V. Exit Stage Right
[just a fragment, but I suppose from it, you can see what is supposed to happen. Note that this story should resonate with Kipapa and Distance (previous) simply because it deals with Erica, Cliff's love interest... But it also resonates with the Amphibious stories of the previous section. Recall that Randy identifies with frogs/toads from those stories... Now read what happens in THIS story...]
“We’re going to do this humanely,” says Mr. Shinseki, the Biology teacher. “One student will hold the toad, like so, while the other takes a needle, and quickly inserts it into the front of the toad’s skull, just between the eyes. This will give it a lobotomy, so that it cannot move and feels no pain.”
Randy has qualms about this. “This is humane?” he comments, as he wraps his gloved hands around the struggling toad.
But Erica, strangely overzealous, quickly picks up her needle and, without hesitation, jabs it into the specified location. There isn’t even a flinch on the part of the toad, not one squeak. Randy wonders, for a moment, if Erica hasn’t gone too far and killed it already. She removes the needle, which exits cleanly, no bloody mess. Randy tentatively loosens his grip around the toad; there is no movement, no twitching, no nothing. He carefully lays it supine on the cutting board. He glances into the toad’s eyes, wet and without depth, and wonders if he doesn’t see panic in them, a dim realization that something essential has been irreparably lost.
“Okay, now I want you to pick up your scalpel, and make an incision down the midsagittal plane,” Mr. Shinseki instructs. Is it Randy’s imagination, or does he seem morbidly excited to say those words, like he is some kind of mad doctor-scientist or something?
“What’s midsagittal mean?” Erica whispers, scalpel in hand.
Randy uses his gloved finger to draw an imaginary line from his throat to his navel.
“Oh, thanks,” Erica says, and with the same zeal and gusto, proceeds to saw the toad in half.
“Uh, I think you can be a bit gentler,” Randy murmurs. “It isn’t like cutting through a steak.”
“Here, why don’t you try?” Erica offers, backing out of the way. She leaves behind a jagged, frayed wound at the throat of the frog. Randy gingerly picks up the scalpel, tries to nudge aside and clarify the layers of tissue that Erica has mangled. Throat cartilage, a piece of whitish tongue. It’s already hard to imagine what everything was, and how it fit together. Poor toad. It couldn’t scream if it wanted to, even if its brain could still send signals to do so.
Randy gently draws an incision down across the sternum of the toad. The blade feels dull, and the only layer of tissue he seems to break is the epithelium of the toad’s grey underbelly. It resembles the rice paper around a Tomoe Ame.
“As you probably notice, the sternum is considerably difficult to cut through,” Mr. Shinseki says. “You have to use a certain degree of force .”
Randy tries again, focusing the blade’s edge on the manubrium. But nothing happens.
“Here,” Erica says, nudging Randy aside, and commandeering the scalpel. “He said you have to use force.” And she stabs the scalpel into the sternum, and with an audible grating sound, saws straight through the bone. Gristle appears around the blade, along with dark black blood. Soon, there is an ugly trench of bone, blood, and bits of tissue where the toad’s chest once had been.
“Please don’t be too forceful in opening the chest,” Mr. Shinseki warns. “Remember, our objective is to find and remove the heart intact, while it is still beating!”
Randy rolls his eyes. There isn’t any need to pry open the chest; it has a channel running through it a mile wide. Somewhere within the messy wound is the heart. Or what’s left of it.
Erica finally realizes that she could have been a bit more gentle. “Uh oh,” she says, looking at the wound. “I don’t think our toad has a heart!” She raises her hand, the bloody scalpel still in it. “Mr. Shinseki!” she cries, “I think we had a heartless toad!”
Randy is about to hide his head in his hands, but realizes he’s still wearing contaminated gloves. So he just drops his forehead to the formica table, wishing he were some place else...
***
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