Ten of Wands

In The Hospital—NIGHT

I wake up on a gurney in a quiet hospital hallway. I quickly sit up, slide off and look around. A girl is on a nearby gurney in a near full body cast. I recognize her from the farm- pursuit and party. She wakes and snaps at me viciously.

I jump back in alarm then chide myself for the shock; her teeth aren’t much danger under the plaster head cast. But all four limbs, head and torso are in separate plaster casts and she’s rocking back and forth and she throws herself off the gurney to the floor.

She lands nearly upright and now advances on all fours, drooling and snapping her jaws in the casts. The whole effect is like she is some kind of giant, stiff, sphinxlike windup toy. Still, she closes in as I back up against a wall and fail to find a way out.

I dodge to the side and fall over a green body bag on a third gurney. A shock again as the body sits up, tossing me to the floor. The hands come up to pull the zipper open. It’s Spike, of course. Fucking with me.

Spike begins to crawl out of the bag and grabs at me on the floor when he quickly gets his arms free. I scramble up yelping and running for a set of double doors. But they are sealed shut, leaving me helplessly pinned against them as Spike rises from the gurney. He advances on me and I cower but at the last moment, the doors pop open behind me and I fly through backward.

I turn in the air, landing face-first. I jump up, lock the door. When I turn to survey what appears to be the morgue, I realize I am disturbing two morticians working over a cadaver. I nonchalantly dust off my knees. One takes a step towards me.

“Who are you?”

“I make the rounds as a comedian and improv actor.” I say quickly, roaming and touching and looking at the equipment, “I bring down the house, any house, any night. Tonight, as occasionally, I find myself in the morgue, to entertain the night staff. Tough room, but I like a challenge.”

At this, I fling open one of the freezer doors while the morticians still stand looking open-mouthed and incredulous. The metal tray rolls out of the freezer containing not a whole corpse but a pile of organs. I turn back to the two morticians, suddenly remembering the meat party and not wanting to be thrown back out into the hall with Spike.

“Humph. Do you want me to do some chores or something? I mean, I’m sorry you miss out on my acting every week. But, I have worked in a morgue before, and I can help out while I’m here.”

On mortician steps forward. She says “Well, then we’ve got a real treat for you tonight.”

I note for the first time that she is a she. For whatever that means. I point to the freezer.

“Yeah, I see you’ve got quite a chuck roast going on in there.”

Now the other, a man comes forward ominously adding “This one is special. It’s her ex-husband.”

He nods at the lady mortician. I gulp. “Oh. Let me guess. He was more of a beef brisket in worn denim.”

They both simile and nod.

“Exactly.”