The screen at the front of the room transitioned to the first slide of a severe weather workplace policy, bathing the human lump of a presenter standing next to it in a purple halo. As they droned on, reciting the slide word for word, Corey leaned back in his chair, resting his head against the back wall, and stifled a yawn while he pushed a cheap give-away pen across the open face of a blank notebook on his lap.
The slide changed to an obnoxious orange, but the monotonous outpouring of common sense continued, becoming hazy and uncertain in Corey’s ears until his eyes closed and his senses shut down. His chin dipped to his chest for only a moment before the sound of the pen clicking against the tiles at his feet brought him back. Corey looked side to side, visible embarrassment flaring in his cheeks, but his coworkers, none less than two seats away and also struggling to stay awake, showed no signs of noticing. Relieved to not have caused reason for anyone to pay attention to him, Corey bent forward to reach out in the dim light to retrieve his writing implement. Except, he found he had no hand to reach out with. It laid twitching on the floor next to the pen.
Holding his breath, Corey turned the stump to better see. The bone had been sheered with precision, the honeycomb cells of marrow undamaged. Meat glistened as if pressed against a freshly cleaned window. A slow trickle of blood hung on the ring of skin at the edge, threatening to drip, but no more. Eyes wide and lungs burning, Corey reached out with his remaining hand to retrieve its lost brother.
Except, just before making contact, that hand fell off as well. No longer able to contain the poison in his lungs, Corey exhaled, then drew in and released short, panicked breaths. Even as he neared the point of fainting, the release of body parts continued. One forearm, then the other. Immediately after, his legs separated at the knees and slid out from his pant legs like hefty pool noodles.
Corey straightened in his chair, like a turkey being dressed for Thanksgiving dinner, his eyes wide and damp. It occurred to him he should have said something, anything at all, but before the words formed, his head fell off. It rolled, settled on the right side, but angled toward the floor. A small bit of air escaped a pinched nostril. One eye blinked its last blink. That’s when someone finally noticed, and they screamed.
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Photo by Shoeib Abolhassani on Unsplash
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