The death of September marked the collapse of Summer and the crowning of Autumn. Cool mornings and silver fogs that hung until mid-morning sunbeams shooed them aside. All the while a coronation of bronze and gold swept through the elms and the oaks. Melodramatic maples heaved great clutches of crimson in their overburdened boughs and the aspens slipped into stylish coats of jasmine that glittered brilliantly in the deciduous display. Their celebration would stretch on until the woods were naked save for pines and hollies whose defiant cypress remained unmoved by the regime change. They threw in their pittance of pine cones and sharp stemmed stickers, (if the paw-stabbing litter around the parking lot was any indication) but they were waiting for hems of frost and ice to decorate their evergreen robes with. Not that they would have to wait long, if the cool October air was any indication.


Of course the grand change of seasons wouldn’t be known here. Precision groomed purgatory stretches on, its cycles unbroken among gray walls under fluorescent skies. A gallery of white labels on glass smeared over by the transient touch of less than permanent ink. The discordant flutters of sticky notes complained about the loud sighs of some distant fume hood and went unacknowledged. HEPA filters purged every breath of an outside world and the thrum and hum of conditioned air murmured the same utterance in a perpetual chant. Sameness ruled absolute, without fanfare in its carefully maintained dominion. It was an ideal work environment.


Teal neoprene crests across my palm, pulled taut with a snap before the hem of that synthetic skirt danced loosely around my wrists. It had a smooth feel to it, different from the sleek, stucco touch of nitrile blue I so often partake in. They feel excellent and have thickness sufficient to defy the tooth and claw of the specimens I will be handling. Gloves were useful companions, alongside a thick lab coat in separating oneself from the mire and duties of the laboratory. It simply would not do to pierce the veil of separation and sterility with a personal touch. You had to maintain professional distance. A layer you can peel off and discard at the end of the day.


Never-the-less I allow some specification to my liking. My choice of tools for example, tend to be a deviation from expectation. Ceramic debriding tools come in expensive packaging but a potato peeler put through an autoclave functions just the same. For most samples, for example, the one held fast by these neoprene adorned fingers, the difference is nominal. A single blade between two prongs allows for directional cutting. Rubber grip permits one to restrain the subject with a flick of the wrist – holding them captive against the meat of a palm. It minimizes the struggle and allows you to bend the flex of your thumb into the motion.


There is a momentary resistance. A slip-struggle as the blade skids across fine fuzz. Metallic whispers unaccustomed to the curvature of flesh. They shuffle awkwardly a moment before the steel finds a place to catch upon – then their conversation begins. Epidermal formalities are dispensed with – cut through at a broad angle that fights the blade until there is a sudden smoothness – and then the metal simply glides under my urging touch. I am careful but stern in the motion. I avoid the meat of the subject, but ensure the discourse flows in a single unbroken slice, despite the flexing quake of the body beneath. It cannot be helped. Muscles twitch and flex on reflex alone. Pain receptors whose floodgates are thrown – a burst dam of sensation that screams at a mind unable to comprehend or halt their advance. The blade carries on uninterrupted. A thumb shushes over a muzzle torn wide in a squeak of a shriek that depletes now bare lungs – left without a voice to heave their agony skyward. The fresh acquisition clings to the peeler for a moment until I twist it with a practiced motion, tearing it free. Fingers stroke along in the facsimile of tenderness, rolling the subject over as the familiar blade nears for the next pass.


When they are done with their steel debate, each sample is dabbed with a varnish of cyanoacrylate. A clear coat that cures in the presence of moisture – already present in those fresh wounds. They are placed into a tray indicating which ester forms the acrylates base. Some are controls. Others have anti-microbial additives. Recovery, if any, will be documented on a day to day basis. I don’t have much faith in their long term survivability – but it is a gray space in the literature I want to illuminate. Bonding agents, rarely used to seal wounds – the chemical agents are at best veterinary in their application. Widespread use is curtailed by the expense of medical trials – but microfauna are ideal surrogates.


There are many samples. I have to change gloves twice from the mired paste of spent tissue, liberated fur and interstitial ooze. An opportunistic study; the samples would have been incinerated if not for my timely rescue. Now each of them will be a data point in a chart in a future document.


Towards the end of the procedure my cellphone rings. I grimace at the interruption, but the caller ID is someone I have been expecting. Using the clean side of my knuckles I swipe to answer – and clutching the phone with them I migrate it to my shoulder. Clearing my throat, I greet my summons with a casual, but loud voice to overcome the whoosh of lab fans. It is a simple response but one I have found commands attention. “Yes? – Dr. Fluttertail speaking,”


The well-spoken voice on the other side of the line responds and dispenses with formalities in a brisk, but cordial fashion. An Indian accent, with each carefully selected word occasionally spaced with a searching pause inquires into my status. I am tempted to tilt the phone and snap a picture of the experiment in progress, but is unrelated and difficult to do. Instead I provide an update with base terms and vapid embellishment. A flourishing stock of samples makes available numerous opportunities. Staff is fully trained and despite set backs moving forward. I’ve already selected and begun on another sample when the voice interrupts to clarify it meant the status of a previous offer – one that is immediately more interesting than the little figure in my palm, writhing with a dull knife against its breast.


It is a prospective offer I have considered but not yet agreed to. A circumvention of office politics and the obstinate sloth thrust upon my career by anti-carnivore sentiment. The masquerade of false flat toothed smiles and horned devils who shake your hand and nod their head while a rejection stamp is mid-swing. The sort of thing you’d expect higher minds to have purged from their collective consciousness, were it not so insidiously institutionalized. Instead it promotes a dreadful kind of fugue on uncomfortable thoughts. A frustrating filter, like a muzzle that limits my ability to propose investigation into the taboo and tenuous. Instead I am confined to operate within the boundaries a herd. A group think that has ordained what ideas are acceptable and which are too crude, animalistic and base to tread upon. These are things I think I could tolerate, if the criteria for them were not so crude, animalistic and base things like tooth shape and dietary intake themselves.

So an external intercession to step beyond such anti-intellectual trappings is tempting. A defiance of the synthetic order that has been carefully maintained because sameness is ideal. A facade of fairness selectively enforced by the politically correct; a requirement instrumental to their common sense symphony that looks good on paper but devolves into senseless noise after the first act.

Such offers do not come without strings, which is why I typically abstain from them. I value my independence, my ability to decide my own destiny. But even if you overcome the first wave, the ceaseless tide will batter you down eventually. The icy water will siphon away your strength and in your exhaustion you will wash ashore or get pulled under. Independently choosing to drown might spin the moral compass of some, but practically it is no different than having your face held under. It was not a fair fight either way. There was no climatic struggle, no foe you could confront and triumph against. It was a long an arduous torment. Submit to our designs or there will be no design at all. The quiet dismissal of my proposals, quenching of my aspirations and culling my career by means of obfuscating bureaucracy was like artificially prolonging winter to starve a hold out. I bit my lip a moment before I agreed, strings and unspoken obligations be damned. Too long had I tolerated frostbite nipping my fingertips. A change of season was certainly overdue.


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Chapter 1: Acqusitions

A deliciously insidious addition to the Acquisition series by none other than  deerpuff that I finally have the pleasure of writing for properly.

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