she was a surgeon
carving into my chest
to reach the heart
carving into the heart
to reach my soul
the operation was far
from painless
the anaesthetic wore off
quite early
by that time
it was too late
for her to quit
afterwards
i seem to remember
the nurses carrying it away
in a small cooler
they were heading
for the vault
deep underground
dripping blood along the way
Love is many splintered beam
-
hester_prynne
I interned as a hospital chaplain one summer in Colorado. Catholic hospital--the chaplains had full access to everything (and I'm not even a Roman Catholic Brother-Father). But on top of having mere access to everything, we were in charge of certain things: the chapel, of course; our counseling offices with their large chairs and refrigerators of cold drinks; the prayer garden in one of the courtyards; and the morgue.
Evidently once there had been an argument over hospital management and the pharmacists complained that the chaplains didn't have enough paperwork. The hospital responded by giving us the dead. On one level it made sense: the chaplains were usually around when someone died. But that doesn't mean we needed to babysit the corpses to the morgue.
Anyhow, that was my reality. I had my medieval-looking dungeon morgue keys and made regular trips to that freezer across from the cafeteria (I suppose it makes sense to only have the freezer people work in one area). I'll never forget the time I dropped by to check on whether or not so-and-so had been picked up yet by "the parlor" when I walked in on Anita having her eyes harvested.
Anita was bright yellow from the jaundice (and she was a beautifully dark-skinned black woman, so the color yellow was impressive) and naked as the day she was born (in and out the same, I guess). Anita had been homeless before hitting heaven. She had liver failure and kidney failure. She had the Hepatitis alphabet. She had diseases I couldn't pronounce, but could easily contract (I held her hand anyhow; we're trained to do that). I knew her eyes wouldn't give up any usable parts for transplantation...but bless her if they didn't try.
After Anita was done (which took longer than usual because a new harvester was being trained--perhaps that's why they used Anita's eyes), I made sure she went in the nice freezer, the walk-in.
I was gone before the parlor came for Anita, but I knew she was ok done in the morgue where the bodies staied for bits of time and the bits of bodies stayed for almost ever (amputations went in a bag on the top corner shelf till they could be incincerated, I suppose).
I wonder if all the dripping bloody hearts end up in there as well?
Evidently once there had been an argument over hospital management and the pharmacists complained that the chaplains didn't have enough paperwork. The hospital responded by giving us the dead. On one level it made sense: the chaplains were usually around when someone died. But that doesn't mean we needed to babysit the corpses to the morgue.
Anyhow, that was my reality. I had my medieval-looking dungeon morgue keys and made regular trips to that freezer across from the cafeteria (I suppose it makes sense to only have the freezer people work in one area). I'll never forget the time I dropped by to check on whether or not so-and-so had been picked up yet by "the parlor" when I walked in on Anita having her eyes harvested.
Anita was bright yellow from the jaundice (and she was a beautifully dark-skinned black woman, so the color yellow was impressive) and naked as the day she was born (in and out the same, I guess). Anita had been homeless before hitting heaven. She had liver failure and kidney failure. She had the Hepatitis alphabet. She had diseases I couldn't pronounce, but could easily contract (I held her hand anyhow; we're trained to do that). I knew her eyes wouldn't give up any usable parts for transplantation...but bless her if they didn't try.
After Anita was done (which took longer than usual because a new harvester was being trained--perhaps that's why they used Anita's eyes), I made sure she went in the nice freezer, the walk-in.
I was gone before the parlor came for Anita, but I knew she was ok done in the morgue where the bodies staied for bits of time and the bits of bodies stayed for almost ever (amputations went in a bag on the top corner shelf till they could be incincerated, I suppose).
I wonder if all the dripping bloody hearts end up in there as well?
"Every genuinely religious person is a heretic, and therefore a revolutionary" -- GBShaw
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