The clock struck two. The strong wind brought the rain and the chilliness of the stormy night through the open window. He saw the shadows of the forest through the glass pane while the howls of the jackals were heard between the long and low rumbles of thunder.
The police surgeon gulped down another puff of smoke and stared at the wall. He enjoyed thinking about death and life during the short intervals between autopsies. After all, the postmortem hall was the best place to think. The joy of unraveling the mystery behind the death of strangers was priceless to him.
He threw the cigarette stub onto the floor and got up from his chair. The corpse was laid onto the table. He checked his log. That was the thirteenth autopsy since that morning. Whenever more than a few strangers chose to end their misery on the same day, the surgeon had to stay back all night.
“How many bodies are there yet to be seen?” he asked the assistant.
The assistant was removing the blood stained cloth which covered the young man who lay motionless on the dissection table. There were jars on the shelves, filled with liquids of different colors. He sterilized the chiseled knives and bone saws and placed them on the side stand.
“This is the last one,sir,” the assistant replied.
The surgeon walked towards the table with a sigh. He put on his gloves and took the scalpel in his hand.
The incandescent tube flickered once.
“The body was collected from the lower depths of the valley. By the looks of it, it is at least three days old, sir. The police have registered an FIR. The identity is not known,” the assistant informed him,after a glance at the case sheet.
“Another idiot jumping off,” the surgeon muttered.
“No suicide note was recovered, sir,” the assistant said and thought of discussing the matter further, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He was just as tired as the police surgeon.
The surgeon looked at the corpse. He placed a rubber brick behind the neck to lift the torso and placed the tip of his scalpel at the neck. He softly pressed the scalpel into the body and cut through the chest till the navel. The assistant held the shoulders as the surgeon took the chiseled knife and made a horizontal cut between the two shoulders. Drops of blood that oozed from the wound resembled a big “T” in the white body.
“Hmm, the blood is still warm, which means the time of death is assessed wrongly,” the surgeon told the assistant. He inserted his fingers into the open wound to probe further. The skin ripped apart like an old-fashioned waist coat. He paused for a moment to look at the organs. The lungs and the heart were cocooned inside the ribs. He took the scissors in hand and started to cut the arteries
Suddenly, a small cry of pain was in the air.The surgeon lifted his face and looked around. What he saw last before the lights went out was the look on the face of the assistant, who lifted his shivering hands towards the table.
Darkness filled the hall.
There was an eerie silence for a moment. The surgeon frantically shouted to the assistant to switch on the emergency lamp at once. A growling sound followed by a loud thud of breaking glasses startled him. As his body started to shake, he desperately tried to lean on the wall to avoid falling.
Lightning struck outside. The surgeon got a glimpse of the room and his face went pale as soon as he saw the sight before him: the assistant was lying on the table, his neck snapped and head dangling down from the table.
The surgeon fell down as if he was paralyzed. The next flash of lightening left him a visual that remained in his eyes till he took his final breath, a few moments later.
The corpse, on which he was working a few moments earlier, was standing facing the wall. The drops of blood from the tip of the scalpel formed a pool of blood right beneath his feet. He wrote the number thirteen on the wall and turned his face to smile at the surgeon.
Surgeon bit his tongue in fear and fell down clasping his chest, never to get up.
The jackals waited outside for their new master.
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