Free Husk by Corey Redekop Page A

no intention of proceeding through the rest of my life as the visible man, and I had an idea of how to fix it, if only temporarily.
    I wrapped my heart in a thick hand towel, grabbed several more from the rack, and walked out to the kitchen. Rummaging through my tools drawer, I withdrew the heavy-duty stapler I used for minor household repairs. I retrieved an old wooden cutting board from my cabinet, and then moseyed downstairs to get my dad’s old nail gun, the one I used when a big staple wasn’t enough.
    Using the detachable spout above the kitchen sink, I gave my interior a hot spraying, sponging up the water and slop with the towels. Once I had the area relatively clean and dry — you might be surprised how presentable you can gussy up your chest cavity when the blood stops pumping — I placed my heart in approximately its original place, using a decorative mirror from the hallway to help guide my hands. I had to use one hand to push my lungs apart and away. I lined up the aortic halves of the heart with the remnants that protruded from my walls. This was not strictly necessary, as I functioned perfectly fine without it — I had only an elementary school conception of the proper placement of the various tubes and pulpy conduits anyway — but I felt it might help me from a psychological perspective. Pinching the aortas and veins together with my fingers, I squirmed my stapler into place and fixed the whole mass together. The effect was Frankensteinian, but I felt better knowing it was safe and secure within me.
    For an instant I considered the possibility of infection, then silently mouthed a laugh. There’s absurd, and then there’s
really
absurd.
    Only later on did I consider that what I was in the process of doing should have really hurt. I should have been screaming to wake the dead; in the annals of pain, self-inflicted heart surgery should have been right near the top of the list, alongside labor pains and shooting Mountain Dew out the nostrils. It wasn’t as if I lacked for tactile sensation, but my brain compartmentalized the torture, kept it behind a curtain. It was as if I was watching a drive-in movie from outside the fence, listening to a buzzy soundtrack on a half-assed radio while a projector lit the action onto a distant screen.
    The next part was trickier. I climbed up onto my kitchen table and lay on my back, my flaps loose and open. I had likely lost some essential packaging en route, and could use a thorough stuffing before the final step. I wadded up the few clean towels I had left and crammed them into the nooks and crannies of my physique. I took care not to pack too tight, but with the loss of the ribs, the next stage was going to need a little support.
    I carefully placed the cutting board atop the towels, fitting it up between the remnants of ribcage until it was good and snug. Aiming at an angle, holding the mirror in my left hand and the gun in my right, I shot a nail into the board, piercing the wood and embedding itself deep into the marrow and bone of my sheared ribs. I put two more nails in, then switched hands to repeat the process on the other side. This was not as successful, my aim too shallow; the first nail glanced off the surface of the board and shot into my bicep. Cursing (as much as a mute can curse, which is quite a bit), I adjusted the angle and set the next two nails in solid. My makeshift ribcage was not pretty, but neither was the real thing, and as I lacked any skill in sewing, carpentry was my only option. I pulled the one-inch spike from my arm and tossed it away.
    I folded the doors of flesh over the board, stretching them tight to minimize gaps, and nailed my chest together. I made sure not to use too many nails, to reduce the chance of tearing. I rolled onto my side and carefully left the tabletop, acclimatizing to the new weight. The construction appeared firm. Checking out my handiwork in the mirror, I chose to ignore the haphazard