Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

Author:Kristen Arnett [Arnett, Kristen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Tin House Books
Published: 2019-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

Work. Always, there was work. If I could focus on that, I’d know where I was. I’d be safe.

I scraped methodically at the raccoon skin but couldn’t disengage. I was so out of it I hadn’t stopped to put on gloves. Raw meat slid under my fingernails, lodged in the cuticles. The bones were slick with blood and hard to separate. Intestines had burst inside the first raccoon, smearing everything in shit and bits of digested food. Halfway through the first animal, my stomach roiled.

The raccoon’s eyes were glossy. Its lashes folded over the lid in a charcoal fringe that made it look sweet and bashful. When I pressed down on the back to get better leverage through the rear legs, the lids slid down in a slow blink and opened up again. Brynn had always wanted a raccoon for a pet. She liked how wild they were—one second sweetly playing, the next hissing rabidly at you from a garbage can. Never tell if they’re gonna bite you or hold your hand, she said, showing me a video on her phone. We should get one, Jessa. Little tame raccoon we could take on walks around the neighborhood. Wouldn’t that be cute?

I set the bones into a dissolving bath and walked straight into the bathroom. I stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink, breathing in through my nose and hissing air out through my teeth. A bit of raccoon flesh dotted the toe of my boot. I leaned over the toilet and retched up all the things I’d eaten that night: chips and salsa, the beers.

When I was done, I wiped the flesh off my shoe with a square of toilet paper and flushed it down with the rest. I slapped at my face until color came back into my cheeks. Then I cracked open another beer from the fridge and drank it, ignoring the rawness of my throat.

I flipped the second body, setting it beside the newly stripped pelt of its brother. Taking the scalpel, I dug a track through the middle of its belly that opened into a deep well of gore. It was the worst trauma I’d ever seen. The raccoon’s entire system had been obliterated; but from the outside, it looked totally normal. Emptying the mess of it into the gut bucket, I started the whole process over again.

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