Zombie Birth
when asked about their first memory, most breathers recall breast feeding, riding a tricycle, being afraid of the dark, getting dressed for bed, discovering their bellybutton, playing with bugs, their first day of school, their first stuffed animal, or their first christmas.
no one remembers their birth. getting evicted from the womb and squeezed out through the vaginal canal. your skin covered in amniotic fluid and placental blood. emerging into a noisy world with strange smells and blinding lights. someone with a white mask and gloves grabbing your soft, malleable head with a pair of forceps.
no wonder newborn babies cry.
my new existence, my zombie birth, began with the realization that my external body cavities were packed with autopsy gel.
not exactly one of the top ten moments of my life.
except this isn’t life anymore. and it’s not death, either. it’s not even in between. it’s more like a bad spin-off from a successful sitcom that the network refuses to cancel.
not every corpse that’s prepped for burial gets plugged up with cotton soaked in autopsy gel like me, but my mortician was a stickler for details. a real by-the-book kind of guy. even dressed me in a skin-tight plastic body suit to control the leakage of any body fluids. i had a hell of a time getting out of that damn thing.
