My Hour of Surgery

I'm sitting on a surgery table, discussing with my doctor what should be done about my arms and legs. He tells me they're perfectly fine. “This is nothing but hypochondria, Ms. Brundige.” But I insist on some kind of surgery. I tell him, “I will pay you out-of-pocket to cut my arms and legs off. Please...”

With a hefty wad of money in his pocket, my douche-bag of a doctor prepares the anesthetic and lays all necessary utensils on his tray. I lay there on the table, waiting. I feel nauseous just thinking about it, but I know I have to be practical. “I've depended too much on these limbs,” I mutter to myself, over and over. “I must find a way to live without them.”

The procedure begins all too slowly, and I catch my doctor, in my peripheral vision, puking into a trashcan. “What a wimp,” I think to myself.

“I can't...” he groans.
“Then I will,” I say.

Taking a deep breath, I press a razor-like tool into my right leg until it is bleeding unstoppably. I continue onto my left leg, embracing the pure pain of it all. My doctor runs to my side (not so disloyal after all) and yelps, “I'll do your arms...” He slices and dices my little arms, and now I am bleeding all over.

My doctor blinks in horror, “Emily...What have you done?”

Flinching at my throbbing, self-inflicted wounds, I wonder the same thing.

First came the shock, then the horror. Last came the sadness, the astounding grief that weighs deep in my heart, in my empty stomach that wishes to be left alone. The individual person inside me begs for my attention. I had abandoned her so long ago...

Sealing some ghetto bandages over my wounds, my doctor offers, “Would you like to go home with a lollipop today?” He's back to his old routines.

I tell him, “No, not today, and not for a very long time.”

Sprouting creature-like crutches from within, I limp down the hall, climb into the elevator, and go home...