Sunday, November 20, 2011

Jesse in the Morgue

[Originally posted at Slacktivist (page 4).]
[This probably requires some explanation. The basic idea is that the story of Jesus is set in a present day high school. Some people were saying that maybe the character in the role of Jesus shouldn't be female. Perhaps someone bullied for being gay might be more appropriate. Also there was a question about the manner of death, a hurtful prank gone wrong (say by bullies who underestimated an allergy) was suggested.]

She opened her eyes, and then worried that she was blind. She saw nothing. She was lying on her back, on a hard surface. She couldn't see, and neither did she hear anything. She tried to sit up, and hit her head.

She wanted to swear, but none came to mind. She settled on, “Ow...” She sighed then said, “Ok, Jesse, what now?” Panicking wouldn't help. So she should just... she laughed.

When she had been younger, at boys' camp, and learning to kayak an instructor had tried to explain what to do when one found themselves upside down. He had started by saying, “The important thing is to keep calm so just take a deep-” and then he realized that that was extremely bad advice. One should never take a deep breath underwater. He amended to, “Just take a moment to clear your head,” but the bad advice had always stuck with Jesse.

Thinking of it never failed to amuse her.

She took a deep breath, and felt her soundings. She was in a box, rectangular. She hoped it wasn't a coffin. Coffins were placed in concrete burial vaults and one of those would be impossible to get out of. Then again every coffin she'd ever seen had something more inviting than the cold metal she felt around her, and no one would bury her naked. Right?

She pressed on each of the sides. The one her feet were at was the only one to give at all, though it didn't give much. She kicked. Nothing much happened. She kicked again, and again. And again. Finally something gave. The side opened and there was light, though not much.

Jesse awkwardly slid herself out of the chamber and found herself in what she assumed was the morgue. It made sense. If she'd taken more time to think about it she thought she would have worked it out without seeing it. The lights were off and her glasses were nowhere to be found. Nor was any kind of clothing. She took the tag off her toe and read up on herself.

Soon she said, “For fuck's sake.” She was listed as Jesse Joseph Davidson, Male. Apparently, even after they killed her they still had to be a jerk about gender. She looked at herself and noted that her breasts were coming along nicely, if slowly. They weren't any different from the last time she'd seen them, but they gave her some hope for the future. Maybe when they were bigger people would stop insisting she was male.

As she tried to figure out what to do about her situation an answer presented itself. A door opened, lights turned on, and before Jesse's eyes adjusted the coroner screamed, “Oh my God!”

“Yes?” Jesse asked. She was acutely aware that she was naked, and tried to cover herself with her arms.

“You're ... it's … I ...” the coroner stammered while backing up against the wall.

For some reason the coroner's fear made Jesse less self conscious. “Please don't faint.”

“What happened to you?”

“A bunch of jerks beat me up, rubbed peanut butter all over me and left me to die. It happens,” she felt guilty about the annoyed edge in her voice. The corner hadn't had anything to do with what had been done.

“You were dead.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I know you were dead, I checked.”

“Well you can't tell the difference between a boy and a girl, what makes you think you can tell the difference between a live person and a dead one?” Jesse hadn't meant to raise her voice or be confrontational, but she'd had a bad week.

The coroner's fear was replaced with confusion, “What?”

“I'm female. Fe. The chemical symbol for iron, the first two letters in FEMA, the Danish word for Fairy, the Spanish word for faith. Fe-fucking-male. Not male!” Ok, the peace, love and understanding thing was not going well at the moment, Jesse had to admit. Instead she was in a mood more like when she'd scared off the recruiters. With a whip.

“But you have a-” the coroner started to point towards Jesse's crotch.

“If you finish with that line of reasoning I swear by all that is holy that I will eat your brain.” She'd run completely out of patience for the obtuse, insulting, and annoyingly out of focus coroner, who had now returned to cowering. “Now, where are my glasses?”

“At the police station ... as evidence ... they took all of your ...”

In theory that means the police were taking her case seriously, that was the best news she'd heard all day. Of course it still left naked and with poor vision. Jesse figured that she should deal with one problem at a time. “I'm stealing your coat,” she announced.

“My coat?”

“Braiiiins,” Jesse said.

Soon she had a nice long coat, enough to cover her up until she found more clothing.

-

[There is a short follow up here.]

1 comment: