They weren’t supposed to see it. Neither of them were, it wasn’t their job. John and his work partner, Nameless, accidentally saw a dead body one day. That was the first time that John had seen a dead body. Nameless threw up. Four times. John counted. They were supposed to be trained to see dead bodies, all police officers were, but not those two. They were just meter maids. How did they get there? What could they do now? Well, Nameless observed the body, but nor for too long. The feet were the worst part. He didn’t know why, but the feet freaked him out the most. Humans walk on their feet and almost every single one of them use those feet for active activity. You always see feet being used, being walked on, being alive… But Nameless could only see them as dead. They were slightly tilted in opposite directions (the left foot tilted to the left and the right foot tilted to the right) and the skin was white. Not beige white, pearl white, but you could still detect a little bit of beige, just to remind you that there was once life. The hair was messy and dead, there was no other way to describe it as nauseatingly dead. The face didn’t look like a face anymore. It had human features, but Nameless wondered where the actual human in the human face went. And when they threw a cloth over the body, it was even worse. Nameless could make out the shape of the once-living cadaver. He could see where the chest was supposed to be, where the knees were supposed to be and where everything else was supposed to be. There was nothing more for Nameless to say than it was dead. If you’d ask him to describe it to you, he’d tell you that it was dead. Running in his mind, the only adjective or word of description that he could use to talk about the body was dead. Because that’s all it was.
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Meanwhile, John was appreciating his experience. Although the fear in his work partner’s eyes could never be missed, he could not feel the same. The way the eyes were shut in a way that made it seem that there were no eyes inside the sockets, the way the skin was rugged, drained and flat… John adored it. Right then, he felt something. While looking at the clumpy eyelashes that were paired with a toothless, agape mouth, his heart began pounding. His hand began shaking. He recognized the feeling blooming in his chest : it was desire, craving, but way more intense. His eyes widened and he itched to get closer to the body, to take in the scent that was already so pungent, to run his fingers over the raisin-like skin… He needed to know more. He wanted to know what was on the inside and what he could do with the dead body. He was starstruck. He wanted to rip open the sockets and look inside to check for eyes, he wanted to see if it bled, or if the blood was a different colour, and what would that blood taste like? And what would a dead man’s liver look like? And how many organs does he have? And how would it feel to hold it in his hands, to feel the sensation of it, almost become once with it, as his eyes would watch the blood trickle down from his wrist to its resting place on John’s tongue. But the fantasy ended rather abruptly when the police officer showed up to drag the body to the morgue. John’s heart dropped a little when they draped a towel over the body. He already yearned to see it again. And that would be no problem :
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It was one of the many perks of being a police officer.
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That night, he went home with nothing but the body on his mind. His fingers shook in anticipation of being able to just be beside it. Shaking like a crack addict, he drove over to the morgue. The man at the front desk asked questions, but John wasn’t paying attention to what he was answering, his mind was clouded by want, or need. It was very late at night, so the morgue was completely empty, luckily. John asked the man where the body from this morning was. He led him to that same body, unlocking it and pulling out the drawer. The man left and told John he’d be outside for his break. John thought that it was quite convenient. He watched the man leave, making sure he was completely out of earshot and any other shot that could make him clue in to the fact that John wasn’t exactly supposed to be there. As soon as he knew the man was gone, he grabbed a nearby scalpel and removed the cloth. Before cutting, John decided to admire the cadaver a little. It was much more gray than it had been before, but he could still see that little hint of beige that just made John’s fingers shake even more, because that was a sign of human life. The face looked like it was numbed, the lips turning purple and the cheeks hollowed out. John raised the scalpel to the stomach of the body, pressed down and gently cut a deep line over the middle. He opened the skin and sighed in relief at the sight of the lungs and the blood. With intense motivation, he widened his eyes and stuck his hand in the stomach, grabbing a handful of whatever was there and taking it out. Barely even looking at it before he did so, John shoved it down his throat. He put his hand back into the stomach and kept on going, taking more handfuls and shoving them down his gullet. It tasted like meat, metal, and dust. John loved every bit of it. The intense craving from before was fulfilled and the texture fit perfectly in the mold of his teeth. It was chewy, but not stale, just enough to be edible. He reached his hand back into the drawer, but just as he did so, the man came back and saw the bloody rim over John’s mouth, as well as the mess of organs all over.
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He was sent to a prison and died laughing in his cell.
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He didn’t regret a single damn thing.143Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZWYjZPe9g2
