The Body Bag

Thump, thump, thump.

The heart beat slowly in her hands, dripping blood from the exposed veins, wrapped around the organ like twine around a Christmas ham. She held it up to the light, small drops of blood now collecting on the wood floor.

She examined it closely, something she thought she knew so well, something that had been a part of her for 34 years… betrayed her again. It was the first thing that had to go, to ensure it wouldn't trick her into making a different decision, as her heart often did.

She placed the organ in the duffle bag, laid out on her bed.

She wiped her bloody hands on her white linen gown, the snaps barely fastened along the back, and picked up the pencil and notepad from the bedside table.

“The Heart,” she wrote.

“The heart is an organ that acts as a pump to the body, circulating blood and oxygen.”

She touched the pencil to her lips, the fresh eraser filling her nose with the faint bacon smell that erasers often do. She tapped it once against her mouth and contemplated what else to write about the heart.

This heart.

“This heart,” she wrote, “loves the moment of silence that comes when a car goes under an underpass when it's raining.”

She moved the pencil to a new line.

“This heart loves cinnamon raisin bread,” she added a caret, carefully inserting Cheryl’s between loves and cinnamon.

New line.

“This heart loves wet puppy noses, thick cotton socks, old books, pine trees, the smell of cigars.”

She paused.

A faint smell of cigars filled the room.

Her memory flickered, like a lightbulb in the wind on the porch.

No, she thought.

But the images of his face came flashing in. The way he always smelled faintly of tobacco.

She blinked, as if the force of her eyes could erase the thoughts.

“No,” she said quietly.

But the smell stayed.

“NO,” she screamed.

She threw the pad and pencil onto the bed and reached for the knife.

With as much ease as possible, she cut off her nose.

It had betrayed her.

She tossed it into the bag beside the still-beating heart. It landed with a soft, damp thud. The heart continued its stubborn rhythmic beat

She ripped the page titled The Heart from the pad and placed it on top of the organ. The paper stuck to the drying blood, instantly pooling into the thin white fibers.

She picked up the pad again.

“The Nose,” she wrote.

“The nose is responsible for smell.”

She stopped.

That seemed far too small a sentence for what the nose had done.

She continued.

“This nose smells rain on hot pavement.”

New line.

“This nose smells the ocean before you can see it.”

New line.

“This nose smells the oak and ash in his cologne.”

She stared at the words for a long time.

She stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. The memory of his woodsy cologne sparked a memory of them dancing, tightly wound together, swaying gently in unison with the record playing in the background. She could hear Etta James's voice, quietly moving through the room like a breeze.

She reached for her ears next.

It wasn't this sound that betrayed her. She wanted to remember music. It was the sounds of a lifetime to follow.

His voice echoed in the hallway. His footsteps in the kitchen. The creak of the floorboard outside her bedroom that she used to recognize instantly as him.

She removed them carefully.

They landed in the bag beside the nose.

“The Ears,” she wrote.

“The ears allow the body to hear.”

She thought about that for a long moment.

“This pair of ears heard someone say ‘I love you’ and believed it completely.”

She placed the page gently over them.

The bag was beginning to smell faintly of old coins.

She moved on.

The lungs were more difficult.

They clung stubbornly to the ribs. When she finally freed them, they deflated slightly in her hands like soft gray balloons.

She squeezed one gently.

It wheezed.

“These lungs,” she wrote, “love early morning air.”

New line.

“These lungs love laughing so hard they can’t breathe.”

New line.

“These lungs held their breath every time he looked at her.”

She hesitated before adding another line.

“These lungs forgot how to breathe, once."

"When he left.”

She folded that page twice before placing it in the bag.

"This should work" she thought. They'd have to take them back.

She was sending each organ with its own file. A small explanation for why it had failed her.

By the time she reached the stomach, she was tired.

The stomach had always been sensitive.

Butterflies before kissed. Knots during arguments. That indescribable ache that came when you loved someone.

She placed it into the bag with a small sigh.

“The Stomach,” she wrote.

“The stomach digests food.”

She frowned.

“That feels like a lie,” she murmured.

She tried again.

“This stomach felt things before the brain did.”

New line.

“This stomach understood fear.”

New line.

She stopped writing.

The pencil hovered over the paper.

She realized suddenly that the bag was almost full.

Heart.

Nose.

Ears.

Lungs.

Stomach.

Her whole life, piece by piece.

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the suitcase.

It pulsed faintly.

The heart, still thumping.

Always working so hard, even now.

After everything.

She zipped up the bag and imagined it’s next home.

A quiet office somewhere where a tired woman in a cardigan opened bags, like this one.

She’d read the label:

Defective. Please replace.

She almost laughed.

She unzipped the bag quickly.

She turned to a clean page and wrote:

“The Brain.”

She paused. She couldn’t believe she almost forgot the most important one.

The pencil hovered for a long time.

Finally she wrote:

“The brain is responsible for memory.”

She stared at the sentence.

Then she added one final line.

“This one refuses to forget.”

She placed the notebook gently on top of the suitcase.

The bag shifted slightly.

The heart beat again.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.