Seconds by David Ely

intended to conceal a real sense of worry and guilt, the door to his room swung open and a woman entered.
    â€œGood morning, Mr. Wilson,” she said briskly, as she advanced. “I hope you enjoyed your breakfast. You’ll need it. You’ve got a busy schedule today.” She seemed to be about his own age, but because she was smartly groomed and dressed, she looked no more than forty. “Oh,” she remarked, eyeing his tray, “I see you forgot to take your pills. Well, you’ve still got your coffee left. You can swallow them down well enough with that, I should think . . .”
    Wilson, meanwhile, had mumbled a confused and hasty response, and sat fidgeting in his chair, feeling at a great disadvantage for the want of a bathrobe, and not knowing whether to stand up and risk the parting of his unfamiliar pajamas, or to remain seated, which would border on a discourtesy. Was the woman a nurse or what? He could not be sure, but the genial note of authority in her voice, coupled with his own inferiority in attire, led him obediently to gulp down the pills.
    â€œWhat are they for?” he asked meekly.
    â€œFor your nerves.”
    â€œI’m—not nervous, really.”
    â€œWell, in any case, it’s standard procedure.”
    â€œBut look here,” he added suddenly, “I really ought to get some word to my wife—”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWell . . .” He hesitated.
    â€œNow, Mr. Wilson,” his visitor declared, with a reproving smile, “you’re supposed to put all of that sort of thing out of your mind. That’s why you’re here. You’re paying us to take care of those details. Don’t you fret about them. We’ve got them well in hand.”
    Again, Wilson felt humbled. Of course, the woman was right, he decided, but at the same time he was irked at the fact that he had been placed in such a vulnerable position—to be confronted without warning by a woman when he was not even properly dressed. It was deliberate, he thought. They wanted to keep him in a docile state of mind, by a combination of social unease and pills.
    â€œYou said something about a busy schedule,” he said.
    â€œYes. First, you go to the Delivery Room.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    She smiled. “That’s what we call it. The Delivery Room. You’re being reborn, you know. Isn’t it logical? Well, actually it’s our surgery. Completely modern in every respect.”
    â€œAh, yes. But—why surgery?”
    â€œMy, you are a little jumpy, aren’t you?” She clucked, in mock disapproval. “Look here, you’d better slip into bed again and let me take your temperature, and then I’ll tell you all about it.” He glanced uneasily at the rumpled bed, and she added, with a hint of maternal solicitude, “Come on, now. You’ll be much more comfortable there . . . That’s it. Good.”
    She took a thermometer from a case inside her purse and put it in Wilson’s mouth, gave the covers a professional touch to smooth them, and looked briefly at her wristwatch.
    â€œNow,” she said in a bright little voice, as if she were about to tell him a bedtime story, “in the first place, you’ve got to go to the Delivery Room to let the doctors get accurate measurements of your body, so they can pick the right size from Cadaver Storage. It wouldn’t do to have one too tall or too short, you know. Well, and then they’ve got to make certain kinds of special casts of your teeth and your hands and so forth. It’s all very complicated and scientific, but they do just marvelous work, and of course it doesn’t hurt you the tiniest bit, but they need to do it, you understand, so they can process the cadaver to meet your specifications. You’re having a first-class death, I think . . . Yes, I’m sure of it. Well, anyway, that’s the first stage, and