Short Story
I write this memoir in my journal to express my deepest disappointment and repentance. After a longstanding attempt at recreating what was once the apple of my eye, I am deeply sorry to inform whoever reads this that I have failed. I have not been able to spawn the feelings that I once held for the late, great, lost Adela. The affection and devotion that Adela and I felt for each other when our souls were young still have me yearning for her tenderness and affection. So now, I admit to you, my horrible actions that deeply sadden me.
Walking home one evening with my dearest Adela, on a dark foggy night -- in this town, it’s always dark and foggy. I do not know why -- this fog, was a particularly burdensome fog. If you resided in this town for your whole life however, you learn to not let the gloomy fog get in the way of your everyday enterprises. But if you were to move into this town, it would be so dispiriting it would most likely result in your own self demise. But nevertheless, Adela and I were enjoying our time alone when out of the ordinary, a horse carriage jumped the curb. As I saw the horse drawn carriage barreling toward us, my natural human aptitude prompted me to jump out of the way! But my careless, negligent instincts as a lover and a husband stopped me from saving my dearest Adela and forfeiting my own life just to save hers. I watched my wife, my life, my sunshine in this foggy town get conquered by the carriage. Estimating her body to land about 50 feet away in the park stream, I ran to my bride, but alas, she was just a lifeless carcass.
So now I write this memoir not to strew make people think I am insane. I am the farthest thing from psychotic. But what I have been doing is unacceptable. And just know that as you read this, I have already ran away to a far and distant land where no one will ever be able to find me. I just need people to know precisely what happened here.
On an evening that felt as if Armageddon was slowly approaching, -- approaching only because it was moments after Adela’s funeral had concluded -- I was walking back to my estate, when I walked past a clothing store. Studying what I was looking at through the windows of the store front, I couldn’t help but to admire and extol the mannequins that were staring back at me. Faceless, nameless, and lifeless, I couldn’t help but say to myself “well, what a perfect woman.” Ah, yes the perfect gentlewoman. Skinny, curvy, a body like an hourglass. The only thing this “woman” needed was a perfect mask to adulate her perfect body. “Knock it off right this instant Surgio!” I said to myself as I had to tear myself away from the storefront, “those are barren, lifeless mannequins in there. Mannequins, and nothing else!” Returning to my estate I fixed myself by my fireplace in my lounge-wear with a cup of tea and a hot dish to go with it. Staring into the crackling, flaming fireplace I found myself thinking about my late Adela over and over again. Like she was stuck on a circle track in my mind. Running through my thoughts over and over again on repeat. Finally, with much anger and annoyance I threw down my cup of tea into the fire followed by my supper. I howled at the top of my lungs and sobbed like a baby and grieved over my wife. Looking up above my fireplace I saw the giant mural painting of my Adela. I looked deep into her eyes and asked God why he hadn’t taken me to begin with. “Why God?! Why take such a beautiful, smart, caring human being like my Adela and leave the world with such a horrid, self centered, abhorrent man like myself?!” In the middle of all my bellowing my eyes couldn’t help but to be drawn to the beautiful face of my Adela. “I have to have her back.” I said to myself “I am not crazy! Any sane man who is madly in love with a dead woman would do anything to have her back! And I might be the only sane man to act upon my perception.” Saying those things to myself as I put on my raincoat and hat, felt like the right thing to do at the time. “I’ll be back,” I said to my maid as I left my manor, “I’m going for a walk.” I slammed the door and ascended down the hill that was my front lawn. I came down to the edge of my yard wear my groundskeeper kept my carriage ready for me in case I needed to make an emergency surgery house call to one of my patients. I capered aboard my carriage and whipped my stallion firmly. “YAH!” I shouted as I went down toward the town center. Being so late at night, no one was in town when I arrived in front of the clothing store I was admiring earlier. Extracting a stone brick from the saddlebags of my carriage, I raised the brick up over my head, and heaved the heavy brick through the storefront window. Grabbing a mannequin from the store I stripped its garb from its porcelain body and put it gently in the back of my carriage, making my escape back home.
Pulling into the gates of my manor I pulled my horse drawn carriage up to my door so I could unload my mannequin with ease. My maid greeted me at the door. In a hurry I disregarded her greeting and brought the strange, mysterious mannequin to my study. Placing the mannequin on my lab table I started to feel self conscious. “They’re all laughing at me down there. They’re all wondering ‘what on earth is he doing with a mannequin?!’” I was certain that my house help were talking about me behind my back. “Well then, let them talk. I’ve got work to do!” I thought to myself. Taking a step back I realized something. I realized that my wife’s lips, and my maid’s lips were wickedly comparable to one another. Grabbing my surgeon back I reached in and pulled out a scalpel, I began to cut out a place for the mouth on the mannequin. Calling downstairs for my maid my hands began to tremble, my nerves began to go crazy. Entering the study I asked my maid “Excuse me but, do you think you could go over to that table and dust off my mannequin please? I’m trying to practice for a surgery I have scheduled for the morning and all that dust it’s accumulated is making my sinuses go out of control, ha-ha!” I said nervously as I came up with a fabrication on the spot. “Yes, sir.” Said my maid as she reached into her bag and pulled out her dust brush. Walking over to the mannequin, she had no clue while her back was towards me that I revealed an anesthetic needle from my sleeve. Going up behind her -- my hands trembling -- I grabbed a cloth off of the nightstand on my way. Reaching silently into the air with the needle I took my other hand and smothered her mouth with the rag so no one else in the house could hear her screams, I cemented the needle into her neck. Praying and hoping that I hit a vein so the remedy could take its course through her blood stream.
Fading out of consciousness I helped lay the girl down on the table next to the mannequin. I began the procedure. Taking my scalpel and removing her lips sounded easy, and physically it was. But mentally it destroyed me. I knew right from the start that she was just an innocent young woman. She didn't deserve this. Knowing that it was wrong I kept going. I don't know why. But I just had to recreate my wife. I stitched and glued the maids lips to the mannequin, and then I gave the girl a deadly dose of a serum that I brewed myself, and put her body into the walk-in-closet within the study and bolted the door. At least I knew she was dying peacefully in her fake sleep. I did this to countless woman, for months. Kidnapping and cutting off body parts just to recreate my wife… And finally I did. But once it was complete I felt more shame and remorse than I did joy. It was like I didn’t even have my Adela back. It was just another lifeless reminder of my dead wife, the many woman that I've murdered along the way. And so now I write this letter to no one in particular and leave it on my desk. Please, if you have a weak stomach or your sanity cannot risk to be damaged, then do not, for the love of God do not unbolt the closet door that is right behind you. The horrid, and deformed carcass’ you will see behind there should not be seen by any human being. And not to mention, the haunting, terrifying mannequin that I've left in the darkest corner of the room.
Sincerely,
Surgio the Surgeon.
