Margot had been complaining to me all morning about her itchy back, her arms itched too. This had been going all week. Waking up at 7:30, driving to school, talking with friends, and Margot complained about how itchy she was. Back and arms, back and arms, back and arms, it seemed to be all she could talk about. She had bumps on the back of her arms. Mosquitoes, I thought. It was the season.
This morning in class I sat in my desk, trying to focus on the warm up, when I heard Margot get up behind me. She walked over to the board on the back wall of the room, and she began to rub herself against the pen holder. She lifted the back of her shirt up to get a better scratch. How embarrassing, I thought, and turned around to face my work, and to ignore m friend in need behind me.
After nearly a minute of hearing incessant scratching behind me, I heard a thick slam, resembling the impact of a rotted fruit. I heard a moan, both an octave lower than Margot’s normal voice, but also more breathy, as if the air had found another exit. I heard two more smacks, but these ones smaller, and sounded similar to pebbles clicking against a wind shield.
I turned around to find Margot, up against the white board, expressionless. Blood coated the bard in a splatter around her, like a rising sun. Her pressed arms held firmly to the board. I could see cracks along the board, as if something had just been drilled in. I recoiled as veins shot from her newly stumped wrists, and began boring into and coiling through the wall behind her. Capillaries began to grow out on the surface of the wall.
The teacher, Mr. Plausvoski, jumped to pull her from the wall, grabbing her arms, and bulling as hard as he could, but it seemed as if they had been affixed to the all. How, we couldn’t tell, she was standing straight up, and she no longer had fingers to grab the board, and her feet touched the floor too delicately to be supporting anything. He pulled as hard as he could, and then cried out in pain and fear. He suddenly knelt down, releasing his grip. I saw that he was now attached by three veins, one red, one blue, and one new vein, which twitched like a pump. His placid eyes cast down to the ground, and Margaret’s dull gaze appeared to turn to him as her head swiveled slowly. It then began to sway, like a loose tooth, then tore off, and smacked to the floor, landing in the mulch pile of back flesh, now surrounded her spreading feet. Somebody screamed.
She suddenly began to convulse, and from her exposed stomach, erupted a lazy uterus, celebrated by a rush of streamer entrails. It began to rise to the light, for a moment, still and stout. Suddenly, the ovaries tore open, firing eggs on whoever was unfortunate enough to be within range. The torn, emptied flesh arranged itself in mimicry of an orchid. As her veins spread across a greater surface, I tore the classroom door opening, breaking through a few thick, new arteries, and ran.
