OPERATIONS
JORDAN HARPER
Just our slow, cool movements down the cavity; splayed like Christ, the man invites us, though his face says otherwise. Electric rim creeping, we slip through the incisions and extract him, bone by board. First the humerus, distal and long-running on its synovial shadows—what is funny about it? Almost as panicked as the man on the floor, I watch the tweezers kiss his static edge; of course there is roaring.
*
Skyler taught me the controls and their rules, shaped the motions of my hands, maneuvered the shaky bridge of my hardly deft bones. “What kind of operation is he getting anyway?” she laughed. “He’s not even asleep.” While our knees rawed themselves on a train patterned rug and classmates thundered around us, our fingers schemed inside his plastic and angry metal wire. She was in K-5 while I, K-4, so she directed the question to me, knowing I wasn’t supposed to have the answer.
I shrugged. “Maybe a tonsil surgery? His mouth is open.”
“Tonsils aren’t an option.” The buzzer screamed.
At recess we abandoned the game for the sandbox and I overheard the issue of a girl with a rock stuck in her ear. Adult women murmured something about calling the child’s parents, the threat of the hospital. “It won’t come out,” she hiccupped tearfully to the teacher tilting her head, still searching for the stone in the ear facing her or hoped it would somehow fall to the ground from the other side, I could not tell. Skyler giggled the whole while.
In a new game, we assigned a third party to bury an undisclosed treasure in the sandbox. Between us and the skeletal constitution of the rules, whoever found it first would win.
“Don’t you feel bad for her?” We exhumed furiously, rock and digit flying.
“Who? That crying girl?” Her laugh shakes sand from her hair like dander and my instinct is to reach through it, like it’s my own. “No, she’s always doing stupid stuff. She knew a rock didn’t go in her ear, didn’t she?”
“But it’s not like she tried—” In that quick caesura between digging and debate, I unearthed a red car. “Is this it?” Our third friend nodded, denoting my victory.
Maybe I shouldn’t have gloated, blown raspberries, shook the car in her face. Still, in pseudo-anger, she shoveled a handful of sand into her palm and threw it in my eyes, catching me off guard. Our laughing stilled to uneasy concern and fire. “Oh my gosh. Are you okay?”
Gritty, blinded, I screamed.
I shrugged. “Maybe a tonsil surgery? His mouth is open.”
“Tonsils aren’t an option.” The buzzer screamed.
At recess we abandoned the game for the sandbox and I overheard the issue of a girl with a rock stuck in her ear. Adult women murmured something about calling the child’s parents, the threat of the hospital. “It won’t come out,” she hiccupped tearfully to the teacher tilting her head, still searching for the stone in the ear facing her or hoped it would somehow fall to the ground from the other side, I could not tell. Skyler giggled the whole while.
In a new game, we assigned a third party to bury an undisclosed treasure in the sandbox. Between us and the skeletal constitution of the rules, whoever found it first would win.
“Don’t you feel bad for her?” We exhumed furiously, rock and digit flying.
“Who? That crying girl?” Her laugh shakes sand from her hair like dander and my instinct is to reach through it, like it’s my own. “No, she’s always doing stupid stuff. She knew a rock didn’t go in her ear, didn’t she?”
“But it’s not like she tried—” In that quick caesura between digging and debate, I unearthed a red car. “Is this it?” Our third friend nodded, denoting my victory.
Maybe I shouldn’t have gloated, blown raspberries, shook the car in her face. Still, in pseudo-anger, she shoveled a handful of sand into her palm and threw it in my eyes, catching me off guard. Our laughing stilled to uneasy concern and fire. “Oh my gosh. Are you okay?”
Gritty, blinded, I screamed.
*
It wasn’t a stomach virus, that much I knew. Earlier, I’d’ve been found kneeled over a public school toilet, praying for vomit, loose stool, anything gross to let up the pain. But all afternoon, I writhed, no taste for food or Rosemary’s Baby.
“Oh it hurts, it hurts so much, I can’t take it!” Rosemary cried. As the supernatural grew in her womb, I watched fetal in my bed, imagining the same fate for me. Gas-X could not heal me. Bathroom trips yielded no relief. It was miraculous I slept that night.
