Out of Body

They pulled up to a grand vacation house, white and nearly brushing the glowing green canopy. Dignified marble columns guarded the house and stood so tall that they seemed to bend over Celia the more she tilted her head back, so she shook her curly head to dissipate the dizzying illusion, then turned her eyes to the heavy white doorway up the marble steps. Her parents heaved open the double doors before her, the unlit windows staring down like eyes and the entryway a mouth ready to swallow her. A nice place for her family to stay for a bit, Celia told herself, but undeniably daunting.

With the overwhelming size of the home and the thick, buzzing jungle, they would be isolated but not alone. Humming insects and screaming birds filled her ears in ascending waves while she dragged her suitcase up the front porch. She felt as if hundreds of eyes were watching them, the invading foreigners, and she could almost feel the presence of spectators breathing down her neck, though the bodiless noise refused to reveal its origin.

Before entering the looming doors, Celia met the gaze of one creature that was indeed watching her: a monkey to her left, sitting on a low branch intruding on the porch. He sat and stared just above two wicker chairs. Celia paused before the gaping doorway and rested her suitcase in an upright stance as she met his stare with curiosity, then held it as if it were a challenge. She walked warily toward him and he didn’t move nor look away—he sat like a statue that had always existed there and always would.

Approaching closer, Celia lifted her hand toward him, but something about the redness in his unblinking eyes and the stiffness of his alert body made her freeze. There was no fear in his posture; he guarded the home as if it was his own. So Celia stepped away as slowly as she came, and when she felt far enough, she turned her back, snatched her suitcase, and skittered into the house.

It was just a house, Celia reminded herself, and there wasn’t much difference between a house and a home.

Through the doors, Celia and her parents were confronted by a sparsely decorated yet magnificent foyer with a sweeping, stone staircase and wrought iron handrails to the left. Her parents stood craning their necks in front of a majestic, round table—hand-carved and stained a deep black with a towering glass vase of dried grasses, flowers, and feathers. She followed her parents’ gaze upward to observe a hovering crystal chandelier that shot stark streaks of white through the stagnant air, some shards contrasting the exquisite table and others accentuating the marble floors with midday sun.

“Go ahead upstairs,” Celia’s mom instructed her, swinging her frizzy golden hair around to meet her eyes, “and drop your suitcase in your room, then come down for dinner.”

Her mom and dad strutted arm-in-arm through the foyer as Celia started up the stairs slowly, distracted by the echoing clunk of her luggage and the fading click of her parents’ footsteps. The house even seemed to exaggerate the sound of her breath, especially as she struggled to lug her bag behind her. It felt so heavy that it pulled her shoulder out of place, shooting pain from her neck to her fingertips.

Halfway up the stairs, she set her bag down to rest. Her parents had long disappeared into another room and she was left alone with stone-heavy silence interrupted by her exhausted gasps. After rubbing her arm and gathering motivation, she gripped her luggage again and pulled with all her strength, but the bag stayed put while she did not.

With a vicious tearing sound followed by her scream, she flung herself backward and rolled down the steps, feeling the painful jab of stone against her spine until she finally crashed to the foyer floor. In the same moment she was falling, she crashed into eerie silence again.

Celia squeezed her eyes shut momentarily as she lay on the ground, her body still scared and tense, while she endured the residual pain until it faded like the echo of her scream. Slowly, she twisted her neck to angrily glare at the motionless suitcase, but her eyes widened when she saw her arm still grasping the handle. Celia’s opposite hand immediately shot to her missing shoulder, running her fingers over her vacant joint at the base of her neck. At least it was numb now—she could hardly feel the light touch of her fingers on the fresh pink flesh. It could be worse, she told herself, but she needed an arm.

“Moooooooooom?” she yelled, but the panicky click of her mom’s shoes was already approaching the foyer.

“My arm fell off,” Celia complained.

“Oh,” her mom clutched the blouse on her chest in relief, “we can just put on a new one. There’s a first aid kit in the kitchen.”

After helping Celia to her feet, they walked through the foyer to an arching doorway that led to a giant kitchen, large sets of cabinets lining the walls and the ceiling vaulted with another chandelier—this one decorated romantically with candles. It dangled over an island with a marble countertop that matched the floors. While Celia hopped onto the island, her mom opened the cabinets one by one, looking for whatever she needed. The cabinets were full of band-aids, wraps, alcohol wipes, bottles of liquid, saws, body parts, and tools she couldn’t name. Her mom found a needle, thread, and a right arm, which she laid on the counter next to Celia as she prepped the sewing needle.

“Whose arm is this?” Celia asked.

Her mom shook her head dismissively. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s probably a prosthetic. Does it matter?” she said as she lifted the arm to Celia’s shoulder. “Hold this,” she instructed, positioning the shoulder in her socket, and Celia held it in place while her mom began pricking her skin.

“What do I do with my other arm?” Celia asked.

“Just keep it in your room and we’ll figure it out later.”

“Okay,” Celia sighed, a little sad for her rogue limb.

Within a few short minutes, Celia’s mom knotted the thread and cut the string with her teeth. After a few test stretches and spins of the wrist, Celia hopped off the counter to take her bag and arm upstairs as her mom said.

...

Celia flung her bedroom door open to change outfits before dinner, only to be met with the smell of rotting flesh and the buzzing of jungle insects. A small mound of body parts lay in front of her dresser bruising green, purple, and gray, with skin sagging and bulging in awkward places. They had been sitting there for days now, having lost each limb one by one, and now she lifted her hand to feel the thin string laced around her neck, remembering that her head was one of the few parts that hadn’t yet been replaced. If she wanted to reattach any other limbs, it would have to be soon.

“Moooooooom?” she yelled as she ran downstairs to the kitchen. “My body’s rotting, we need to fix it soon.”

“Why?” her mom asked without turning from the stove, where she stirred their dinner in a large pot, “What’s wrong with the body you have now?”

“It’s not mine.”

She shrugged, “Sure it is.”

“But I feel like a conscious existing in someone else’s body. Like I don’t even exist.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” she rolled her head and eyes. “We all go through it at some point in our lives. Just be grateful for what you have.”

Celia picked at her nails and stared at them in thought, weighing her options, though there weren’t many. “What should I do with my body parts then?” she asked.

Her mom paused and tilted her head toward the towering ceiling. “Well,” she wondered, “I guess you could toss them in the backyard. Not the most sanitary option,” she admitted, “but nature will take care of it.”

Her mom resumed stirring, effectively ending the conversation. Celia gazed out the sparkling kitchen windows that revealed the dense jungle behind the home, observing the birds above and rodents below. But most prominent were the monkeys, howling at one another and often watching through the windows from the outside in, their eyes always peeled and piercing as they shifted rapidly from place to place.

But all eyes turned to her a few minutes later when she returned with her body, struggling to manage her arms and legs as she opened the french doors to the back patio. An army of unwavering eyes choked her, wide with cannibalistic desire. Sensing their impatience, she didn’t dare drag her body off the patio—she dropped the parts where she stood, rushed inside, and locked the doors. She closed her eyes and covered her ears as rabid howling ensued.