13 Days of Halloween: Exit 53 by Laura Boatner

CW: Gore

I grimace and blink rapidly, transfixed by the bright lights.  It’s frigid, bitter cold, and I wonder where my clothes are. 

She’s lovely, petite, and with alabaster skin.  She has the shade of flaxen hair that doesn’t come from a bottle.  It’s pulled back loosely, but with a few curly strands that brush against me.  It smells like the honeysuckle that runs around the hairpin curve at Canterbury Park.  When she moves away from me, I pick up wafts of sandalwood and soap.

Why is she looking at me that way?  Half pouting, but with soulful eyes of inky blue that let me know she’s seen some things. 

She starts taking pictures of me, hovering over my head, pausing, then circling my body.  I hear twenty-two clicks in all.  She’s serious, with a clinical stare.  I’d like to think she’s admiring me though.

They say the first cut is the deepest, and I’d say that’s true, but I feel no pain so I’m not quite sure.  Her hands are steady.  She’s done this before.

I wonder what she thinks as she slices diagonally through the red dragon tattoo across my left clavicle.  It’s fire-breathing and speaks of late nights, liquor, a dare, and poor judgment. I was nineteen at the time, but my mother cried when she saw it.

As she pulls out my gray, mottled heart, it’s overflowing with the pain I endured when Linda left me last fall.  I’m sure it’s weighted, full of secrets and sorrow.

One by one, parts of me are plopped on the scale, and she pauses each time to furiously scribble.  Undigested hamburger from the joint on Exit 53 appears to spill out from somewhere.

She studies me, so I study all the curves underneath her starched white jacket.  It’s only fair, given our new-found intimacy.  Is the table warming from the arousal I feel?

“No, it’s like a friggin freezer in here.  If my jaws weren’t locked, my teeth would crack”.

With the skills of a doll maker, she stitches me back together.  Her hands are soft and sure.  It’s so neatly done that hopefully I won’t frighten onlookers, ensuring no maudlin moans by my side on Tuesday.

She rounds the table and begins to saw the parts of my shattered skull.  The buzz is deafening and then my fissured brain is laid bare.  Can she tell that I’m a high school dropout?  Just enough smarts to get by, but with no critical thinking skills?  After all, I was doing 60 in a 35.  That’s what brought me here in the first place. 

My skull is now reassembled with slightly mismatched pieces, and my scalp is pulled taut again.  Thick curly hair seems to work in my favor.

A wide skewered blade is used to gather hints that hide just beneath my fingernails.  Flecks fall to the floor, probably from the cold damp ditch Into which I was thrown.  Strangers in cars whizzed by until it all went dark.

She rises from the stool with wheels.  We’ve  been together for what feels like hours.  I doubt she’ll remember me though. I see her move on to another cold man.