sort of gore, other than the massacre of vegetables and their peelings on the kitchen table.
"I will be making my beef stew this evening," Barnsby noticed me staring. "In fact, I was just about to step out to the market to pick up a slab of meat. It is a favorite of Burke's—the first time I made it for him, the man cried!"
And Barnsby laughed, clutching his large belly, so hard in fact that it led to a mild fit of coughing.
"How is he doing?" Delia asked.
"Oh, brilliant. Momentarily, he has lost the will to live," Barnsby replied. "But otherwise, just fine. It seems time has yet to dull my skills!" Another hearty chuckle.
(It was a good thing we decided against the single mitten.)
"Um," Delia fidgeted with her basket. "We'd still like to help with the research, if possible."
We? I glared at her, but she ignored me.
"I would love nothing more, but this is Burke's project," And the man's cheery facade cracked for a second. "A rather impossible, demoralizing project if you ask me, but the man has attacked it with a passion I have never seen before for the past year. You'll have to ask him. He's already quite besides himself that I 'meddled' to begin with."
And then Barnsby pointed to a door, slightly ajar, in the corner. The beast's lair.
"But he hates me," I gulped, my knees just about knocking together.
"Burke doesn't hate anyone!" Barnsby assured.
"I distinctively remember him saying, rather aggressively, that he hated me the other night."
"Hmm," Barnsby stroked his chin. "Well, I gave him quite a bit of whiskey, so I doubt he remembers much of anything from then."
Still, my feet turned towards the front door, and my body weight slowly began to follow. But Delia grabbed my arm and with a sharp tug and murderous glare, pulled me along with her. The closer we got, the heavier my legs became until Delia was just about dragging me, and when she tapped her knuckles on the door and it swung open into the darkened chamber, the desolation was so heavy, it was as if it crouched upon your shoulders.
There was a bed, messy and unmade, covered in journals of which contained illustrations and remarkable penmanship, and then ripped out pages of what appeared to be the scrawlings of a  toddler. Burke himself sat in a chair that had been pulled up close to a window where raindrops raced each other downwards. He had a blanket pulled up over his nose, and if he was awake, gave no acknowledgement of our arrival.
Delia, brave soul that she was, crept over to him, while I waited in the safety of the doorway.
"Burke?"
His eyes, bloodshot and red-rimmed, with dark circles underneath, opened slowly and glanced upward.
"Hello," Delia smiled warmly. "How are you feeling?"
Blink.
"Have you been sleeping well?"
Stare.
"I made you something, see?" A nervous giggle escaped her as she showed Burke the basket. The eyes glanced down, and there was a slight twitch of the brow, before they looked back up and then focused on the window.
"...I'll just put it over here," Delia placed it on the bed, and then began stacking the journals in a neat pile, taking the time to flip through the pages before closing them. She became so engrossed in the illustrations, that she took a seat on the bed. I noticed the eyes glanced surreptitiously at this.
"Did you draw these?" Delia asked.
She received a nod, which was a remarkable improvement.
"What talent! Look," Delia showed me a graphically realistic sketch of a man's pried open abdominal cavity. "Aren't these just riveting, Eli?"
And at that cursed name, the eyes flashed and the entire head turned to look at me, and when they caught sight of me, they narrowed, as the body began to tremble with what I hoped was chills from a fever. (It wasn't.)
And I'm still not sure what demon possessed me when I said:
"I thought you lost your arm, not your voice."
"Get out!" Burke yelled, cured of his vocal malady, ripping the blanket from his face to reveal patchy stubble and the bruises from the beating he had suffered, and that evidently he remembered quite a bit from that night. 
I was more than happy to listen to the man, but by the look Delia gave me I suspected that should I flee it would only to be hunted down and killed later, so I instead froze in place with the look and stance of a spooked rabbit.
"Burke, we just wanted to come see you," Delia placed a hand on his shoulder. "And let you know we're here to help. I can scout more funerals, and then we can go get—"
"Losin' one limb was enough," Burke scoffed, shrugging off her hand, which caused him to wince.
"Without you, then," Delia huffed, anger flooding her cheeks.
"Really, then with who ? You and the wankin' aficionado?"
"Is that me?" I asked, getting dizzy from all of this back and forth. I couldn't help but notice how with each barb, the distance between them got smaller and the temperature of the room seemed to rise. Perhaps I should have brought a snack with me for this entertainment.
"Yes," Delia looked at me when she said so, giving me my answer. "I think we would do just wonderfully."
"I don't," I shook my head at this non-voluntary volunteering on my behalf, but neither of them noticed.
