A text message lights up the odd screen of my mobile phone. Odd, I say. For a modern man, I don’t ever seem to get used with the technology. I am thankful that my experiment needs not the aid of too much that beast – technology.
It’s Rebecca. She asks where I am. Should I answer? What’s the term they use again? Reply – is that it?
For the sake of chivalry, her query: “Why aren’t you at work today?”, I reply with a white lie: “I feel sick, my friend.”
There. Now, time to get back to work.
I carefully examine the ingredients. Surely, this will take a lot of time, effort and brains. I grab the scalpel I stole from my father’s house – he’s a surgeon. It took me exactly an hour to get the theft done. With more careful observation, I realize that I need three kinds of knives: a big one – the one the butler uses to chop big meat, a medium-sized one – perhaps the one chefs use to cut vegetables, and a small one – the one thieves use to cut open some loot – the Swiss knife. Oh, and I need scissors too.
Maybe it’s time for a quick lesson from what’s that TV show… Grey’s Anatomy is it?
Bah. Who cares?
Suddenly obsessed with my new ideas, I paw over the pots and the pans, looking for the three knives. I already have the big one and the medium one. Now, for the Swiss knife.
The doorbell rings and echoes through my house here in the suburbs. Do my neighbors hear the doorbell ring?
Who could this be? Perhaps Daimler? Nah. He’s probably too scrunched up in work. Work… what time is it? Time… 12 noon. Has it been 6 hours of ruminating already? What is the malfunction in me? Have I been sitting and ruminating for the past 6 hours? As my mind recollects the events that have happened for the past 6 hours, I dash back to the dining table to see what the progress is.
Progress, indeed! It seems that I have carefully put together the ingredients in such a manner that…
The doorbell rings again.
Oh no.
Good thing I’ve hidden the plastic body bags!
I grab without hesitation the sheets of my bed and drape it over the dining table. It will be less conspicuous that way. Besides, who’s to suspect?
“Hey, I’ve been worried. I brought you lunch,” says a charming Rebecca – the one whom I opened the door for. “You have a fever?”
I can’t help but nod.
“Your house smells a little… different,” she observes.
“Must be me. I haven’t had a shower all day. I’m so sorry to disappoint you like this,” I say in my most charming way.
“You don’t have to say sorry. Tsk tsk tsk. Such a handsome man with such a malodorous house. This is what you get when you concentrate too much on work,” she teases me.
And I like it.
“It’s my lack of social life. And love life. And family life. I’m a solitary man confined in this solitary prison, waiting for someone to set me free,” I do this using my drama skills. And I know it entices her.
“I know who that someone is,” says she.
“Daimler!”
She eyes me seductively. Or so I think. Her green eyes, inherited from her Irish mother, are forever seductive, anyway.
“Christine. You know, the girl who basically worships you. You should go out with her. She’d die of happiness.”
I chuckle.
“I don’t like Christine at all.” She won’t set me free. But I know you will. But I can’t have Rebecca. I’ve repeated in my mind that I cannot be with her as a boyfriend, a lover or a husband. I just can’t.
Changing topics, she asks me if I want to eat my lunch. I want to say yes, but then again I remember my dining table draped with my sheets. She simply cannot see the mess under that. All the liquid and the scraps of…
She lets down her long brown hair, inherited from her father’s Chinese-Czech descent. I cannot help but feel a sensation… a manly sensation. I want to touch her skin that is hued with olive from her grandmother’s Greek descent, and ivory from her grandfather’s …
I want to. Caress her. Feel her. Free her.
But I can’t. Her skin is forbidden. Her hair is torture. Her face is unchartered territory.
I simply can’t.
“Hey! Do you want to eat lunch or not?”
“I will but not now. My … throat hurts. My mouth is sore,” again, another white lie.
“Do you want some meds? Because I’m not leaving this place until you’re fine.”
“So that means you’re staying for 24 hours?” I tease.
“I’m serious.”
“Fine,” I give up.
