The Beloved Prometheus

My fellows at the college asked if I was married. Truthfully, I told them no, but I hoped to be soon. They asked if I had a paramour. Tentatively, I said yes. It was easier than the truth.

I stayed in the laboratory long after nightfall under the guise of studying. I was studying, I suppose, but not for any thesis. It was selfish interest that brought me there night after night, poring over anatomy textbooks until the last of the students and professors had trickled out into the night.

Below the library were the labs, which smelled of chemicals and rot. These were locked at night, but not for me. I had taken a job as a cleaner there to disinfect the tools and dispose of the bio-hazard waste. The pay was meager, next to nothing. I didn’t even plan to collect it. The keys it provided were payment enough. The tools I soaked in alcohol and the waste I threw away because even that was of no use to me. What I needed dwelled in the chilled chambers. That’s where they kept the body parts for dissection.

A whole body missing would be noticed. Pieces would not. If those pieces came from cadavers already in the midst of dissection, even less so.

From my studies I could tell the healthy hearts and vessels from the withered, the fresh liver from the drinker’s, the rich bones from the deficient. The pockets of my coat could only conceal so much. It took many long weeks of heavy walks in the dark back home.

In the guesthouse where I lived, on the estate of a lord who was also a patron of the college, I hid it all away in the basement. It was cool enough to keep the pieces there. Some I set in iceboxes while the delicate ones I kept floating in jars. Once I had enough parts, he could truly begin to take shape.

After my lectures, my colleagues asked me about him. I told them of beautiful eyes, not that I had fortunately plucked them from the same source. I spoke of his voice, or at least how I imagined it would sound with the collection of tongue, larynx, palette and all combined. I spoke of his soft yet strong hands. Those needed no artifice, though they needed not know what a chore they were to stuff into by overcoat. They asked when they could meet him. Soon, I promised.

But in the basement, I learned that there is no such thing as a lightning bolt moment. Life bled into him slowly after the transfusion began. I thought that starting the functions of the body before it was complete could aid in the grafting and keep the pieces fresh. But one underground morning, as I poured over the perfection stitched together on his pallid face, I saw his eyelids flutter. He drew breath from his as-of-yet single lung. I placed my hand on his heart and weakly, but distinctly, it was beating.

I retreated to my parlor and sipped my tea with a nervous hand. Surely it was the sleep deprivation.

When I returned below, however, I found him as he was, only his many scars and stitches had begun to heal over. He existed in the space between being an anatomical curiosity and a man. I conceded that I would have to work faster.

My coat grew heavier in the coming days with larger pieces and more of them. He would sometimes grab my arm as I tried to attach them. But to my horror, he did not grow more human as he grew more complete. He only grew stronger, larger, and more alive.

One night I found him standing to greet me. He did not speak. He did not attack. He only looked me over with an expression I prayed was not disdain. I closed the door and blocked it from the outside.

I tried to go to bed but I knew I could not sleep in that house. I made my way back to the library. I could rest there but I could not make myself sleep.

It took days for me to return to the house. But when I did, the door hung on a single hinge, torn half to splinters. The furniture laid in broken shambles. The door to the basement was gone as was any sign of my unfortunate man. It was only on my walk home I saw a towering creature of flesh staring from beyond the lord’s lands. I averted my eyes but felt his on me.

It was with a heavy heart that I announced to my professors and fellows that I would be taking a leave from my studies until summer to stay with my sister. When they asked why, I told them my love was dead.

I didn’t have the heart to hunt him. Even if I did, I didn’t know if he could even die.