"Be sure to let yourself know when three armed men are tryin' to pick up the same thing," Burke's tone was perhaps sharper than the knife used to remove his arm, and had he leaned forward any farther he might've kissed her. Or fallen off his chair. I believe either action would have caused me to shriek. "Would hate for you to be caught unprepared."
Oh, you could tell by the way Delia's hands rose, as if they had half a mind to strangle the man, that he had landed a solid blow.
"You could try not to be so despicable when someone is trying to help!"
"I don't want your pity or your obligated offers."
"Look, I'm sorry about your arm!"
"It's not just an arm!" Burke snapped, and Delia seemed taken aback by this raw outburst. "It's not just an arm that's been taken from me. It's my time. I only have until the thaw in March to work with these things or else they rot, and I might not even have that long. And now I have to relearn how to hold a knife, to write—I can't even shave my own face," Burke's voice broke. "And that time is somethin' I will never get back."
There was a long moment of silence in which the two of them stared angrily at each other, breathing heavily after their angry speeches (I myself was holding my breath), and then Delia's face broke, a quiver of the lip and moistening of the eyes, and she reached for Burke's remaining hand.
"So, let us help," She gave a small smile. "We can make up for lost time together."
(And now, a life lesson I have learned in my many years, is that many times when two people argue with such passion, it is not just that they are upset over the issues they are speaking of, but those unspoken as well.)
The clock chimed with the new hour, and Delia looked to the door with a look of panic that shifted to annoyance.
"I have to meet my father and Mr. Morrisey for lunch. They'll kill me if I'm late again. But I can come back later and we can speak more about what you need?"
Burke looked at their hands, intertwined, and a flush came over him, but then he shook his head and let go.
"Don't pretend like you'd even help," He turned away. "Eli's a coward, and you're too focused on gettin' married away."
A fatal blow. Delia's face burned red and she bolted upright, her lips trembling and nostrils flaring. I truly thought she was going to smack the man, but instead she just hurled her basket into his lap.
"Here's a cake I baked for you," She yelled, quite shrilly. "I hope you choke on it! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lovely afternoon awaiting with my fiancé."
"I—"
And then she stormed out of the room, without so much as a passing glance or "thanks for the ride" in my direction, and I heard no answer to Barnsby calling her name. The front door slammed and then all was quiet again.
Burke peeked in the basket and then knocked it to the floor. He sighed, and his shoulders hunched as he leaned into his hand.
I supposed I could've hated him, or at least been annoyed with him—he had called me a coward, after all—and I supposed I could've pitied him. But I felt extraordinarily numb as I approached him, my steps stiff and my breath caught in my throat. I heard Delia's voice in my head from before: is that not a noble cause?
As I stood over him, I felt my hands clench into fists and blood rush to my face in anger. But not at him.
At myself.
"You don't have to say anythin' to me," Burke said. "I know."
"I'll be your assistant," The word's left my mouth slowly, as if my body was attempting to give my idiotic self a chance to realize and stop what I was saying. "I can write, I can draw. I'll even dissect the bodies. Whatever you need."
Burke turned and looked at me, and his eyes lacked anger. They looked incredibly tired.
"Eli—"
"I'm not doing it for you," I cut him off. And then my words had trouble coming out, getting caught on the massive lump in my throat. "If you really believe you can cure cancer, then it would mean a great deal to me to help in any way I can."
Burke was silent, staring at the floor.
"It is a terrible disease," He finally said.
"Terrible," I repeated.
"Go talk to Ed," He said. "I'm useless at the moment."
Was that a... yes?
"Okay," I nodded. "Thank you."
Burke sort of nodded back and slumped in his chair. I left him to brood, and stepped back out into the light of the living area, where Barnsby awaited me with an expectant look on his face.
"Can you show me how to um," It hit me right then what I had just signed myself up for. "...Dissect..."
"Of course!" Barnsby's face lit up with surprise. "Come with me."
I fell in step behind the Englishman, who hummed a jaunty tune, as he led me past the piano and the warm fire to the dark side of the room where they performed their work on the dead. What the hell had I just done?
"Ordinarily, I would show you on a body," Barnsby said as he laid an assortment of sharp instruments on the table. "But unfortunately we don't have one at the moment. Although, for the very inexperienced, or those of weak knees—of which you are both—I try to start with a single, isolated section, so as to not overwhelm. So this will do perfectly!"
And then reached into a trunk and place upon the table, the severed arm. Burke's severed arm.
"You can't be serious," I said, my knees, you guessed it, becoming quite weak. 
"It would be a crime to waste it," Barnsby stated. "This is the closest I ever hope to get to dissecting the man. I've already dissected his father and brothers—now it is truly a family affair!" And the man laughed again, and I wondered if perhaps he was the most terrifying of my new acquaintances.
