The Octopus Has Three Hearts by Rachel Rose

Author:Rachel Rose
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, short fiction, animals, parenthood, sexuality, identity, fidelity, belonging
ISBN: 9781771622899
Publisher: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
Published: 2021-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

Wings on Pigs

If I were a racist pig, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. Instead I am a twenty-two-year-old white male police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man after I pulled him over for erratic driving. I graduated with honours from the Academy eleven months ago. My record is spotless. I shot this man while he was reaching for something behind his seat that I was sure was a gun. How sure was I? Sure enough not to risk my life, for one thing. I kiss my wife, Julia, goodbye every morning and she tells me, “Come home safe.”

I always tell her, “I intend to.”

So I did what I thought was necessary. I was leaning in his open window, my hand on my gun, when he made his move. I reacted faster than thought, shooting him three times in the back as he twisted for what the reptile part of my brain knew was a gun. “Did you shoot me, officer?” he gasped, looking at me with eyes so big, so startled with the immensity of what had come upon him. Then he pounded his chest with his fist like he’d gotten water down the wrong way. I looked from the weapon I had just discharged to the man I had just shot, trying to figure out the connection. “I’m burning!” he gasped. “Burning up!” The connection was my hand, my own hand. The connection was me. I couldn’t move. Finally I willed my body into action, opening the door and reaching for him just as he slumped over the wheel and died.

I knew he was gone but I still laid him down on the seat, doing chest compressions while I called for backup and an ambulance. Every time I pumped his chest I pushed blood out of his heart. It was the opposite of resuscitation. My hands were coated in him. My mind shut down. I closed his eyes. I didn’t check his ID. I could feel his soul leaving his body, going right through me like I was nothing. I was nothing. The car got so still. Then there was a scratching sound, and I saw what he had been reaching for behind his seat: a puppy. This wiggly ball of copper fur, some kind of retriever pup with long soft ears, stuck his head out. When he saw me, he whined, scratching the seat with his front paws for me to lift him up. There was a piece of tissue caught on his soft ear. I believe at this point I briefly lost consciousness. When I came to I was slumped against the dead man’s chest and the puppy was licking my face.

It took the ambulance seventeen minutes to arrive from the time I discharged my weapon at 1:07 a.m. At 1:18 I regained consciousness and put the pup in the front seat of my cruiser. I got back in the car and sat with the dead man until the ambulance pulled up. They checked his vitals, made a short attempt to resuscitate him.

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