Flesh of My Flesh

I don’t know how I got here. That was my first thought when I opened my eyes, not Where

am I? It was clear to me where I was. I was in a hospital bed. The fluorescent lights shone white-

green above. The smell of disinfectant and the buzz of nurses outside the room assured me of one

thing—it was a hospital.

My eyes shifted around the room for clues. An IV was attached to my arm. An oximeter was

nestled around my index finger. A sphygmomanometer was snug around my bicep. My vitals were

on display on the monitor next to the bed. Everything looked fine. So why am I here?

Next, I did a mental assessment. I was not in pain anywhere. My back was a bit sore, but

that didn’t seem like anything worth hospitalization. Shifting my weight, I moved to sit up and felt

something cold and metallic near my ankles. Discreetly tucked under the thin white blanket, my

ankles were chained to the base of the bed. I threw off the covers to get a closer look. My feet wore

pink non-slip socks, and the shackles around my ankles were padded. The metal chain attached to

the shackles relaxed at the foot of the bed like a serpent, warming itself from my body heat.

I was warm, very warm, hot. The air shifted in the hospital. I swear it felt like the room was

shaking for a moment. My whole body broke out in a sweat, and my heart began to quicken. The

room spun. I heaved over the side of the bed rails and vomited sticky yellow puke onto the floor.

More and more sticky yellow puke came up from inside of me. My esophagus was an expressway

from my stomach out past my open mouth. I spewed bile from my insides until it felt like there was

nothing left of me. When no more would come, I laid back and passed out.

***

When I woke up again, there was a tube in my nose. I knew it was a feeding tube because I

was still in the hospital and clearly something was wrong with my stomach, intestines, or liver, but

then again, I was no doctor. Where are the doctors?

“Oh! You’re awake!” My husband’s voice beside me was filled with relief.

I turned at the sound of his voice. Seeing him brought me unimaginable comfort. “What

happened? What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry.” He took my hand. “You won’t even remember this part once it is all over.”

I sat up. “What’s that supposed to mean? Why am I chained to the bed?”

He smiled at me in a way that was either condescending or compassionate. I couldn’t tell,

but it made me angry.

“Calm down, my love. You don’t need to get so worked up.”

“Calm down?” My eyes widened with rage. “Calm down? How am I supposed to calm

down? Why won’t you tell me what is going on?”

His smile never wavered. “Don’t worry. This is all part of the process. You’ll be fine. I

promise.”

“What process?” Desperation hitched in my voice and made me gag.

He held up a bedpan, and more bile came out of me. I puked, and he held my hair back

while speaking quiet words of encouragement.

***

“I have to get out of here.” I tried to reason with him when I woke up. Some time had

passed. It was impossible to know how much, but it had been days. Weeks? Months?

He nodded amicably. “If you are feeling up for it, you can get up. Maybe stretch your legs a

bit.”

“Really?” My surprise did not faze him.

“Of course.” He stood and unlocked the chains around my ankles. “Just take it slow. OK?”

I was already sitting up. I swung my legs down and was hit with a wave of dizziness so

strong it had me laying flat again in an instant.

My husband tutted over me. “I don’t think you’re ready to get up, love. There’s no point in

pushing yourself.”

I shoved myself back up to my elbows. “I have to get out of here.”

“Out?”

Ignoring him and gritting my teeth, I sat up and let my legs dangle off the edge of the bed.

He came around beside me, supporting me as I put weight on my feet. My legs were weak, and the

exhaustion in the rest of my body felt palpable as if exhaustion itself were being pumped through

my veins via the IV and infecting every cell of my being. Nevertheless, I stood.

“Honey, you know I always think you look beautiful, but you don’t look so good.” His brow

was full of concern.

If how I was feeling was any indication, then yes. I probably looked as terrible as I felt.

Grey-faced and pale, sweaty and bony. But I did not care what I looked like. I cared about getting

out. My eyes focused on the door, and I willed myself in that direction.

“What are you doing?” My husband asked anxiously. “You can’t leave.”

“Watch me.” I spat through gritted teeth.

“But…”

The ground began to shake. I lost my balance and clung to him. He scooped me up in his

arms and carried me back to bed. Outside, nurses rushed around shouting, but I could barely

comprehend what was going on. The dizziness was overtaking me, and it seemed the exhaustion

had flooded my eyes with black spots.

“What… what is going on?” I whimpered as he tucked me in.

He stroked my forehead as I began to fade. “The boss is hungry. That’s all. Get some rest,

my love.”

***

I am embarrassed to say that it took me a few months to try again. I was just so tired all the

time. But slowly, I felt myself regaining my strength. On days that I could keep food down, I felt

like I was on top of the world. It seems stupid, but when your body is revolting against you at every

turn, you begin to celebrate the little things.

