Amputation

A Story by Aura Inanna

Disabled doctors, insane mathematicians, and American Civil War era amputations. (WARNING! Literal amputation. Be careful;;)

“Don’t run. I did a lot of research to prepare for this.”

A shove and a hard thump, and Neill’s foot pressed down on Jason’s back, pinned his chest to the floor, as his other foot kicked the wheelchair away.

Jason grimaced. Face to the floorboards, he could only listen to the clank of metal and imagine the bone-saw in his “caregiver’s” hands. “You’re the one who made sure I couldn’t run in the first place, Neill.” His bleach-blonde assailant ground his heel into his back, carved scars into his spine and Jason bit his tongue to not cry out, to not give the murderer above him the satisfaction. But who was he, calling another a murderer?

Neill was chuckling, no doubt with that sleepy smile plastered across his face, lit now with a maniacal gleam. “That’s true. I hope I can do this to your satisfaction as well, doctor.”

The foot left Jason’s back. A knee replaced it, another beside his left arm. Jason wasn’t fighting. He knew he couldn’t; he knew it wasn’t worth the struggle and the ache. He tipped his head to the side, tried to look up at his attacker, his grinning saw-bone, but a metal thunk hit beside his head and he froze. He was wrong. Not a bone saw. A cleaver.

Neill was laughing at the look on his face, reaching for something. Another gleam of metal lowered itself to his vision. A scalpel, still in its package, from his very own desk drawer. At least he knew it was sterile.

“You don’t mind if I borrow one of these, do you, doctor?” Neil didn’t care about the answer; he was already slicing through the sleeve of Jason’s white labcoat, covering his left arm, above the elbow. No part of him was strong anymore, besides his mind, but the cunning teacher had to choose the side with more live nerve endings.

Jason scowled, struggling for a deep breath against the knee that held him down. “Are you planning on using anesthetic, Neill? You wouldn’t want me to die of shock, would you?” He wasn’t helping him, or himself; it was simply a doctor’s opinion.

Neill tilted his head, gazing down at the exposed skin of Jason’s arm, having cut through the sleeve and yanked it down. “I wasn’t planning on it, no. I hope you don’t mind.”

The scalpel bit into his skin. It seared around the circumference of his arm, drew the blood from his pale skin onto the floor, onto his white coat, onto Neill’s bare hands. That idiot mathematician forgot gloves, probably misplaced them in a fit of narcolepsy, probably did it on purpose. The scalpel dug deeper than it was meant to, scraped the bone. Jason clenched his jaw, squished his eyes shut and writhed as much as he could out of pure impulse. The pain was undying, the torture of the slow peel of his flesh unbearable, and the flashes of white and red specters of birds dancing in Jason’s head assured him so, whispered to him that he would not wake up if he succumbed to sleep. So he screamed, teared through his own throat as Neill pushed back some of the skin, rolled it a bit, like a cuff, and picked up the cleaver.

He set the tip beside the exposed muscle and aimed for the bone, holding it like he was about to bring down a circular saw, and gave the writhing doctor a showy smile, “I’m glad you don’t seem to be bothered by my technique. Circa 1964.”

Neill slammed the cleaver down, leaning his whole weight on it, and the bone crunched, severed and splintered, and Jason shrieked, his whole body twisting and jerking with the ungodly crash of horrendous pain. He couldn’t feel his arm. Of course, it was no longer there, he would have reasoned with himself if he was capable, but the pain was blinding, suffocating, and the heavy curtain in front of his eyes, the fervent song of rushing blood and his own screams blocked out everything. Tears he didn’t know he was capable of prickled his dulling, dazed eyes.

But he was still conscious. Somehow he was still conscious, still aware of Neill tugging that cuff of skin down over his exposed bone, producing a decent surgical kit from god knows where and threading a needle. He sewed the Jason’s blood vessels and arteries closed with practiced speed--he practiced? what in the world had he practiced on?--and dragged the guillotined nerves out of the way. Jason had half a mind to thank him for this. That would significantly decrease pain down the line. Assuming he would still have a line on which to walk, now that a sharp buzzing sound was filling his head and the white flashes were becoming hot and cold at once, but he still could only feel that sense of absence, that feeling that my left hand hurts.

Neill sewed the cuff of skin over everything, and leaned back for a second, needle still clutched between his blood-slick fingers. The pale skin of his most hated, only important person had taken on a purer shade of white, a dull grey, a boney ash against the dyed red floor. Jason was shaking, trembling like in horror, eyes closed, mouth open. Neill smiled.

“Don’t worry, Jason. I researched how to treat shock as well.”