Imagining Death

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Abstract

stasteful sort. Mask and photo are property of the author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="e163">She looks so peaceful. Sure. Same as if she was shot with a dart dipped in curare.</h2><p id="6eea">There was a day, my dear, when <a href="https://blogs.library.ucsf.edu/broughttolight/2016/10/31/the-flying-death-and-other-adventures-in-anesthesia/">we operated on someone</a>, on children, without anesthetic. It sounds horrible, I know, like we held them down, but it wasn’t like that. From the standpoint of intentions, ours were the best. We were as innocent as the rain. Still …</p><h2 id="7ed6">Bloody painful I’ll wager. Master and Commander territory.</h2><p id="6470">Why? Because she appeared to be anesthetized by the curare. We had her on a respirator of course as otherwise she’d be unable to breathe, having lost the use of the muscles necessary for respiration.</p><p id="4f44">Surface muscles. Regional anesthesia. The region being just the surface muscles. A sleep of death was on her like a shroud, the machine was breathing the body. God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.</p><h2 id="efcd">She comes off the table cross as a fishwife when it wore off, I felt every cut of the knife, she says.</h2><p id="4548">The odd thing of it, we didn’t believe her, until I

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volunteered to go under the knife with curare, to demonstrate what was obvious to all of us, that there is no pain. The pain is not visible from the outside, not even in the eyes, the muscles cannot express anything. They are paralyzed.</p><p id="bfb7">The experience ripped the word pain out of common usage and taught it how to scream. Now<i> I</i> felt every cut of the knife, my only consolation knowing none of this was showing on the surface, that I will not betray my anguish to Pascual, so that one day he will say,</p><h2 id="8b42">Let me try, here, hold the knife.</h2><figure id="e2fb"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*UijskMegvDOPUkGagHpODQ.jpeg"><figcaption>photo by author</figcaption></figure><p id="3b46"><i>Did any of you ever see Doctor Tetrazzini perform? I say perform advisedly because his operations were performances. He would start by throwing a scalpel across the room into the patient and then make his entrance as a ballet dancer. His speed was incredible: “I don’t give them time to die”, he would say. Tumors put him in a frenzy of rage. “Fucking undisciplined cells!” he would snarl, advancing on the tumor like a knifefighter. </i>(William S. Burroughs)</p><p id="c562"><a href="undefined">Shadowgnosis</a></p></article></body>

The first time it sneaks up behind you is the last time too, he says. Nothing is worse than death. It’s the worst news you ever get.

I say death sneaks along behind you from the start, never in front of you, no, your own creations are in front of you. Death is likely not what it appears to be. Vantage point is everything.

Ceremonial Mask belonged to a witch doctor named Mukutla, who practiced in a kraal near Nairobi, Kenya. He was convicted of murdering and removing body parts from a chief’s daughter to make “muti,” a medicine used to make it rain. Wet work of the most distasteful sort. Mask and photo are property of the author.

Bloody painful I’ll wager. Master and Commander territory.

Why? Because she appeared to be anesthetized by the curare. We had her on a respirator of course as otherwise she’d be unable to breathe, having lost the use of the muscles necessary for respiration.

Surface muscles. Regional anesthesia. The region being just the surface muscles. A sleep of death was on her like a shroud, the machine was breathing the body. God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

She comes off the table cross as a fishwife when it wore off, I felt every cut of the knife, she says.

The odd thing of it, we didn’t believe her, until I volunteered to go under the knife with curare, to demonstrate what was obvious to all of us, that there is no pain. The pain is not visible from the outside, not even in the eyes, the muscles cannot express anything. They are paralyzed.

The experience ripped the word pain out of common usage and taught it how to scream. Now I felt every cut of the knife, my only consolation knowing none of this was showing on the surface, that I will not betray my anguish to Pascual, so that one day he will say,

Let me try, here, hold the knife.

photo by author

Did any of you ever see Doctor Tetrazzini perform? I say perform advisedly because his operations were performances. He would start by throwing a scalpel across the room into the patient and then make his entrance as a ballet dancer. His speed was incredible: “I don’t give them time to die”, he would say. Tumors put him in a frenzy of rage. “Fucking undisciplined cells!” he would snarl, advancing on the tumor like a knifefighter. (William S. Burroughs)

Imagining Death

Behind the flutter of angel wings I prepare for a nightmare

Keep your death out in front of you, son, my daddy said

The first time it sneaks up behind you is the last time too, he says. Nothing is worse than death. It’s the worst news you ever get.

She looks so peaceful. Sure. Same as if she was shot with a dart dipped in curare.

Bloody painful I’ll wager. Master and Commander territory.

She comes off the table cross as a fishwife when it wore off, I felt every cut of the knife, she says.

Let me try, here, hold the knife.