Scalpel. Hammer. Saw. Blood. Needle. Life and Death. In my earlier years these words seemed to haunt me. For some reason the daunting task of cutting into someone and handling their innards always riled up demons in me. I held the tool of life in my hands; I was like God watching over all. That is why I devoted years of my life to countless studies. Laboring over the material, practice after practice, viewing surgery after surgery, I mastered the art of cheating death, but at a cost. Myself. Every surgery I was to do would send me further down a dark spiral.
My real life began when I was enslaved to a doctor above me. Dr. Webber utilized a dark composure to drain the life out of me. Being replaced by demons that seemed to fill each and every artery. Coursing through my veins. I was a walking zombie, devoid of emotion. My two years as an intern were H---. H---. Yet they flew by, and I was to be a doctor.
As I walked into the haven the clouds loomed in the distance ominously. Daylight could not penetrate the dense clouds as a light rain began to come down on the cold concrete. The black granite door seemed only to move a few inches, just enough for me to get through as I entered the big hall. Walking up the marble stairs my ears perked up as my colleague echoed my name. I only heard the words “… coronary embolism in a thirteen-year-old girl”. I dashed to get my white coat, ironic because as we all know, the coat would not remain that angelic color.
The patient was being sedated as I entered the room, she was convulsing on the table as if something was trying to rip her apart. Her demons. I ordered my nurse to hand me the scalpel as I made my first incision just above the right chest. Perfect. I had cut into the dermis without breaking any major arteries or veins. I then demanded the electric rotator to cut into the patient’s rib cage, completely exposing the entities within. As the rib cage began to break, like a shattered prison cell, the demon’s seemed to leap from the patient towards me and I was struck by them. I felt empty. Doomed. However I had to continue with the surgery, almost as if the surgery helped me tame my own demons.
Making the incision into the heart, I could feel the palpation of the organ. Breaking through the thick muscle I noticed this dark mass located in her right atrium. The embolus. Black in nature, I noticed something peculiar. The embolus looked as though it had a face. A monster. I reached to grab the embolus with forceps, but the patient’s vital signs began to fluctuate tumultuously on the monitor, something was wrong. Her heart had stopped. The embolus was fighting back.
Think Chris. Think. What did Webber teach you? I drew on all my past experience. I stared at the demonic mass that shielded itself in her body, and somehow something came to me. I ordered the nurse to get epinephrine, heparin and a shot of espresso, a dangerous and unconventional treatment. I commanded my subordinates to start this procedure. As I got ready to say the command to push the serum into the girl’s body I couldn’t. The demons inside me began to stir. I was alone, and always would be. They twisted and defiled my brain until I just wanted to let out a scream of pain from my sadness. But I needed to do this. This was my only option.
I commanded the staff with a harsh tone, one without empathy. I was not in this profession to make friends; I just wanted my patient to survive. As I pushed the concoction into her body, instantaneously her vital signs stabilized and I could continue with the surgery. If it hadn’t been for all those extra hours I spent with Webber laboring over every tiny detail that I could procure in a surgery situation, this patient would be dead.
My hands moved towards the embolus, I realized this was not just a surgery. I was facing yet another demon. But like all the other times I knew I would ultimately lose. I had to sacrifice myself and allow this demon to join me in this life. It was a sacrifice for my patient. As I began to pull on the embolus it didn’t budge. It cemented itself to the host. I pulled harder and harder until the face broke free and looked me in the eyes. Disgusting and tormented, the face with sunken eyes slowly was absorbed into my body. A satanic surge streamed in my decaying carcass, first from my heart out to the extremities. The surgery was complete.
The price exacted on me, so that others may live, is a destruction of myself. Every surgery makes me more of a God. Knowing how to manipulate the life force in front of me. I have the power, and I have the responsibility. What I’ve come to learn is that these demons make me less and less human, a being known for compassion. Does that make me God or a Demon?