My experience with the dead
I've heard plenty of people say "I remember the first day I stepped into the dissection hall like it was yesterday."
I, however, don't feel the same. The day is fuzzy and vague in the back of my mind. Not because I've buried it behind the unhappy memories and unpleasant events, but because it was simply like any other day.
Call me what you will, but that day wasn't remarkable enough for me to have it imprinted on my mind. Yes, it was my first time smelling formalin, and yes, it was overwhelming. Actually, the smell was more overwhelming than the body itself that was revealed from below blue plastic.
The first time I saw him, it was not fear that gripped me, but awe and respect. Lying before me was a whole human, one that had laughed and cried and angrily persevered through his life. One that agreed to contribute to learning even after death. One that was lowered into a tank of formalin instead of a burning pyre.
One that was ours to cut open and scrutinize.
I've had brief moments of surreal realizations as I peel off skin and fascia. The tendons I tug at which lift each dead finger once contracted all at once to hold a loved ones hand. The heel (out of which I had once plucked out a long thin needle burrowed deep within) I peeled has walked more places than I have. The brain that we removed holds, or once held, memories both anguishing and heartwarming. The still heart I held in my hands used to speed up in excitement and fear.
Bit by bit we consumed him, not physically but mentally. Each part observed under eyes narrowed with concentration and dripping with tears from the formalin. All the afternoons spent leaning over pooled formalin and bundles of muscle fibers, nerves and vessels were afternoons I loved and despaired.
You'd tell me to cut the crap, but I've learnt more with this stranger of a friend than with any teacher or textbook. The question paper would ask me about the muscles that supinate the forearm, and his clean dissected arm would pop into my mind, each muscle fiber and tendon in their places, running down towards his bony fingers.
I don't know you in the way that you might want me to. You don't know me at all.
But you've been a bigger part of my life than most people I've met, and certainly the only dead comrade I could boast of.
