Melissa Haynes - Learning to Play with a Lion's Testicles

I set the ivory-colored porcelain urn on the dresser, beside my father’s. I open the white “Patient’s Belongings” plastic bag and begin pulling the Christmas cards out, one by one. I set them up around her urn, filling the dresser.

A cedar chest sits at the end of her bed. On it, her suitcase is set open. She had packed her holiday clothes for our beach holiday that never came to pass. I gently lower the flap of the suitcase.

I walk over to the mirrored closet door and slide it open. Rolls of wrapping paper, scissors, tape, and a bag of Christmas bows lie on the floor. My gift lies beside them, still unwrapped.

Thirty years. Thirty years this had been my family’s home. Now it is nearly empty, filled with memories, and the only memories I can bring to mind are the most recent ones. The painful ones that haunt me every time I allow my mind to wander—particularly in that moment right before falling asleep. The memories, so fresh and disturbing, they jolt me upright in bed. It was not Death or Fear I had been running from all this time.

The Drill Sergeant calls over the garden fence. “Are you ready for your biggest challenge yet?”

I had forgotten all about him and the final challenge he keeps threatening me with. “Sure.”

“Then get in and buckle up, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!” He is smiling from ear to ear.

Buckle up? I’ve forgotten what it even feels like to wear a seatbelt. Such a luxury has long since been forgotten.

If it is another harrowing escape from the lion camp, then I am ready for it. If it is another croc pit confrontation, then bring it on. And if it is building another road with a raging hormonal rhinoceros, then what the heck, why not? And Kittibon? We’re old friends now.

Moments later we arrive at the maintenance shack.

The Drill Sergeant parks in front of the maintenance shed. “Come along,” he says, motioning me to follow him.

I follow him around the back to the slaughterhouse where I first saw the cow’s carcass. As we approach, the stagnant reek emanating from within thickens the air into a putrid pit of grotesqueness. My knees go weak.

Just as before, the reek worsens the closer we get, making my stomach churn. I cover my nose with my bandana to lessen the effects of the smell, but that doesn’t stop it from tempting my stomach contents to resurface. The Drill Sergeant goes in first.

“Why are we here?” I finally ask.

“This is your final challenge, Melissa,” he says, pulling back the heavy plastic curtain.

Suspended from a cold steel hook is the body of the hartebeest. Plunk. My heart hits the bottom of my stomach.

“Last chance to prepare a carcass. The silly old hartebeest, remember her?” he laughs.

Of course I remember her. I will never forget her.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I can’t take my eyes off her. Her own eyes are still wide open. I can’t possibly butcher her. She looks so delicate and sad.

Clink, clink, clink. The Drill Sergeant taps a long steel knife against the wire cable suspended above.

“Yes? No? I didn’t think so.” He laughs, “Wait outside, you big chicken.” He releases the curtain, closing it.

From behind the curtain, there’s a loud tearing noise, as he slices open her throat, ripping open the jugular vein. Gush. Fluid splashes onto the concrete. A thick river of blood edges out from under the curtain. A consistent drip echoes as her vessels empty.

I close my eyes and try to block the noise.

“You’re not a chicken; you’re a coward. You stripped away her last shred of hope. You told her to die, and then you left her to die alone.”

Who the hell is this monster?

“You got mad at your siblings for leaving, but you’re worse than they are. She relied on you. You were what she was clinging on to, and you abandoned her.”

“I didn’t abandon her. I couldn’t stand the noise. She was drowning in her own lungs. There was nothing I could do for her.”

“If you were dying, she would have never left your side.”

“Who are you? Why are you saying these terrible things?”

“I am your conscience. Your guilty conscience, the one you have been trying to ignore. Fear can’t silence me anymore. You know what you did.”

“It’s true. I left the room. When my own mother was dying, I left the room. She was drowning. They put an oxygen mask over her face and had it turned up full blast. It was loud, but I could still hear her gurgling. That sound, that horrible sound, she was suffering. I was helpless. There was nothing I could do.”

“You could have stayed with her instead of leaving her to die alone.”

“I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Your mother suffered in her final hours. She was fighting for breath, fighting for her life, drowning within herself. She was a strong woman, and she did not give up easily. The battle lasted for hours. She was all alone and she knew it. You told her to go. You told her to die.”

“I knew when I came back and she was dead that I should have never left. She was there in the room, but I couldn’t look at her. I was too ashamed. I knew she would be disappointed in me. She always knew when I was there, and when I wasn’t there, she always waited for me to come back. She wouldn’t sleep unless I was there. I let her down. I abandoned her when she needed me most. You’re right. I am a coward.”

“I told you that you needed me.” Fear has returned and is trying to take control away from me.

“I don’t need you.”

“Yes you do. Guilt is what I was protecting you from. There is nothing crueler than Guilt.”

“It’s true, you distracted me and, like an alcoholic, I drank in your distractions, addicted to the numb feeling they left me with. But I don’t need you anymore.”

I pulled back the curtain. “Give me the knife.” My voice is as cold as steel. The Drill Sergeant jumps slightly.

“What?”

“Give me the knife.” I repeat.

“You don’t have to do this, I was only teasing you.”

“It’s all right. I want to do it. Tell me what to do.”

Fear speaks up. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m letting you go, I don’t need you anymore, Fear.”

“Without me you’re dead.”

“Without you, I’m alive.”

“I filled the void when your mother died.”

“I was afraid to be alone, but I’m not afraid anymore.”

“Without me you will be engulfed by guilt and live a painful life.”

“I was helpless. Exhausted. I had been beaten down to nothing. I did everything I could with what I had at the time. I have nothing to feel guilty about.”

“You’re a coward.”

“I am not a coward.”

“Start here,” the Drill Sergeant points.

I drove the dagger deep into the hartebeest’s rear hip.

“Keep pushing until you hit bone,” the Drill Sergeant says from behind me.

I try to drive the knife in further, but the flesh is raw and tough. I push hard with all my strength. “Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” I scream as I drive the knife in further, using my arms, my legs, and every other muscle in my body—slaughtering everything that dead hartebeest represents: Fear, Shame, Grief and Guilt.

The knife hits bone with a blood-curdling screech. Then the knife seems to take on a life of its own, slicing and chopping its way through tendons and muscle, schlik, slosh, schlik . I feel through the moves, trying not to look as the leg becomes loose, exposing the mutilated insides.