|The Hollow Man

A dead man realizing death. Inspired by Georg Heym.

Strapped to the cold plank that served as his stage, a dead man felt each tender nerve in his body brighten and ache in a matter of seconds. He felt the urge to curl out his fingers, but found he could move nothing at all. He imagined himself smiling, ready to serenely stretch out his limbs, as if waking alongside the sun in a burnt, golden haze. The noises of nothing at all made him stir and brought his nerves to a still, numb life. His nurses entered to take care of him. He felt a cruel, sharp slick of metal tear apart the flesh from his neck to his abdomen, then the other way to mock his faith, or perhaps indefinitely preserve it. They tugged at the thread of his skin, undoing it all. It felt unrealistically pleasant, as if problems were leaving him without scar or issue. And as his dissection followed through, the dead man twisted and writhed with absolute mirth as his organs were pulled with great care, like fine ancient silk, segment by segment. 

 

His other nurse, the small one he’d been fond of, the one with black eyes and unkempt, brash crimson hair, cracked his skull ajar with a flathead mallet and punch. With his mind free in the most literal of senses, he’d never felt more weightless, flawless ― resolute. While their worked finished and all that remained inside was his own mort heart, the nurse he’d always been fond of dropped her blade within the cavity of his chest while the other cut loose the stiff, grey arteries. The dead man smiled and felt, in place of a pulse, the throb of the unhappy lights above him until he’d gone blind.