Thursday, September 2, 2010

Close Encounter

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get over their eyes.  Their hairless, fetal pink skin wasn’t much better, but the eyes were the worst.

At least two dozen of the things lay there, all with perfectly identical pairs of empty black eyes that gleamed like marbles.  They were like those dome covered security cameras they have at the bank; you can’t see it, but you know it’s watching your every move.

“They’re not of this world,” I muttered to Amy.

“Definitely alien,” she agreed.

Neither of us dared to look away from them, certain they would spring to life and jump us if we did.

“Okay class,” Chef Michael strode in.  “I’m glad to see that everyone survived our first week of Advanced Butchering, so we’ll begin this week with a new beast: suckling pig.  If one person from each bench will come up and pick a pig, we’ll get started.”

Amy and I looked at one another.  I threw paper.  She threw scissors.

Cursing my bad luck, I grabbed a hotel pan while Amy lay out our carving knives.

Approaching the pig pile, their unearthly plastic, alien quality became even more apparent.  They stared up at me.  I gulped.

Look at it this way, I told myself.  At least you won’t be facing it unarmed.

With that final thought in mind, I grabbed the nearest pig by its front hooves and pulled.

6 comments:

Genevieve Jack said...

Wow. This brought back memories of dissecting things in anatomy class. I was fine as long as I didn't think too hard about what I was doing. Pigs are hard. Very human looking skin. Nice story.

Marisa Birns said...

I absolutely could not even touch the things I had to dissect. My lab partner always did it. Needless to say, I did not get A pluses in these classes.

Good horror story. :)

V.R. Leavitt said...

I may have been Marisa's lab partner. LOL I was always with people who didn't want to dissect, so I had to do it.

Great story!! I love your description of the eyes. So true.

Valerie said...

For some reason, in middle school I had no trouble dissecting anything. Now I can't even think about animal guts without getting upset. Good story. And hey, at least they get to eat the pigs when they're finished, right?

Lena S. said...

Wow, I never thought that so many people would have flash backs to science class over this. Dissections never bothered me as long as I didn't think about the animal ever being alive. The smell of formaldehyde turned my stomach much quicker than the sight of guts!

Thank you all for reading!

Denise Covey said...

I wouldn't want to be in her shoes! Guess somebody's gotta do it! Great flash..:) I'll look forward to reading more of your stories.