The Pocket

     Leah stared down at the dotted line. It seemed so trivial to still draw with purple ink on her projects these days. How long ago had she graduated? How many times had she done this? It didn’t matter. She still drew out her guidelines—a blueprint for her work; planning out what would go where instead of jumping in, trusting years of practice. Was that it? She just didn’t trust herself? No. She knew better. The purple dashed line was all a part of the image; a tool to help her through the job she never really wanted but landed anyway fresh out of med school.
     The gleam of surgical steel winked at her, caught her eye, in the artificial lighting. It drug her kicking and screaming away from backing out, throwing up her hands, ripping off her latex gloves and quitting on the spot. It happened every time. She was afraid. She was terrified, disgusted, and far too close to reality to do this. Leah stared at the scalpel in her hand. It was so sharp. The edge sparkled; the sides up to the handle had eyes that stared back at her. Mirror, mirror on the wall… Who’s the fairest of them all? Leah blinked, the eyes reflected on the scalpel blinked. They didn’t answer her. She was relieved. She couldn’t put it down. Even if she opened her hand, tried to throw it, it would stick there defying the laws of physics. Leah sighed.
     The scalpel positioned its self above the dotted line, held in Leah’s hand like a pen ready to write something that would change the world. She pushed the edge down, onto the pasty skin of Mr. #48862. The skin split behind her knife like seas parting; she could see places never meant for human eyes to know. Bile bubbled up into the back of her throat. Leah fought it down, swallowed it, forcing it back down into her stomach. It’s a seam ripper. You’re just ripping a seam.
     Through the dermis, a layer of adipose tissue, the abdominal muscles, and sternum and rib cage Leah ripped seam after seam, widening the hole to a pocket she couldn’t fit her hand in. She peeled each layer back, noting normalities and searching diligently for the irregular. So far Mr. # 48862 was no different than any cadaver laid in front of her in med school. She looked down at her work. Leah would start with the heart like she always did; not really sure why—that wasn’t the way they taught her in med school. It didn’t matter now though; no one was watching over her shoulder grading every movement she made. It’s hard to screw up dead people after all.
     The heart came out, was examined and deemed normal. Lungs, liver, and stomach followed with the same diagnosis. Then it was time for the intestines. Leah reached her hand in, willing herself to believe she was rummaging through an unfamiliar purse or pair of pant pockets. Even through her latex glove she could feel the slippery wetness her fingers maneuvered through. She closed her hand around the folds of sausage links. Kind of a weird thing to keep in a pouch but who was she to judge? She pulled out the slippery pale pink chain of organ onto the examining table, flipping the contents of the pocket completely inside out.
     Leah ran her hand down the snake like viscera with a firm grip, feeling for any blockages or hard areas that could explain Mr. #48862’s mysterious death. Around foot seven of the 21 approximate feet of intestine something didn’t feel quite right. Leah marked the area and finished the inspection. When no other abnormalities cropped up she returned to the circled section and looked closely. She noticed a small rupture in the delicate lining just above the hard mass she had felt. That certainly explained why Mr. #48862 was dead. Having digestive juices leaking out of your intestines contaminating the rest of your body would certainly do it, not to mention all the bacteria that would set loose.
      Now for the more important question: Why did it tear in the first place? Leah set the portion of intestine on a separate rolling table. She closed her eyes for a moment, reestablishing her pocket façade. Exhale. Scalpel once again in hand, unzipping an invisible zipper, Leah cut into the intestine over the hard lump. The whispering scrape of metal against razor sharp metal made her cringe. She didn’t want to look, couldn’t look. Exhale. Don’t taste the air. Her fingers danced through the small slit, tentatively touching the anonymous piece of metal lodged in the dead man’s intestine. She trapped a cold rock of metal between her index and middle finger and scooped out the treasure on to the metal examining table. She didn’t want to look but after the initial clang of solid metal hitting metal, a curious hissing sound made her open her eyes.
     It was badly tarnished from the stomach acids, covered in slime and grime from who knows what kind of food and white blood cell attacks attempting to destroy this foreign object, but still intact and horrifying. The silver heart shaped locket lay opened on the examining table; whatever picture had been inside it was long destroyed, the slender silver chain was knotted and twisted and full of kinks. Leah grabbed some near by gauze to wipe away the bodily residue. Why would someone swallow a locket? Corners rarely got the back-story on their subjects and Mr. #48862 was no exception. She didn’t know where he was found, what he had been through, or where he had come from. But what good reason could he have to eat a piece of fine jewelry? Leah looked down. It had cleaned up fairly well from the little attention she had given it. She flipped it over in her latex clad hand and noticed an inscription. Her eyes rolled over the pretty cursive script as a chill crept up her spine and spiked the hairs on the back of her neck,
     “Love is watching someone die.”