After a few more of those teasing and provoking, Rebecca waves goodbye.
It’s then that I realize that I have a Swiss knife on the pocket of my pants.
Oh, opportunity.
~0~
It is now 1 in the morning – 108 hours after I collected my ingredients that night. There is news going on that a crazed man goes to the hospital at night, steals body parts and puts them in a plastic body bag. So far, they have no suspect yet. But this man, so far has stolen eyes, a tongue, a heart, a woman’s genitals and… a brain.
What they fail to know is that this man doesn’t just go to the hospital to steal body parts. He goes to the cemetery too – that’s where this lunatic went to 108 hours ago, anyway. That’s where he got the bones, the nose, skin and some rotten flesh and the complete set of body parts. He has the abdomen, the liver and the kidneys too.
Oh yes, and it’s also been 108 hours that I’ve skipped my work. I told them I’d be on vacation in my parents’ house.
So here I am, sitting at the dining table, haven’t eaten food in days. Haven’t slept in days, too. But it doesn’t matter. I’m a dedicated man. I will finish this experiment as soon as I can.
I grab the piece of rotten flesh – this comes from a corpse that’s only been dead for a day. It’s rotten but not quite. It still is soft, and has that subtle effect on my fingers. I piece it together with the carpal bones. For 3 days, I have found out a special technique that will piece them together in a perfect fit. This is it. This is the last flesh I have to piece with the bones. I have completed piecing up the past three days! It’s been a puzzle. How to fit the brain perfectly with the skull – this is hard to do with bare hands. I fear I might damage the cortex of such. And the eyes! The smell of it! So…invigorating. The green eyes I stole smell.
Even though I have carefully pieced the flesh, the brain and the bones, there is still much to do. Hey, but give me credit. I am no doctor but I know how this works. This is the true work of a genius! I am a genius!
Now is time for the skin.
This skin comes from a recently deceased supermodel. Her skin is lovely. When I feel it with my fingers…I feel a sense of relief. It’s the same familiar feeling. She must have been beautiful. Her skin, a color with the combination of olive and ivory, I piece with the flesh.
It doesn’t seem right.
Perhaps this skin is intended for other places?
Oh, I know where.
And I’ll be there soon.
No.
Again, it doesn’t seem right. Before I know it, I grab a sewing kit – the one I bought just 3 days ago. I planned on using the needle to merge the scalp and the hair but I guess the needles needs to merge skin and skin now.
It is a wonder. The skin, what they call the protective shield, tears easily. I have to be careful. This is perhaps the hardest job in life.
It still doesn’t seem right.
After what seems to be 2 hours, I take a shower. And as I take my shower, I can feel my skin tearing itself apart. And then, because of some weird thing, I feel like piecing it back together. Again and again, the shower leaves me that impression. And then I think about Rebecca. I am a man, after all. I can take advantage of this shower time to succumb to my lust for her.
But no. I am a patient man. I will wait for my plans to take shape.
As the soap touches my skin, I feel a masochistic urge. And then it happens.
I scream in pain as my instincts command me to tear off my own skin. I pinch it, peel as if doing so on a banana. I see my flesh, steaming with the water, throbbing as if it’s a heart. It pains. Oh, but I love it! The skin, I now hold in my hand, is just a small portion of my left palm. I quickly go out of the shower, and assess my nude self. I have the abs, the toned muscles and the well-endowed member. Everything is perfect. I look perfect. But the skin of my palm is missing. I try to outline the flesh with the fingers on my right hand. Perhaps because of something, the pain is gone. The flesh, so soft and so subtle, can be used in my experiment.
Either that or…
I should practice using my body! That is it! I will piece my own skin with my own flesh. Perhaps with the use of the needle?
Out of curiosity, I lick my flesh. It tastes normal. Like red meat, actually. Now I’m beginning to wonder why human beings normally don’t resort to cannibalism. Must I take a bite?
I chortle to myself and then the neighbors hear a blood-curdling scream.
~0~
(to be continued)
