Death Wish
By Stephen G. Weiss
She came in the dead of night––a specter dressed in stolen, green hospital scrubs and a white lab coat. Tessa Bell had followed her father’s footsteps to the University of Iowa’s Medical School and had adopted his unconventional sleeping and studying habits. And just like her father, she was near the top of the class despite her night-owl ways and spotty attendance at lectures. Her classmates called her the Ghost Gunner and made cheeky bets on how long she’d last before burning out. No one, they reckoned, could burn that much midnight oil without going down in flames.
Tess relished the notoriety as much as she guarded her privacy. She couldn’t afford any distractions that might derail her quest to become a physician with the skills and knowledge to save lives and assuage suffering. She was only a few months into her first year, and already the task seemed quite impossible. Her midterm block exams approached like an ominous dark wave cresting over her head. There was no time for tailgating and cheering on the Hawkeye football team at Kinnick Stadium. No time for swimming laps or working out at the Field House. No time to chill out at the Student Union or stroll along the Iowa River. No time for a pint with friends at the Vine. She had to stay focused and avoid interruptions, whatever the cost. How else would she ever acquire the competence to hold a patient’s life in her hands?
With her path illuminated by streetlights, Tess walked briskly through the crisp fall air in the shadow of the sprawling university hospital and entered the poorly lit atrium of the Bowen Science Building, which resembled a concrete penitentiary and reminded her of an M.C. Escher drawing. She descended the oddly angled staircases to the anatomy lab in the basement level and punched the code on the keypad outside the door. An electric buzz echoed through the empty corridor beneath the stairs, followed by a click of the lock. Tess entered and flicked on several rows of light switches.
Her nose had grown immune to the acrid stench of formaldehyde rising off the fifty cadavers that were lined up in six rows that extended far into the windowless classroom. Industrial vents crisscrossed the low ceiling, and banks of fluorescent lights hung above each plastic-wrapped body. Full skeletons, plastic anatomical models, and rows of anatomy atlases and dissecting manuals were scattered about the shelves along the outer walls. It really didn’t bother Tess to be surrounded by dead bodies in various states of dismemberment. In fact, she felt thrilled to have the playground all to herself.
Tess snapped on a pair of loose-fitting latex gloves and peeled back the thick, plastic sheet that kept her cadaver from drying out. Additional plastic bags covered the head, hands, and feet and were held in place with thick rubber bands that left deep furrows in the cool, leathery skin. The students were told nothing about their assigned cadaver: no name, no age, no cause of death. The only identification was a black, three-digit number written in permanent marker along the shoulder, but a pale halo around the cadaver’s ring finger convinced Tess that the elderly white woman had been married. It was the only clue she could decipher. She wondered why the students were denied the personal histories of the people who had volunteered to essentially be the first patient these future health care providers would encounter. Maybe there was a legal reason, or perhaps it was to protect the students’ own mental health.
Without hesitation Tess got to work, going over all the structures of the upper extremity, brachial plexus, and chest wall. She propped up Grant’s Dissecting Manual on a book rack like it was a recipe book. Flipping through the greasy pages, she made sure she could identify every anatomical detail and discovered her tank mates hadn’t finished all of the required dissections. Wouldn’t they be surprised, she mused, when they came in and found their work mysteriously completed. The Ghost Gunner strikes again!
Once the skin had been removed, the muscles, tendons, vessels, and nerves of the arm seemed more mechanical than biological––like a broken cyborg rather than a human being. Tess yawned and suppressed the urge to put her gloved hand up to her mouth. Even without the gloves, her fingers still reeked of formalin despite repeated handwashing. For this reason she found herself unable to eat chicken wings, ribs, or beef jerky with her hands. Some of her classmates had given up meat entirely.
As the clock on the wall approached 2 a.m., Tess heard a crackling sound coming from the gurney next to hers. She was just about to move on to the leg and groin dissection when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the plastic sheet above the cadaver’s mouth billow outward. Tess gasped and felt the individual hairs on her forearms stand up before steeling her resolve and steadying her nerves. It’s just gasses being released from decomposition, she told herself, and wondered if that would also account for the condensation fogging the inside of the clear plastic bag covering the head.
Returning her attention to her own partially dissected cadaver, Tess tried to concentrate on the task at hand but kept glancing over at the corpse in the next row. She recalled her classmates complaining that the original cadaver they’d been working on had been claimed by the family for burial, and they were anxiously awaiting a fresh one. Apparently it had just arrived and had yet to be touched by anyone. Tess resumed studying her own cadaver’s lower extremity and turned her back to the body on the other table.