As per my husband’s suggestion, I took things slow. I stayed in bed. I sat up to stretch, then

worked my way up to standing and walking around the room until one day I asked, “Could we go

for a walk down the hall and back?”

He seemed skeptical at first but eventually agreed. The smile on his face when he saw my

joyous reaction was so sweet. So we walked slowly, arm in arm, out the door and into the bustling

hospital hallway. He smiled and watched my every move, and honestly, his happy attitude was

infectious. I was proud of myself for making it this far.

And then I noticed the nurses. They were all different, as normal people would be different

from their colleagues, but they all had the same face. Some trotted around in designer shoes and

heavy jewelry, carrying super smoothies, and looking down on everyone else. Some wore their hair

naturally, smelled of incense, and offered earthy herbal teas to anyone in passing. Others were short,

squat women with dead eyes pushing pill carts. But they all had the same face—my face.

“What is going on?” I squeaked out before panic closed my windpipe.

My husband wrapped an arm around me as he felt me shrink and cling to him. “Are you

feeling alright? Should we go back and rest?”

“What is… why?” The walls shook and looked as if they might collapse. “I have to get out

of here. Honey, please!” I pulled on his shirt, desperately looking for an exit.

The earthquake was not just my imagination. All the nurses ran around with their meager

offerings.

“The boss is hungry!”

“Hurry! The boss needs to eat!”

“Time to feed the beast!”

“The boss is hungry!”

We were pushed to the side in the mad rush. My husband had to carry me again as I felt

myself losing consciousness.

***

I was absolutely starving when I woke up.

“Glad to see you have an appetite.” My husband commented.

I glared at him. None of the special smoothies, teas, or pills had helped with my sickness.

When I told him I was craving tacos, he went out and got some. The nurses looked down their noses

at the greasy takeout bag, but the tacos stayed. I ate, and I didn’t give a shit about what anyone else

thought.

“I guess you probably want to go for another walk today?” He sighed.

Nodding, I wiped taco grease from my hands. “If I keep this food down, can we leave?”

He found that funny for some infuriating reason.

With a “humph,” I resigned myself to searching for an exit while we were on our walk.

After resting for thirty minutes, we got up and left our room. I was determined to make it past the

threshold of my doorway this time. I would ignore the nurses who all had my face. I would not get

distracted from my goal: escape.

We made it out the door without incident and down the hallway a bit, being careful to avoid

the nurses who wagged their fingers at me and smiled understandingly at my husband. Then we

passed another room like mine, and my determination to not be distracted dissolved.

In the room was a woman laying on a bed like me, except she was huge. Her body was

bloated like a whale. Her skin stretched taut and irritated around her. There was a nurse with pills in

the room, taking blood and administering some sort of injection. The nurse’s face was mine, and the

woman’s face was… mine.

Horrified, I backed away and turned to run, but was faced with yet another room—not a

hospital room. Inside, the floor was filled with cushions, and herbs hung drying from the ceiling. I

almost wanted to step inside, but the woman laying in the bed was practically a skeleton, wasting

away. My heart went out to her. Her eyes were sunken into her skull. She was missing teeth. Her

hair was patchy and sparse. Her skin was grey, and her heart beat so faintly that the monitor barely

picked it up. She looked at me with her dying eyes, and they were my eyes looking back at me.

Vomit threatening to come up, I doubled over and dashed to the nearest trash can, but on the

way, I caught sight of another me in another room with breasts so large they would put a porn star

to shame. In another room, I had swollen feet and no hair. In another, I was screaming and thrashing

around so terribly that several nurses had to come in and subdue me.

Panting, I reached for my husband, and he was there. “I want to go back to my room.” I

choked back a sob.

“Of course, my love.” He led me back in the direction we had come.

I did not want to see the rooms again, so I turned my head to look at the other side of the

hallway. The first room I saw on that side did not have any occupants; it was only full of dark

boxes. I squinted to try and get a better look. Not boxes— but coffins, large and small.

With a gasp, I quickened my pace and did not look into the next room, but whatever was

happening there must have been terrible. The screams of the poor girl in the room compelled me; I

could not help but look. Awake, she lay on her back, wailing and sweating. The nurses had cut her

open and were taking her organs out. I froze to watch them pull her small intestine, my small

intestine, out hand over hand like they were drawing water from a well.

“Oh, hush up.” A nurse with a pristine manicure stomped by. “It’s not that bad.”

I had not realized that I was crying, bawling really. My husband tried to comfort me and dry

my tears, but I was inconsolable.

“Does she need tranquilizers?” A dead-faced nurse asked as she pushed her pill cart.