Barnsby placed a scalpel into my hand and then pointed to the skin, so sickly pale and drained of blood that the tattoos looked like ink drawings on a sheet of paper. I hesitated a touch of the skin, and though I knew obviously the limb was "dead", I was still shocked to find it cold to the touch, and rigid, although there was a slight sponginess after a couple days of storage. Once again, I tasted vomit in my mouth, but managed to swallow it in time.
"First step is to peel back the skin," Barnsby instructed, his voice calm and soothing. I could easily imagine him speaking at the head of a classroom. "Now, if you've ever skinned a rabbit, this will be easy for you. And if not... well, that is why we practice!"
I, of course, had never skinned a rabbit or so much as held a dead animal that wasn't already butchered and cut into ready to eat pieces before (I am sure you are shocked).
But Barnsby told me the secret was to not cut too deep, apparently a common mistake by novices, who take the term "thick skin" a bit too literally. So I made a notch, and my mind was quite alarmed at how the limb did not bleed, or flinch, or shriek in pain, and my heart started to beat faster. I pulled my knife along under the surface of the wound I had created, and I could feel as it snagged on meat or bone or tendons or whatever it was down there. But finally I created a flap, and at Barnsby's command, pulled it back to reveal what almost looked like a slab of beef, with red meat and thick white lines.
"Are you surprised the drawings don't go all the way down?" Barnsby chuckled, referring to Burke's tattoos.
"Oh," I laughed a bit as well. "I wasn't even thinking of that."
"One semester, it seemed we had nothing but sailors as our cadavers. You would not believe how many well off and well educated young men were shocked when they discovered bare muscles and bones beneath the illustrated outer layer. Beauty is truly only skin deep, Eli!"
The floorboards creaked behind us, and we both turned around to see who was behind the intrusion. Barnsby's face brightened with a joyous smile, while I felt my blood run cold and a shuddery breath escaped my slack jaw.
"Y-you don't have to watch this," I stammered.
"I want to," Burke said as he shuffled closer, and then leaned over my shoulder to inspect my work. I stared down at my gore splattered hands, doing my best to avoid staring at his degloved former hand, or the angry red stub below his shoulder that said hand had once attached to, or his naked torso, of which was leanly muscled and covered in more tattoos (I knew immediately that I had to inform Delia of this), all of which caused further weakening to occur in my knees.
"Sloppy," Burke said and then took a seat.
"Perhaps," The ever optimistic Englishman chimed. "But not bad for a first go!"
He then poked at the hand with a tool of his own, shoving it in the red meat between the thumb and pointer, which he referred to as the "first dorsal interosseous muscle" and then one of the near-white string like structures that spread across the hand like a spider web, referring to it as the "extensor indicis tendon".
"Now, watch this," Barnsby said, instantly filling my chest with dread. "It's like magic!"
And he wiggled the fingers of the hand, and the tendons began to ripple and I could see how they shortened and lengthened in correspondence with how their respective digit moved, and the sight of this dead limb moving, and the new knowledge that this is what occurred under my skin with each and every small movement I made, and my mother's indigestible cooking, and Burke's unrelenting stare, and the magnificent naked torso, had my heart pounding in my ears, and the room began to spin, and my skin must have taken on a greenish hue, for Barnsby reached out to steady me.
"Let's take a break," He said. "Some fresh air would be wonderful. Don't you think, Burke?"
"No."
"Excellent. Eli, why don't you take Burke along with you to the store and pick up my beef for me? We can continue when you get back, and then you can sample my signature dish!"
And before I could even answer, he had pressed money into my hand and suddenly fresh air and a drive with Burke sounded just lovely.
The fresh air was in fact delightful and did wonders to calm my stomach, and the rain had ceased, and the sunlight shimmered in puddles that dotted the streets as Fig trotted along, ears pinned straight back against his head at my request for additional work.
"Could you slow down," Burke groaned, the empty sleeve of his shirt that he had (unfortunately) put on streaming along in the breeze besides him.
"We're barely trotting," I replied.
"Does he have to be so bouncy, then?"
Fig seemingly swished his tail at this insulting of his gait, and perhaps had he been capable of speech might have said something to the affect of: let's see you haul two dumbasses around then.
"He's a horse. He doesn't have any other ways of moving."
"I just had my arm cut off."
Oh, true.
I slowed Fig to a walk.
The rest of the ride to the store was spent in silence, and I picked up a package of beef that's marbling greatly resembled an "extensor indicis tendon", and hopped back into the cart, where I noticed Burke gazing off into the distance even more morosely than usual.