Only the hospital could convince my mother it was appendicitis, not gas. “I once had that, as a little girl.” My nurse said, toying with paper cups: Speed Stacks style. “You’re lucky, getting that laser and camera inside you. Back then, they’d cut me open and sew me right back up!”
“Oh it hurts, it hurts so much, I can’t take it!” Rosemary cried. As the supernatural grew in her womb, I watched fetal in my bed, imagining the same fate for me. Gas-X could not heal me. Bathroom trips yielded no relief. It was miraculous I slept that night.
Only the hospital could convince my mother it was appendicitis, not gas. “I once had that, as a little girl.” My nurse said, toying with paper cups: Speed Stacks style. “You’re lucky, getting that laser and camera inside you. Back then, they’d cut me open and sew me right back up!”
*
The title of plastic surgeon threw me off. I was there for a wisdom tooth extraction, not facial reconstruction or breast implants. Still, he promised he was only there to pull teeth, another vestigial thing.
But there was no reason to have them pulled. They never bothered me before and I didn’t see them becoming an issue in the future. Impacted. As if they were something forcible. Dangerous. A dry-socket seemed more devastating than spare teeth. A dry socket doesn’t have food to chew or reason to hide.
Add anesthesia—add nitrous oxide. In third period anatomy I watched their history, learned about a girl’s overdosed excision of an ingrown toenail. A woman who woke in the middle of her lumpectomy but was entirely paralyzed to tell them she could feel every awful detail. “The next thing I remember is waking up and becoming conscious of the things in my throat,” (Which is to say, the things she couldn’t say.) “…I realized the reason I can’t breathe is because they’re breathing for me…I felt as though I had faced death.”
And even if I wouldn’t end up awake but helpless, I’d seen enough videos. I knew the babbling people did when they weren’t in their right minds. Research said there was no such thing as a truth serum, that no substance has yet been found that can make a person confess things they’d rather keep gathering dust at the bottom of their closets. But the fear insisted: I’m going to tell my parents everything I like about my crush; I’m going to tell my parents what I really think of myself. The paranoia cut into me more than any medical instrument.
Below light of the surgeon’s room, the needle entered my vein. Like ice, I cracked under its warmth.
But there was no reason to have them pulled. They never bothered me before and I didn’t see them becoming an issue in the future. Impacted. As if they were something forcible. Dangerous. A dry-socket seemed more devastating than spare teeth. A dry socket doesn’t have food to chew or reason to hide.
Add anesthesia—add nitrous oxide. In third period anatomy I watched their history, learned about a girl’s overdosed excision of an ingrown toenail. A woman who woke in the middle of her lumpectomy but was entirely paralyzed to tell them she could feel every awful detail. “The next thing I remember is waking up and becoming conscious of the things in my throat,” (Which is to say, the things she couldn’t say.) “…I realized the reason I can’t breathe is because they’re breathing for me…I felt as though I had faced death.”
And even if I wouldn’t end up awake but helpless, I’d seen enough videos. I knew the babbling people did when they weren’t in their right minds. Research said there was no such thing as a truth serum, that no substance has yet been found that can make a person confess things they’d rather keep gathering dust at the bottom of their closets. But the fear insisted: I’m going to tell my parents everything I like about my crush; I’m going to tell my parents what I really think of myself. The paranoia cut into me more than any medical instrument.
Below light of the surgeon’s room, the needle entered my vein. Like ice, I cracked under its warmth.
*
The mutation:
unseen, twisting inside him like a dog, or sin, shrouded in the Velcro of a womb. We keep slipping between the cracks. This man has to crack.
unseen, twisting inside him like a dog, or sin, shrouded in the Velcro of a womb. We keep slipping between the cracks. This man has to crack.
*
The doctor said the sand did nothing to my eyes, however, an aggressively swollen sty should be considered for surgical removal. “What’s a star?” I said, mishearing. No answer. No kid deserves the attention of an adult unless they are cute or dying. I was neither for the moment so the doctor could only explain my affliction to the parents.
