Emily's Seams

It was kill day.

Most of the researchers had a nicer way of saying it like harvest. I guess that makes sense. They really were harvesting the tiny bodies of mice for organs, tissues and God knows what else. But to me, who had no personal investment in the research, it was kill day.

It was okay though. These particular mice had been on an experimental chemotherapy and they were sick. It would be a relief to let them go peacefully.

This was George’s project. Most of the time I just did the leg work of the research on my own without anyone else around. I was happiest there when the grad students just put in an order for some work and I got it done. Alone.

Today I was not so lucky. George was in the animal room with me. I hated George. I was pretty sure he knew this, but it was like he had this thick gauze around his brain that let him experience life at half the volume everyone else was subjected to.

And he wanted to learn.

“You can watch.” I said.

He nodded appreciatively and planted himself on a stool beside the fume hood.

Mouse one. Weighed. Responsiveness assessed. Into the CO2 chamber. I watched carefully as she seemed to come out of her coma of pain to fight against the fumes that were now suffocating her. She tried to move her wasted little body to the side of the chamber but she was just too weak. She gave up in a huff and continued gasping for air that would never come.

“Is she dead?”

I always let the mice have another ten seconds after I noticed they stopped breathing. Just in case.

“Yeah.” I pulled off the lid of the chamber and took out the small mouse. She was still warm. I laid her limp body on the dissecting mat and snapped her tiny foot. She didn’t flinch. I got my scalpel ready and went to work.

George needed the livers of the mice.

My hands were working on their own. They’d memorized this procedure and now it was automatic. I didn’t even have to think about it.

Mouse two. Three. Four. I had ten mice in total. This was just a preliminary experiment, hence the low numbers. Normally I’d be at this for hours.

As I finished with the ninth mouse, George spoke up. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Emily? Could I try harvesting the last liver?”

I looked at him like he was insane. I was willing to do this. Mostly because I didn’t trust anyone else with them. Why on earth would he want to do this?

“Why?”

He sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. So gross. “Well, you know, my research is going to involve a lot of in vivo work. I guess I just want some experience.”

I didn’t know what to say. Technically these were his mice. I hated that. “Yeah, it’s your experiment.”

I tried hard to convey the risk of ruining it all with my tone but I’d forgotten about his mummified brain. He jumped up excitedly and took my stool at the fume hood.

“Wow, this is awkward.” he said as he adjusted to working under the glass screen.

“I’d be happy to pull the CO2 chamber out and let it fill up the room for you.” I said.

He actually stopped and thought about it for a moment. “Wouldn’t filling the room up with CO2 be dangerous?”

I sighed. They had safety meetings on this. I’d attended them and seen George there as well. “Very good, George. Now take the lid off the CO2 chamber and put the mouse in there.”

He managed to get the lid off the chamber easily enough but the mouse was another story. She was a control mouse and control mice are always doing better than the ones with the chemotherapy, even though they both had cancer. I knew that if we kept them alive longer, the experimental mice would probably win out but that wasn’t the point of this experiment and most others. For this one, George just needed the livers to see how the drug had affected the organ.

The wily mouse scooted around her cage, racing away from the chubby, clumsy fingers that tried to catch her.

“Dammit,” he muttered every time she eluded him.

I would have offered to help but I figured that the more difficult I made this, the less inclined George would be to participate the next time I had to do one of his experiments.

Finally, he got her. It was an awkward catch and he all but threw her into the CO2 chamber. He slammed the lid down and exhaled loudly. He looked at me, all smiles and joy.

“Whoa! You make this look so easy!”

Okay. Bitchy comments repressed. For the moment.

There was a knock at the door. Lynn poked her tiny head in. “Emily?”

Mouse ten was still gasping for air. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I know you’re busy but could you tell me where to find that stain I ordered?”

I thought back to that morning’s deliveries. Yes, it had come in. “Uh, yeah. I’ll grab it for you in a second.” I looked back at the mouse. Still breathing.

“Sorry Emily, but I really need it now. I wasn’t thinking and I started priming my slides. I need that stain in about two minutes.”

“Uh, yeah. Okay. George? Leave her in there until I get back, even if she stops breathing.”

George nodded quickly.

I took off my lab coat, washed my hands and headed out the door without bothering to dry them.

“Thanks Emily. I checked where the stains are normally kept but I just couldn’t find it,” Lynn said apologetically.

“Yeah, that’s because it needs to be refrigerated,” I said. I hadn’t meant to sound like I thought she was an idiot but I know that’s exactly how it came out.

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” she said quietly.

I actually felt bad. Again. Was I suffering from PMS? Why was I suddenly giving a shit about what they thought?

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have. The package the stains get shipped in tells me how to store them.” I tried to smooth it over without making too big of a deal of it.

“Oh!” she said brightly. “We really should pay a little more attention around here! I totally didn’t know that! You just take care of it all. Guess we’re really spoiled.”

Oh God, just shut up now. I picked up the pace and hurried to the fridge, riffled around a bit and pulled out the tiny bottle.

“Two hundred bucks for twenty-five milliliters. Use it wisely young grasshopper.”

