"Cardiectomy" by me.

I wrote this six years ago, when I was going through a divorce. It was a time when I believed in the ideal of lasting love and "death do us part". I've come to learn that, when you let go of certain ideals, it's harder to be psychologically killed.

I awake

laying on a hard surface.

A table,

cold and unforgiving.

I can't move.

Strapped down.

 

I lift my head

and see a grey room.

Poe-esque in its dinginess

but no rats are present.

 

There's a figure,

female,

broad at the shoulder,

just shy of six feet in height.

Her back is towards me.

She's wearing a surgical cap.

 

She turns around,

gingerly holding a scalpel

in her slender hand.

 

She leans down.

I notice a pale complexion

and silver and brown strands of hair

peaking from under the cap.

Her nose,

partially hidden behind a surgical mask,

is prominent and somewhat narrow,

betraying possible

eastern-European heritage.

I look up,

into those prematurely aged eyes,

brown and glassy.

 

I know her.

I know who this is

Black-Tongued Mother of Countless Lies!

 

I know what's next

But I pray it's not true.

 

It's true.

The tip of the scalpel

touches a few inches below my larynx...

and pierces...

splitting the skin

from my upper chest to my abdomen.

I scream!

Mercy!

Pity!

Compassion!

God, please,

stir the humanity within her!

 

I scream,

hoping to distract her

so she can no longer concentrate.

No avail.

She resumes cutting

from my left pectoral muscle

to my right

 

The smell,

like rusted iron,

overtakes my olfactory nerves,

as a warm liquid,

dark red,

flows backward

around my neck.

 

I plead

begging the Depraved Deceiver

to end the violating mutilation.

She pauses,

gazing at me with flat affect

but returns to her work.

She makes the next incision

across my abdomen,

forming an 'I' shape

in my torso.

 

She peels the flaps open,

flensing skin from flesh,

then rending flesh from ribs.

Ribs separated,

I am exposed.

I lift my head one last time

and see my heart beating

within the pericardium.

All goes black.

 

I awake,

naked and hanging from a ceiling.

In a grey room.

A freezer

that's dimly lit.

Above my head,

and all around me,

chains creak.

Looking down,

and feeling with my hands,

I notice hooks

protruding from under my collarbones.

 

I turn,

twisting the chains,

taking in my surroundings.

Turning to my left,

I see a long row

of similarly mutilated people.

I'm not the first.

Turning to my right,

I see more chains and hooks.

I won't be the last.

 

I look down.

In a crude fashion,

my chest is stitched shut,

and feels empty.

I study the others,

looking at the twisted expressions

on their faces,

the haunting, pleading

expressions in their eyes,

the crude way their split chests

have been restitched.

Some have had their

heads opened; but in many cases

weren't closed again.

 

I pull

lifting myself up

on the chains.

Then I yank each hook from my back

and fall to the cold floor.

The cold doesn't really bother the dead.

 

I open the door

and emerge in the operating room.

Looking around,

there's no one here.

A door.

I enter.

 

In odd juxtaposition

to the operating room,

I'm standing in a kitchen.

I smell a plethora of spices,

simmering in a pan.

The oven is preheated

at 350 degrees.

Next to the sink

is a casserole dish,

in which is a variety of vegetables

with rice as a base.

The center of the dish is empty.

I look into the sink.

There's a collander,

in which lays my heart,

partially necrotized,

and drained.

 

I run to the cupboards,

and pull out a plastic container

and a fitting lid.

I carefully place my heart

into the container.

 

She will not have my heart.

I will take my heart

far away from this house of horrors.

I will continue my healing

in a place that is conducive for doing so.

I will live again.