I did, however, understand surgery. Dreading the slow descent of “Count backwards from one-hundred,” heavy numbers dripping through the air like breath-battered snowflakes while I drowned out reality, my stomach fluttered and grayed. When the time came to go under, his unnaturally sterile fingers sitting lax on his knees, my doctor instead asked how school was going.
How much can go on at four years old? I humored him but it didn’t help. It didn’t heal me. “Oh, it’s fine.”
Flash to the girl with a rock in her ear.
“Any pretty girls?”
A very male question—the friend with sand on her shoulder.
“Not really.” So, instead of digits, answers fell away like youth.
I did, however, understand surgery. Dreading the slow descent of “Count backwards from one-hundred,” heavy numbers dripping through the air like breath-battered snowflakes while I drowned out reality, my stomach fluttered and grayed. When the time came to go under, his unnaturally sterile fingers sitting lax on his knees, my doctor instead asked how school was going.
How much can go on at four years old? I humored him but it didn’t help. It didn’t heal me. “Oh, it’s fine.”
Flash to the girl with a rock in her ear.
“Any pretty girls?”
A very male question—the friend with sand on her shoulder.
“Not really.” So, instead of digits, answers fell away like youth.
*
Everything weighed more, waking. Vision and volume filtered. I felt it all and in this, it became paralyzing: a catheter in my urethra; a row self-dissolving stitches to seal up the fact; the self-dissolving nature of secrets. “You’re awake,” a woman notes to me. “You should be lucky that thing hadn’t burst."
*
But what I don’t recall is assurance. Between there and somewhere else, no one could describe to me what was happening or how it would be okay.
Add the backward imbibe of remembrance. I woke up, had to immediately figure out who I was, why I was there. What about memory fails four-year-old children? Finally, I rose, bed and boy moaning.
I slunk around the hallway, stepping thickly. Where was my father? My mother? I called their titles, or a premature version of them. “Mommy? Daddy?” People began to stare, worried. It was this flimsy white sheet on my body—I was a ghost child, someone who died at the hospital’s, the caretakers’, hands. I didn’t let a nurse trying to help touch me, kicking out, insisting I needed to find my parents. The moment her grip fell, I dashed around a corner, slammed into my father, became massless in his arms.
Add the backward imbibe of remembrance. I woke up, had to immediately figure out who I was, why I was there. What about memory fails four-year-old children? Finally, I rose, bed and boy moaning.
I slunk around the hallway, stepping thickly. Where was my father? My mother? I called their titles, or a premature version of them. “Mommy? Daddy?” People began to stare, worried. It was this flimsy white sheet on my body—I was a ghost child, someone who died at the hospital’s, the caretakers’, hands. I didn’t let a nurse trying to help touch me, kicking out, insisting I needed to find my parents. The moment her grip fell, I dashed around a corner, slammed into my father, became massless in his arms.
*
And because it was my second, at the apex of my memory, it was the heaviest. A nurse helped me out of the surgeon’s chair. Bound by drugs, gagged with cotton and a rapidly louder pain, I saw my family waiting out front, still breathing for me. This time, I would return drunk. I’d walk, zombified, and joke like I’m okay. Because I was numb. Because I had to lie. Because it filled my mouth—because blood is thick.
*
Bones pile like fruit peels next to him. Last is insect, instinct, the thing more wing than body: butterflies in his stomach. Tweezers wrap around it like a mother, or a seductress, or the gasping suck and moan of water pushing itself down a drain’s throat. We hold this thing like a secret, so close to the edge of our tongues it is already fact. And the sin is in the confession—so we never let it fall.
It hovers—this mess of wire. This thumping panic.
We surgeons circle into a taut band, watching it rise. The transition is something elevated; a bumblebee; a wounded gnat; a mirrored ball. All they wait to do is crash. And at the drop of a butterfly? We don't scream.
We cry.
It hovers—this mess of wire. This thumping panic.
We surgeons circle into a taut band, watching it rise. The transition is something elevated; a bumblebee; a wounded gnat; a mirrored ball. All they wait to do is crash. And at the drop of a butterfly? We don't scream.
We cry.
JORDAN HARPER is a senior at the Alabama School of Fine Arts as well as an alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Interlochen Arts Camp, and the National YoungArts Foundation. He currently serves as a Prose Reader for The Adroit Journal
