It’s time for my shift with the dead. For cotton-laced breaths taken through the mask I bought during Covid, repurposed with a vent for work. I spend my days with bloodied hands digging through the bellies of broken men, seeking out their grime and grief for TLC. Gloves are a misconception. I plunge deep into their souls, tearing out their beating hearts and inspecting how they bruise, cleaning the dry mould from their parched and tattered lips. I douse my specimens in lukewarm water so as not to hurt and submerge their blotched flesh in a bleached solution to disinfect. Rough skin peels off in wettened flecks onto my operating table as I strain my back again hauling them on top, and turning over, to inspect the side scars fashioned from neglect. A day’s labour stitches up and cleans them out until they’re good as new, or else redone as something else with a new story. The dead return to their holding, resuming their endless shift of boxing and unboxing, their propping up with cushioned spines in glass-encased displays for the inquisitive eyes of passers-by to pick apart anew.

Lucy Rumble