This is proving to be quite a dark story. Make sure to check out part one first if you are just joining us. And bear with me: this is going somewhere!
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part two
The surgeon was rather a dainty young lady, currently looking forward to going home after just finishing off a long day with a six-hour surgery. She stepped into the locker room and shed her scrubs, took a quick shower, then got dressed and began the long walk down the hallway to get to the hospital’s main door.
As she was walking, she noticed something that looked like the leg of an octopus disappearing around a door into a supply closet off the side of the main corridor. She decided she hadn’t really seen that, and that the long work day must be getting to her, but she decided to peek in just to be sure nothing was wrong. After all, the door was not usually left ajar. She flicked on the light, and her breath caught in her throat.
In the center of the floor there was a gym bag that appeared to be oozing blood. The surgeon took a step towards it, and it writhed lazily in response. She took another step forward and released the door, which swung closed on its own. She glanced back over her shoulder, but determined that this mystery had to be solved before she left, if only so that she could sleep that night without any nightmarish explanations for the bleeding bag infecting her dreams. She leaned over and unzipped the bag, and looked square into the eyes of one of the hospital’s doctors.
—
Sid had peeked out of his room when he’d seen the surgeon walk past, and he’d watched her enter a door labelled “Locker Room”. He’d known she probably wouldn’t be in there long, so he’d gotten to work on his new plan immediately. First, he’d snaked into a neighboring room to find something in which he could carry his new legs. He’d found a gym bag full of snacks and toys, obviously belonging to the young human boy asleep in the room’s bed. Sid had resisted the urge to investigate how similar human child tasted to human adult, and had instead emptied out the gym bag of its contents before dragging it back into his own room.
He’d stuffed the doctor’s old legs into his new bag. He’d had to bend them forcefully at the knees and really cram them in, but in the end they’d fit rather nicely. Sid had been just about to leave the room with his prized possessions when he had been hit by another brilliant thought. He would need some way to talk to the surgeon if he hoped to get her to help him attach his legs to his body. Sid had slunk back over to the doctor’s corpse (called that, because it was no longer gasping for air), and removed the head. He’d put that in the bag as well and gone off on his way to bring his spare parts to see the surgeon.
Partway down the hallway, he’d seen the door to the locker room swing open, and a figure in street clothes had stepped out. Sid hadn’t been able to tell if this was the same human that he’d seen go in, so he’d decided to beat a strategic retreat into a closet off to the side of the hallway, from where he could monitor the situation. He’d kept an eye on the human as she strode towards the door behind which Sid was hiding with his precious doctor pieces. At the last second before the woman, who Sid by that time was quite sure was the surgeon, stepped through the door, Sid had decided to get into place.
—
“Hello, ssurgeon,” hissed the doctor. No, it wasn’t the doctor. It was just his head, shoved into a bag with what seemed to be his legs.
“Hi.”
“If you pleasse, I would very much appreciate it if you could ssuture thesse legss to me. It’ss ssuch an inconveniencce when they jusst roll away from my body.”
“What are you doing with all these pieces separated from your body in the first place?” asked the nurse, quite reasonably.
“Well, the doctor wassn’t ussing them, sso I thought I might give hiss legss a try,” sibilated the doctor’s head.
The surgeon didn’t know how to respond. She saw something whipping around in the bag beneath the head.
“Hang on a second.” She picked up the head and saw a snake curled up in the middle of the gym bag. It looked quite ridiculous with a bandage wrapped around its head, partially covering one eye. However, the bandage was soaked quite heavily in blood from the doctor’s neck, into which the snake had apparently put its own head, giving it a slightly more sinister appearance. The snake flicked its tongue at the surgeon impatiently, then stared intently at the head she held in her hand.
“Sorry,” said the surgeon, returning the doctor’s head to the gym bag. “So who are you? And how did the doctor come to part with these… parts?”
“I’m Ssid,” said Sid. “The doctor gave up hiss life sso that I could know what it feelss like to be human. What it feelss like to walk around without having to crawl on my belly. Now, will you help me to attach thesse legss?”
“I’m sorry, I’m off duty,” explained the surgeon. “Besides, I’m pretty sure everything you’re doing in here is a crime against nature, and I’d rather not have a hand in that. So goodbye.”
As she turned to leave, she felt a shot of pain go through her heel. She looked down and saw the snake, Sid, sinking his teeth into her skin. She hoped to God he wasn’t poisonous. As she was about to lift her foot to shake him of, he readjusted his bite, slicing quite tidily through her Achilles tendon. She heard a snap, and instantly lost the ability to balance on that foot. She came down heavily, smacking her head on a shelf on the way down.
Sid made sure she was out cold, before he climbed up the same shelf to fetch a needle and some surgical thread. He’d have to do the stitching himself, but at least now he had an experienced set of hands to use to attach those legs.
Oh yes, he thought smugly as he slunk back down towards the surgeon. You’ll have a hand in this, my dear.
end of part two
(to part three)
Melancholy Mad Elephants 