Work Text:
THE AUTOPSY FORM: Black letters stand stark against the bright red of the standard autopsy form. Someone has filled the many boxes, letters small to fit everything in. Not per regulations, on top of the first page is written a title, “THE ANATOMY OF A HARRIER”
1. Assistant: Unknown
2. Coroner’s case no.: PSE01-0412.2812
3. Name: Harrier Du Bois
4. Date of birth: Winter ’07
5. Age: 45
6. Race: Mondial (Sub group: Occidental)
7. Sex: Male
8. Date of death: --.--.--
9. Body identified by: Unknown
10. Case number: PSE01-0412.2812
11. Evidence of treatment: N/A
1. External examination – summary
Clothes - Feet glad in protective snakeskin. Green shoes with a very disco amount of heel clack clacking against the cobbled and cracked pavement, the steady match of the lieutenant's steps echoing from a few feet behind him. Clack, clack, clack. Thump, thump, thump. It was a good, satisfying sound.
A shirt, bright orange this time, with a faded picture of a sun holding up a brand of soda pulled out of production because it was too much of poison even for Revachol. You like it, the glare of the orange is near blinding but it makes the world a bit more cheerful. There is a growing collection of questionable shirts - it is a game, like a red flag to a bull.
Trouse- GOT MY SATURDAY SHORTS ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, GOT MY SATURDAY SHORTS AND I'M FEELING ALRIGHT — It's summertime baby, guns out gams out!
Face - Freed from the cage of The Expression, able to express again, to feel again. The lines have worn deep, but nowadays they are carved from genuine laughter. On your chin is a dimple that invites someone to poke at it. It makes you smile, which is why he does it
Facial hair - First, the patchy hair of an adolescent, you will never again think yourself as cool as you did back then.
A while later, a charming moustache that your kids made fun of – you were forced to shave it off when you met her.
Then, a tangle of unkempt hair, making people feel queasy thinking about what all was hidden in there. You would shear it off once in a while, skin irritated, cuts on your jaw, your neck. The pain felt good.
After, the mutton chops, iconic now, went through several variations, the soft scruff & soul patch combo, clean cut, side whiskers, the jaw chop.
Now, too much of someone else, a ghost that lingered on your skin. You had to shave them off, had to be fresh, clean, even though Kim didn’t like it and your face betrayed the abuse your body had gone through, clear for all to see. You needed the face in the mirror to feel yours.
Eventually, the return of the mutton chops! They fit your face, felt at home there, and this time it was your choice.
Body - This body is getting old, runs older still after everything, but Harrier feels like a man reborn. There is so much to learn, to find joy and pleasure in, he does not intend to let his body stop him. There were even containers to open. The Jammrock Shuffle, had the lieutenant called it, amusement colouring his words pale blue.
Hands - Kim has noticed Harry's hands. And arms, and shoulders. It's been difficult not to notice, which he has, also, noted down. A bullet point reads:
- Harrier Du Bois: distracting arms
Which is a stupid thing to have written down, yet it would be even more embarrassing to try and erase it, so he had let it be.
They were good hands. A voice in his head added. Large, strong. Hairy. They did good things, mostly, nowadays at least. He was not too interested in knowing things about Harry the man himself did not know.
2. Internal examination – summary
Central nervous system - You know about the voices, don't you? Do you hear them too? Would you listen to them, the urges, the yearnings, the dreams, or are they just chemical imbalances.
Are you too, a multicellular animal who yearns to be something else? Good luck, friend.
Muscoskeletal - If this body knew how to do anything, it knew how to move. It seemed like he had put his flesh and bone through torture of all kinds and yet it had still carried him here. Through immeasurable amounts of alcohol, spiced up with every drug he could find, through amazing (crazy, reckless) traffic violations, and yet here he stood. Kidnapped by his own legs and forced to move on, from one container to another, driven by a sense of curiosity, detective sensibilities and good oldfashioned nosiness.
Respiratory system - This is where the you lives. Lungs expanding in the chest, in and out, in and out. Connected to a mouth with a lingering taste of apricot gum, not his favourite, but it was all he had left of her – the sickly sweet sticking onto his palate, coating his tongue, every chipped tooth. The smell fills the nostrils and gets stuck in there, inescapable, tendrils stretching down to the lungs, choking.
These lungs filled with icy sea water and were no stranger to murky depths even before that, but still they kept expanding. They are strong and stubborn; in and out, in and out, and so the water drains out, taste fades, smell gets fainter - now diluted with some things familiar (cigarettes, strong coffee) and some things new (motor oil, pine needles).
Hepatobiliary - Excess of yellow and black bile.
Observed signs: moody, anxious, pessimistic, unsociable, touchy, restless, aggressive, changeable, impulsive.
Suggested cure: Get blackout drunk and then drink some more. Set aflame, burn it all out.
Cardiovascular - N/A
Toxicology - Your body carries the evidence of the last decade, and it will never let go of those good old years.
The tongue remembers the cheap piss that is Pilsner, fingers itch and twitch for that hit of saint-speed. But just as Commodore Red dreams of grapes, so is your yearning just a whisper at the back of your skull. Eyes focused forward at Frittte, teeth grinding at gum like a teenager.
Serology - You have been at war since you were a baby. Your body is unbeatable, invincible, filled with battle hardened soldiers - brave is the illness that dares enter, these white blood cells have gone through hell and emerged victorious.
Gastrointestinal - N/A
3. Description of injuries — summary
A hole - His head is a hole. A scientific marvel, like that one guy who had a train spike go through his head without any ill effects. Just one big hole, right through there and nada, walking and talking and living just fine. That's what his head is. But it is also SO full of things. Useless facts, impossible things. Brain damage. Incredible brilliance never before seen or heard. A hole and a whole universe all in one head. How does it all fit?
A: Opinion – fatal injury
B: Non-fatal, post-mortem
The torn skin - Sometimes Jean imagines what would happen if Shitkid came back. The real one, not this stranger parading around in his flesh. Selfishly he hopes Harry would remember so that he wasn't the only one trapped.
This Harry is wild. Not wild like the man he knew before, wild like an animal you meet if you are the kind of person who goes on hikes and shit. Harry in his memories is in a concrete box, surrounded by snotty kids banging at his glass, gnawing at his own leg. This animal tore apart the old body of his best friend and emerged victorious.
A: Opinion – fatal injury a rebirth, like a bird of legends from the ashes
B: Non-fatal, post-mortem
Gunshot wounds - three attempts at his life (shot at four times). There are two old scars on Harrier’s skin and one larger, much fresher. Let us begin with the most recent:
- Pelvis, from a pistol, shot from close range. There is a gnarled knot of scar tissue here, newer than the rest. The muscle has knitted together a little off, but someone once gave it their very best. Perhaps it had not been given enough time to heal properly.
- Ribs, the right side. On the surface there isn't that much to see, just an old faded scar, but below the fat and the muscle there is a nick on the bone where a bullet once glanced off of. A shoot-out, all hands on deck. Both lucky and unlucky.
- Left shoulder, a raised rose of a scar. Harrier has asked about this but the other man just told him to can it (shut the fuck up) He still has nightmares about the blood, of the helplessness of watching his partner bleed to death in front of him.
A: Opinion – fatal injury
B: Non-fatal, pre-mortem
Weird jaw: Fuck you, polio! This little infant survived
A: Opinion – fatal injury
B: Non-fatal, pre-mortem
4. Conclusion
The world has tried, the other apes have duked, yet this bird still flies. NOT! DEAD! YET!