nature of her beauty, the hair bleached to meringue, the mouth overdrawn with crimson. It was as if she did her best to look like a drop of blood in the snow.
“Aren’t you too old to play in the dirt?” Elma asked, giving my nose one final tug.
Neither of us knew how to respond, but Elma wasn’t looking for an answer. She was content simply admiring the slenderness of her shadow as it fell over our drawings. She pivoted to take in the view and then bent down for a closer look at the images in the dirt.
“What are those?” She pointed at the bullets.
“Teardrops,” Stasha answered.
Nurse Elma cocked her head to one side, and smiled at our drawings. I think she knew that the so-called tears were bullets. She must’ve been charmed by our subterfuge, though, because she didn’t handle us too roughly as she hoisted us up by our collars and steered us toward the red-crossed truck, her hands gripping the backs of our necks as if we were kittens she was dangling over a bucket of water but did not yet have permission to drown.
Stasha
Chapter Three
Little Deathless
I want you to know the eyes. The hundreds of them, in a constant stare. They could look at you without ever seeing you and when you met their gaze, it felt as if the sky were tapping at your back in warning.
It was on the day that the eyes saw me that I was changed, made different from Pearl.
But to tell you about the eyes, I must first tell you about his laboratories. There were laboratories for blood-drawing, laboratories for x-rays. One laboratory we never saw, because it sat at the foot of one of the cremos and held the dead. Mirko claimed to have been inside that laboratory once, after a fainting spell. He said he woke beneath Uncle’s resuscitating hands and was saved, but others disputed the legitimacy of this account. See for yourself! Mirko always said to these naysayers, but all prayed that they never would.
The laboratories weren’t places you entered but places you were taken to, on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, for eight hours at a time. They were filled with not only doctors and nurses but photographers and x-ray techs and artists with brushes, all of them determined to capture the particulars of us for Uncle’s medical review. In the hands of these technicians, we became picture after picture, file after file. Materials were extracted from us and colored with dye and placed between slides, set to whorl and fluoresce and live beneath the perspective of a microscope.
Late at night, when Pearl was fast asleep, her consciousness a safe distance from my own, I’d think of these tiny pieces of us and wonder if our feelings remained in them, even though they were mere particles. I wondered if the pieces hated themselves for their participation in the experiments. I imagined that they did. And I longed to tell them that it wasn’t their fault, that the collaboration wasn’t a willing one, that they’d been stolen, coerced, made to suffer. But then I’d realize how little influence I had over these pieces—after we’d been parted, they answered only to nature and science and the man who called himself Uncle. There was nothing I could do on their numerous, microscopic behalfs.
On the first occasion that these extractions were to be seized from our bodies, Nurse Elma led us down the hall of the laboratory. She held her fingertips to our backs so that we could feel the screw of her nails at our spines, and the airiness of her breath drifted down from on high, and our mouths were gagged by a perfume that made her sweeter than she really was. She escorted us past door after door, and when she trod on my heel I tripped and plunged forward and fell in a heap. When I looked up from this stumble, I saw Dr. Miri.
“Up, up,” she said. Urgency threaded her voice as she offered her hand. It was gloved, but I could feel the warmth of it still, and thrilled to her touch before seeing that she regretted the gesture. She recoiled, and put
“Aren’t you too old to play in the dirt?” Elma asked, giving my nose one final tug.
Neither of us knew how to respond, but Elma wasn’t looking for an answer. She was content simply admiring the slenderness of her shadow as it fell over our drawings. She pivoted to take in the view and then bent down for a closer look at the images in the dirt.
“What are those?” She pointed at the bullets.
“Teardrops,” Stasha answered.
Nurse Elma cocked her head to one side, and smiled at our drawings. I think she knew that the so-called tears were bullets. She must’ve been charmed by our subterfuge, though, because she didn’t handle us too roughly as she hoisted us up by our collars and steered us toward the red-crossed truck, her hands gripping the backs of our necks as if we were kittens she was dangling over a bucket of water but did not yet have permission to drown.
Stasha
Chapter Three
Little Deathless
I want you to know the eyes. The hundreds of them, in a constant stare. They could look at you without ever seeing you and when you met their gaze, it felt as if the sky were tapping at your back in warning.
It was on the day that the eyes saw me that I was changed, made different from Pearl.
But to tell you about the eyes, I must first tell you about his laboratories. There were laboratories for blood-drawing, laboratories for x-rays. One laboratory we never saw, because it sat at the foot of one of the cremos and held the dead. Mirko claimed to have been inside that laboratory once, after a fainting spell. He said he woke beneath Uncle’s resuscitating hands and was saved, but others disputed the legitimacy of this account. See for yourself! Mirko always said to these naysayers, but all prayed that they never would.
The laboratories weren’t places you entered but places you were taken to, on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, for eight hours at a time. They were filled with not only doctors and nurses but photographers and x-ray techs and artists with brushes, all of them determined to capture the particulars of us for Uncle’s medical review. In the hands of these technicians, we became picture after picture, file after file. Materials were extracted from us and colored with dye and placed between slides, set to whorl and fluoresce and live beneath the perspective of a microscope.
Late at night, when Pearl was fast asleep, her consciousness a safe distance from my own, I’d think of these tiny pieces of us and wonder if our feelings remained in them, even though they were mere particles. I wondered if the pieces hated themselves for their participation in the experiments. I imagined that they did. And I longed to tell them that it wasn’t their fault, that the collaboration wasn’t a willing one, that they’d been stolen, coerced, made to suffer. But then I’d realize how little influence I had over these pieces—after we’d been parted, they answered only to nature and science and the man who called himself Uncle. There was nothing I could do on their numerous, microscopic behalfs.
On the first occasion that these extractions were to be seized from our bodies, Nurse Elma led us down the hall of the laboratory. She held her fingertips to our backs so that we could feel the screw of her nails at our spines, and the airiness of her breath drifted down from on high, and our mouths were gagged by a perfume that made her sweeter than she really was. She escorted us past door after door, and when she trod on my heel I tripped and plunged forward and fell in a heap. When I looked up from this stumble, I saw Dr. Miri.
“Up, up,” she said. Urgency threaded her voice as she offered her hand. It was gloved, but I could feel the warmth of it still, and thrilled to her touch before seeing that she regretted the gesture. She recoiled, and put
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