She smiled so wide you’d have thought I’d just offered her a kidney.

Must leave now. I damn near ran back to the kill room.

“Sorry about that.” I said as I threw open the door.

George snapped his head up and looked like I’d just caught him masturbating. I probably would have screamed less in the end had that been the case. The way he was hunched and his arms hovered in the fume hood made it clear that the fucker had started removing the liver without me.

In two giant steps I was at the fume hood.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled. “I told you to wait!”

I looked in the hood and felt my heart stop. There was blood all over the dissection mat. The tiny mouse was on her back with her guts flayed open. Her tiny forepaws were weakly waving.

“Get out of here!” I shrieked. “You are such a fucking idiot! Get out of here!” I shoved him off the stool and folded the flaps of the mouse’s skin back over her stomach. As quickly and gently as I could, I flipped her onto her stomach and put the handle of the scalpel at her neck. My other hand tugged sharply on her tail and then it was done.

Cervical dislocation. Not a pretty procedure, but it was quick and before the mouse even had a chance to be afraid, the lights were out.

I dropped the scalpel and leaned away from the bloody mess in front of me. I don’t know how long I watched it. I don’t remember when I started sobbing.

“Emily?”

I whirled around at the sound of my name. It was Robert. When had George left?

He looked at the fume hood and then at my hands. His eyes widened and he reached for the nearest drawer. He tore open a box of tissues and shoved a wad against my hand.

“Jesus, Em. You’re bleeding pretty bad.”

I suddenly felt my palm throbbing. I looked back at the fume hood and saw the scalpel laying there.

“I must have grabbed the blade.” My voice was so quiet.

“Jesus! Those buggers are sharp!”

I gently shook my head. “I was on mouse ten. Pretty dull.”

He gently pulled away the tissues and nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. This would’ve been a lot worse. Still, I think you need some stitches. Why weren’t you wearing gloves?”

I came back to myself. “You think that would have made the winning difference?”

He shook his head and smiled. “No. I guess you’re right. But you should be wearing gloves with these mice, you know that.”

“He was hurting her.”

He looked up at me and for a split second, I was sure he could see it all. Like I’d written every horrible memory in thick black letters across my face for him to read. He glanced at the bloody mess in the fume hood and then back at my hand.

“George is an idiot.” he said.

I laughed a little. It was that laugh at the end of a good cry that comes along with the overwhelming fatigue of an emotional tornado.

He looked up at me again. This time he smiled. “Let me put these little ladies away. And then I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Her liver. I didn’t get it yet.”

He nodded and slapped on a pair of blue gloves. He crouched beside me, never once asking me for the stool. He flipped the mouse over onto her back again and gently pulled away the ragged flaps of skin. He reached for the scalpel and then shook his head.

“Bastard.” he muttered.

“What?”

He folded the flaps of skin closed again and gently placed her in the Ziploc bag with her nine sisters. “He made a mess in there. It’s no good.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. It’s not like this didn’t happen all the time. Some mistake along the way made the mouse’s forced sacrifice null and void. That was research. Her liver would never be chopped up and tested like the others. She died in a most horrible way for nothing.

Robert cleaned up the rest of the hood without a word. He turned off the CO2, mopped up the blood, rinsed and dried all the tools, put the preserved livers away and disposed of the now useless mice.

“Come on.” he said.

I knew what was coming tonight and I had to save every ounce of my strength to withstand it. I didn’t argue with him. He grabbed my bag and my jacket and led me out of the building and to his car. He opened the door for me. I normally would have said something horribly feminist like I’ve got two hands, one to get the door and the other to slap you for thinking otherwise, but that was dumb. I didn’t have two hands right now. I didn’t even have one. The one was busy bleeding and the other was busy keeping the other one from over doing it.

He didn’t try to talk to me on the way to the hospital. I wished he would. So I could hate him for it. As he pulled up to the emergency entrance, I awkwardly gathered my things and tried to elbow the door open.

“Hey, hold on, I’ll get it.” he said, already out of his seat.

Couldn’t he just reach across me and stare down my shirt? Something indecent would have helped my directionless rage at that moment.

“Thanks.” I said as I stepped out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I can come with you.” he offered.

I shook my head. “No, you’d better go. I think George is probably hiding under a rock. You can tell him I bled to death so it’s safe to come out now.”

He smiled and nodded. “Can I pick you up?”

I shook my head again. “There’s a bus that goes right to my place. I’m good.” I turned away and then felt myself turn around. Like an idiot. “Hey. Thanks.”

He looked up and nodded. “Sure, Em. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As I sat in the waiting room with my gob of bloody tissue I realized that that punk had started calling me Em again. I tried to conjure up some rage for this clear violation of my rules but it just wouldn’t boil. I couldn’t even get it to simmer.

I tried not to think about sleeping that night. I knew exactly what was coming. Julia would visit me that night. She’d replay the saddest day of my life. I wish I could have gone to Creekside or back to the lab. Neither were great options at the moment considering how fantastically unstable I had just revealed myself to be. Sure I’d been an absolute cunt to people but never like this. Never so emotional, so out of control. Not in a really long time. The threads holding me together were fraying a little more every day.