They let James go and took the other kid back to the station but in the back of my mind I knew the other kid never could have done anything so vicious so the whole time I sat there I looked at James out of the corner of my eye, just trying to think but there was so much commotion and everyone was chattering- Marjorie had a fight with the waitress while Chelly bopped around and the other guests made a lot of noise. James just stared past everyone, out the window. “How you holdin’ up, James?” I asked him.

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I implanted these mesh tubes into this guy’s stomach- we’d just got them, boxes of them and really, I had nothing else to use. It was pretty much my only choice unless I wanted to chance it and just graft the membranes back together and pray… So I put these tubes in, blood sprayed up and out, me working away- no assistants anymore. I held the flaps of skin together, blood streamed everywhere, and finally I got his side sewn up. It was probably the worst job I’d ever done but when he woke up he thanked me like I was Jesus Christ.

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Dozens of them ran in the tall, rain-slick grasses, taking what cover they could, but my eyes were so well trained by this point that I don’t think I missed one of them. I spun the turret back and forth, “mowing the lawn” as Barney called it. Once one of them fired back up at me but missed. I keep at it every day, sleeping in my little bamboo tower, eating rice cakes.

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