“No!” I shouted at her and huddled in the safety of my husband’s arms.

“It’s OK, love. I got you.” He cooed as he stroked my back.

When I had pulled myself together enough to take a shaky breath and straighten up, we

continued. There was one more room, across from mine. I was absolutely not going to look into it,

but then a little white butterfly flew out, and my curiosity was piqued. Inside, there I was, but this

room was not like the other hospital rooms. This room was a garden. The woman inside wore a

beautiful white flowing dress, and she knelt by a patch of daisies. The smell of wildflowers and

fresh air wafted through the doorway and emanated tranquility. The flowers and butterflies seemed

to dance for her, and everything she touched vibrated with life.

She was not alone in her garden room. A man, my husband, approached her from behind

with a smoothie and tea. His eyes were full of adoration, and the spring in his step was

unmistakable. He came to her with kisses and offered her the drinks, which she sipped with delight.

Then they fell into each other's arms in an impassioned embrace. They rolled in the grass and began

to make love with their beautiful bodies as the butterflies danced around them.

I looked from her to my husband, who stood contentedly beside me. I had not thought about

sex in… weeks? Months? I had been so sick and miserable. I have had no energy. And here she

was, there I was—some version of me with some version of him—happy. I hated her.

“Come on.” I tugged my husband away from the cloying sight. “We—” the tremors began

again.

It was the same thing. The nurses scurried around frantically with their trays of “food” or

whatever, chattering about how their boss was hungry. My husband ushered me back into our room,

and there was a dinner tray waiting for us: heaping plates of spaghetti Bolognese, garlic bread, and

a fresh green salad. My stomach rumbled almost as loudly as the earthquake, and I suddenly forgot

everything else.

“I need to eat.”

***

Time passed. I did not leave my room. I fell into a sort of depression. All I wanted to do was

eat and make myself comfortable. My husband seemed all too happy to help, though he did not

answer any questions about the hospital. He was being so sweet, but I could not fully trust him. It

was like we were in two separate realities. He was in some happy dream where everything was

going to be OK. I was stuck in a nightmare.

One night, after being in the hospital for nearly a year, I woke up in excruciating pain. I

cried out for my husband, but he was gone. Frantically, I searched the room, calling for help, but no

one came. Pain and pressure sliced through me as I struggled to my feet. Huffing and grunting with

every movement, I inched my way toward the door. Outside the hospital was dead. There were no

nurses or other occupants; there was no trace of anyone. The hall was dark save for a single red exit

sign down at the far end.

Hope surged through me, but it was accompanied by a tearing pain. My eyes locked onto

that exit sign, and I shuffled down the hall. I had to lean on the wall the whole way and make

frequent stops when waves of pain and dizziness would wash over me. It was slow going, but

eventually, I made it.

The exit was an elevator with one button. I pressed it and felt that I was being carried up.

Have we been underground this whole time? The elevator stopped but did not open. Another

earthquake hit, shaking the small space so violently I fell to my knees. At the same time, my body

was wracked with a blast of pain so intense I could not see or hear anything until it subsided. My

throat was raw, and I realized I had been screaming.

I stopped screaming to try and catch my breath, but my ears were still full of the sound of

my screams. Securely shutting my mouth to be sure I was not the one screaming, I placed my ear

against the elevator door. Without a doubt, the screams were coming from the other side.

The door slid open without warning, and I tumbled out into a large meeting room with a

long table. The smell of meat cooking filled the room but did nothing to mask the screams. On the

floor, I was accosted by another wave of pain. It felt like I was being split in two. The waves were

coming more frequently and with greater intensity. I wailed with the woman who was screaming

until my wave of pain settled into a dull throb.

“Here you go, boss.” The sound of my husband’s voice jolted me. I sat up on the floor and

peered around one of the chairs at the long table. At the other end, there was an alien tank in the

shape of an inverted triangle. It was filled with a dark red fluid, and something inside of it moved.

My husband tossed a piece of meat into the tank. Whatever was inside tore it to shreds. The

screaming had stopped. I inched up a little higher and saw that it was not a table but a grill top, and

laying on it was the charred body of a woman—me. My crispy, charred body was being sliced up

into steaks and fed to the beast in the tank. The beast that my husband called “boss.”

A cry of terror escaped my lips as I recoiled, knocking over the chair in the process. Before I

could make for the elevator, my husband was behind me. He caught me and held me close.

“Hush now, my love.” He patted my hair and soothed. “Everything is going to be ok.”

I struggled to get away from him, but he held me close and kissed me. I felt myself relax in

his arms. The pain went away. I loved him after all. The security of his arms lulled me into a

drowsy state. He lifted me and carried me to the table.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. You won’t remember any of this once it’s over.”

And he was right; I didn’t.