A few moments later Tess heard the plastic crackling again, only louder this time, and when she turned around the arms and legs of the new cadaver were shuddering like it was having a seizure. This can’t be happening, Tess thought, what the hell is going on? She remembered a YouTube video she’d seen of a butchered chicken crawling off the plate while the diners screamed. It’s got to be some sort of natural phenomena like rigor mortis setting in, she reasoned, or static electrical discharges causing the muscles to twitch like the bullfrog’s leg she’d dissected in high school. Unless...
“Okay, enough!” Tess said. “You guys got me––joke’s over.” She planted her hands on her hips and waited for the pranksters to emerge. But this was no joke; no one was coming to her rescue. She was all alone. The cadaver trembled and jerked like a condemned prisoner in an electric chair. An even more chilling thought occurred to Tess: What if it’s still alive?
Then the unthinkable happened. The cadaver sat straight up and began to topple sideways off the gurney. Instinctively Tess ran over to keep it from falling on the floor. Someone must have made a terrible mistake; this person can’t possibly be dead. I have to save them!
Tess caught the falling torso and heaved it back onto the metal table. Quickly she snapped the rubber band around the neck and tore off the plastic bag to reveal a pale, lifeless face with dull, glazed eyes. She palpated the cold neck, searching for a carotid pulse, and placed her cheek above the mouth to see if she could feel air movement. The basic life support protocols came flooding through her mind from all the summers spent as a lifeguard. Yet in all those days lounging in the lifeguard chair, blowing her whistle at rambunctious children, she’d never had to resuscitate anyone.
No pulse, no respirations.
There wasn’t time to run for help or alert EMS, and her cell phone didn’t get a signal deep in the bowels of the Bowen Science Building. She thought about pulling a fire alarm, but what if she was wrong about the whole thing? The other students would mock her relentlessly. Her new nickname would be Zombie Girl. No, she had to take care of this herself.
Without further delay, Tess arched the stiff neck to open the airway, pinched the nose, and attempted to give a rescue breath. The moment her lips touched those of the cadaver, she felt a burning sensation from the preservatives and tasted death. Desperately she tried to inflate the collapsed and rigid lungs to no avail. The chest barely rose despite her best effort.
Next Tess thumped the precordium with the bottom of her fist, climbed onto the table, and started chest compressions while straddling the body. After counting twenty pumps she stopped to check for a pulse or any signs of breathing.
No pulse. No respirations.
Tess was about to continue another cycle of resuscitation when the absurdity of the situation crashed down on her. This was pure insanity. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t a doctor. She wasn’t even certified in Advanced Cardiopulmonary Life Support. Apparently she couldn’t even tell the difference between life and death.
By now the cadaver had stopped twitching and lay there beneath her like a spent lover, as silent as the grave. Had she simply imagined everything? Slowly Tess climbed down off the gurney, replaced the plastic sheets, and removed her gloves. The formaldehyde had numbed her lips and the tip of her tongue. Self-doubt rose within her like a dense fog. She would not be the hero on this night.
On the walk home, Tess recalled visiting the infamous Black Angel in Oakland Cemetery when she first arrived in Iowa City. It stood nine feet tall above a child’s grave, sheltering it with its broad, black wings. Many myths and legends surrounded the hundred-year-old grave marker. Anyone who kissed it would instantly drop dead. If a pregnant mother passed under its wing, she’d lose the baby. Defacing the monument would also summon death. Nevertheless, Tess had walked under its shadow in the late-afternoon sun and placed her hand on the warm, oxidized bronze of her outstretched wing.
Twenty-four years ago, on that very spot, her father had proposed to her pregnant mother, who was intent on having an abortion. He dared her to walk beneath the wing or accept his grandmother’s ring. When she initially refused he punched the statue and sealed his fate. Though her mother eventually relented and Tess’s life was spared, her father died six years later in a car accident. The Black Angel never forgot.
Arriving back at her apartment, Tess noticed her roommate had left a scented candle burning on the coffee table. Pumpkin spice filled the air, competing with the formaldehyde emanating from her clothes. With a gentle puff she blew out the candle and thought about the permanence and invincibility of death. Who was she to stand in its way?
Tess stripped down to her underwear and threw her tainted clothes in the garbage can. She wished this night had gone differently. She wished her life had gone differently. Crawling into her bed, she pulled the white sheet over her head, closed her eyes, and let out all her breath.
THE END