Ah yes, there was Miss Delia, walking arm in arm with the town's most eligible to bore bachelor, with a silly grin plastered on her face. The couple paused in the window of a bookstore, and her smile shifted to one of a much more genuine kind as she pointed to the books displayed in the window, her lips moving a mile a minute. Mr. Morrisey gave her a good-natured nod, of the sort that you might give to a young child who is filling your ears with details you care little about but who you don't wish to offend, and then someone called his name and he stepped away to greet them. Delia lingered in the window a moment longer, that previous smile now inverted into a deep, sullen frown.
"What are you waitin' for?" Burke snapped, noticing how I stared at his staring. "Let's get movin'."
I nudged Fig onwards, which came with another round of tail swishing and ear pinning and hooves aimed at my head.
Another awkward silence ensued, and I could feel the hot air contained within my head threatening to burst through my skull if I did not allow it some avenue of escape.
"How about that Delia, huh?" I popped the lid on what I presumed was a metaphorical crate of bees.
"What about her?" Burke replied, in a way that I supposed was meant to come off as him not caring (keyword: meant).
"Oh, nothing," I shrugged. "She just strikes my fancy, I suppose."
"Well too bad for you. She's engaged," And he made a movement that I assumed was supposed to have been him crossing his arms, which unfortunately he lacked enough of to properly do.
"Oh, no. I don't like women," I said.
"What?" Burke regarded me with horrified disgust, and a smattering of shock, as if I had just told him I hated all of womenkind—
Oh wait.
"No, I love women," I looked at him. "But I don't love women."
I could see the wheels spinning in his thick Irish skull, and then the blink of his eyes when it all clicked together.
"Oh," He nodded. "So you're like Ed."
The fancy dress did make more sense now.
"I suppose," And then I sidled closer. "And what about you?"
"What?"
"Are you like Ed?"
"No!" Never had I seen a man's face get so red before. Like a big tomato. (Peck!)
"I'm joking," I laughed at my successful feather ruffling. "I know you like Delia."
"I don't like her," Burke surpassed the previous record of redness. "I don't like anyone!"
I shrugged. "Whatever you say."
And then I let a moment pass, just the sound of the harness clinking and Fig's shoes on the street, and the splash of the wheels through the puddles.
"She's not too pleased with the engagement," I placed the bait. "Or so I've heard."
"...She's not?"
"Aha!" I jabbed a finger at the Irishman. "You do like her!"
"I don't!" He continued to fight a losing battle. Oh, the feathers were just flying. "If anythin', she makes me uncomfortable."
And here it was, the pièce de résistance:
"Oh yes, I'm sure unfulfilled sexual desires are extremely uncomfortable, especially when you're missing your 'wankin' arm—"
Though he may have lost an arm, he still had two legs, and I swiftly received both of them square in my face, which sent me hurtling off the cart to the streets below, where I landed in a puddle of manure water, swallowing a good mouthful in the process. (As I said earlier, I had not yet become acquainted with the taste of manure. Well now, patient reader, I can inform you that it has a sort of earthy taste, with a sickly sweet kick. I highly recommend, if you wish to purge your stomach.)
As I retched, Fig took the opportunity of the slackening of reins to escape his life of domestication, and shot off at a full gallop. People in the street screamed and hurled profanities, and I heard the scramble of hooves and snorts as other horses scrambled out of the way, or wished to join their liberated comrade.
"Eli," Burke yelled. "Eli get back here!"
The man had grabbed the reins and slowed down the beast, but with only one good hand available to his use, the horse was spinning in smaller and smaller circles as the cart tipped further and further.
Fig shook his head angrily as I ran over. How's my shit taste Eli? If only I could castrate you and dress you in the skin of dead cows and force you to drag me everywhere!
(Remember what I had said about wishing to communicate with animals?)
Eventually we calmed the wretched animal (an act that required literally removing the cart back from before the horse), and made it back to Barnsby's, who still allowed me to sit at the table and sample his cooking despite my atrocious stench (the stew was quite lovely, although I was disappointed to not see Burke cry). We then worked long into candlelight hours on the hand, as I separated muscle from bone and wrote down terms I would never be able to correctly pronounce. My cuts were shoddy, leaving jagged edges and notches on the bone, as Burke was all too kind to remind of periodically, but I must have pleased him enough as Barnsby stated he would purchase a body from a third party group of resurrection men for me to further practice on, and would send for me when it arrived.
Yet again, I arrived home at an ungodly late hour, and once again discarded soiled clothing in the muck heap and ran naked into the house, where my mother had left me another long cold plate of some atrocity to the stomach that I again threw out the window before climbing the stairs to my bed. I did not hear her weeping this time, though I did not pause to listen, and I fell asleep quite nearly as soon as my head touched my pillow. And for the first time in a long time, no nightmares haunted me that night.