MicroHorror

I’d worked in the morgue for two years, washing bodies, packing them and generally doing the work no one else wanted, when today, quite unexpectedly, I’d been asked to assist with the autopsy. I was nervous, especially because the doctor performing it was someone I’d never met from another hospital.

But he was pleased with the way I’d laid out the instruments and seemed a personable kind of guy, even asked me to call him Geoff.

Before he started, he picked up the paperwork and realized the shell of the man who lay on the gurney before us had once been a senior doctor himself.

“Says here he’s been a patient at this hospital ever since he had a breakdown of some sorts over thirty years ago. Any idea what happened to the poor chap?”

“Do you want the official version, or what’s supposed to have really happened?” I asked.

At that moment Geoff pulled back the sheet to reveal an emaciated man whose body was covered in burns and scars, the most noticeable being his missing fingers, three mutilated toes, and a ragged scar where his penis had once been.

Geoff gasped. “Bloody hell, what’s this? You’d better tell me what really happened.”

I passed Geoff the scalpel and he began his work, slicing into the grey wrinkled flesh while I mopped up the thick dark blood that oozed all over the cadaver before us.

“Apparently, he was working in Africa studying tropical medicine when it all went wrong–he was doing an autopsy on this local guy they’d had in an asylum for decades. It appears that when they took the top of his skull off, his head was full of tiny red worms all wriggling about. Like a bucket of live cotton threads!”

“That’s enough to send anyone a bit mad,” said Geoff, still working away with his blade, “but in all honesty I can’t really see it being true.”

“He was an experienced man,” I continued, “and he coped with that well, took it in his stride. No, that’s not what sent him mad.”

Geoff paused for a second. “So what did happen?”

“The doctor claimed that out of this writhing mass, a red fly emerged and flew straight into his face, stinging him viciously. He called it a Devil Fly. The villagers burned the corpse, so we’ll never know what really happened. By the time the doctor was flying back to Britain he was in a straitjacket ranting like a lunatic.”

Geoff lifted handfuls of stinking offal into a silver dish, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m not buying into the ‘Devil Fly’ theory for one second. What about all these scars? The fly cause those too?”

“He did those himself,” I said, scooping up a handful of crimson blood clots. “Would scream out in agony for days only to find peace when he bit off a finger. When he ran out, he started working on his toes!”

“And that?” said Geoff pointing to the groin area.

“He pushed a pencil up his urethra, left it there all day and impaired the circulation. It was black by the time staff spotted what he’d done. He’s the most disturbed patient this hospital has ever known–thirty years of total, utter torment.”

Geoff had removed the scalp and was now starting to saw through the top of the skull. He was looking paler, less confident. “I assume he’s had a scan? Dementia perhaps?”

“He would never stay still long enough for a scan, so no, he never had one.”

Geoff cut the power to the saw. I could see he was practically through the bone now. His hand trembled a little.

“Wow, quite a tale you have there.” He tried to smile. “Best finish off here though, eh?”

Geoff sent his saw into the bone again with renewed determination while I just wondered what a red piece of cotton was doing on our sterile floor.