The Papercut

When I wake up, the doctor gives me the facts. She delivers them to me gently—her voice like a warm cup of water you could steep a bag of tea in. Somehow, she’s made a car accident sound like a papercut, and so I decide that's what I'd like to call it from now on—a papercut. 

Can you feel your toes? she asks.

I think so. It’s hard to tell. 

Hm. Can you tell me your name? 

John.

Can you see anything, John? 

No. Is that normal?

Typically. 

She excuses herself to check on another patient, and I anxiously wait for her to come back. I try tapping my fingers against a hard hospital surface to ease my discomfort, but then realize I cannot feel my hands.

Are you back yet?

Yes, I’m here.

What happened to my hands? 

You’ve lost them, but that’s okay. At least you’re still here, right? 

I agree, hesitantly. 

Your mother is dying to speak to you, y’know. She loves you very much.

I’d like to speak to her too.

The doctor becomes occupied with something in the distance, and I hear her fiddle with an object in the room—maybe a plastic tube or juicy needle she's flicking.

When can I go home? I ask. I imagine myself twisting open the doorknob of my front door with no hands.

She sighs sympathetically. You’re in no shape to go home.

I begin to feel queasy, only I can’t make myself throw up. I remind myself that it’s just a papercut—a tiny little papercut—only I do not have fingers to slice anymore. The last time I got a papercut—I mean a real one—I took the experience for granted. I had been flipping through The Picture of Dorian Gray when it happened and never stopped to appreciate the paper-thin sting of good literature slicing me open. Now a Handless Horseman, I will never feel that sensation again. The thought fills me with regret and makes me wish I were at home right now, reading The Picture of Dorian Gray with a warm cup of tea brewed with the doctor’s voice. 

The doctor must sense my anxiety because, in a sympathetic attempt to distract me, she asks, Do you do anything for fun? 

I write.

Oh. She pauses. I've met people with no hands who write. Many actually. They write very well.

That’s good to hear. 

Yes.

We fall into another momentary pause, and though I cannot feel my toes or any other part of my body, I feel the same social discomfort I felt before the papercut. How long have you been a doctor? I ask awkwardly.

She scoffs. I never said I was a doctor.

***

I have this issue where I say I’m going to do something and then never do it. 

My biggest fear—I’m going to blink my thirty-four-year-old eyes one day and then wake up in the last hours of my life with my unwritten novel still lingering above my rotting, liver-spotted head.

I’m sorry, I tell the woman finally. I didn’t mean to assume.

That’s okay, she says, because you simply can’t be angry with a man who’s just lost his hands and vision. 

Are you a nurse? I ask.

A medium.

Does that mean you talk to the dead?

Yes—I’m talking to you, aren’t I? 

I try sitting up in my bed, only I cannot.  I do not feel any starchy hospital sheets underneath me now that I think of it. But that can’t be, I say. What about the other patient you checked on? 

You’re not the only deceased soul who communicates with me. Right now, I’m speaking to a man who fell off a ladder. And a beloved wife who died from bad eating habits in, I want to say, ’97. And those are only two of many.

But my mother—you said she wants to speak to me.

She does. 

Then please. I’d like to sp—

Just a moment—another soul is trying to communicate with me.

She excuses herself again, then cuts out before I can speak. I begin to worry she’s hung up on me forever, like an angry ex-girlfriend I’m still in love with. And yet, there is no hold music or staticky jazz or yacht rock to keep me occupied during my wait. No cheerful, artificial voice either to assure me that my call is important and that someone will be here to take me out of my misery very shortly. I try tapping my fingers again against a hard surface, but then I remember—I have no hands or, for that matter, fingers, and when you're dead, the only hard surface is the overpriced glossy coffin closing in on you.

Hello? she says finally, and my body—my soul—relaxes.

Please don’t leave me again.

You do realize you're not the only deceased person with needs, right?

But I’m afraid, I say. I have no hands and I only see darkness.

Some have no kneecaps either. In fact, none of you have kneecaps. Or veins or capillaries or those weird little flesh pads that hold your bones together. 

So . . .?

You’re dead.

I panic. 

But don’t worry. You're still here, right? And plus, you have me.

Then can you deliver a message to my mother for me please? 

Oh, she’d absolutely love that. But I'd rather not—that’s not what I do.

What do you mean? That’s exactly what mediums do. 

Maybe the ones on TLC. But that’s not how I use my gift. I get no joy out of stopping strangers in the produce section to tell them that their dead Uncle Jerry is A-OK, playing California Dreamin' on his guitar up in heaven or whatever. Listen to me, John. Your liver is sitting in an ice chest right now. Every usable organ in your body has been harvested, except for one—the story that lives inside you.

A story is not an organ, I argue.

It depends on how you look at it. Sure, it doesn’t pump blood through your body or filter toxins, and most transplant surgeons who knew better than to become writers themselves would also argue that it's utterly useless. I'm sure everyone made you believe that, too, John, when you were alive, a little boy, even—that writers and the stories that live inside them are as useless as baby shoes, car alarms, and diet water. But you know what, John. I disagree with those people. They don't understand you like I do. That’s why I want to help you, by harvesting the story that lives inside you. It's still viable enough to be transplanted into a book, y'know. It's not too late for you.

She goes on to explain that she communicates only with dead writers. She's tried dead budget analysts and even dead district security technicians, but she fell asleep five minutes into the seance and has since cut them out completely.

How do you know which of us are writers?

Usually it's the organ donors, like you. Because aren't all organ donors empathetic people and all empathetic people writers. It’s basic deductive . . . or is it inductive . . . reasoning.

I do not know and say nothing

The point is, she continues, I'm here to transcribe your novel for you.

That’s very kind of you, but I’d like to say something to my mother first. 

Maybe you can say it in the dedication page. 

No. Let me speak to her now. Please. It will only take a second. 

She laughs at me, calm yet angry, like the ocean that can either heal or drown you depending on its mood. You can’t tell me how to use my gift, John. How would you feel if I told you how to use your writing gift?

I think about this for a moment.

If you upset me again, she says in her calm-angry way, I’ll cut our line forever. It's very easy to do. And then who will you have to talk to? 

***

It’s a very strange feeling—to feel panic without a nervous system. 

There are some times where the woman sounds like a sleepy 911 dispatcher and others where she sounds like an unenthusiastic phone sex operator. I do not know anything about her other than that she has a husband to whom she's happily married. It’s a fact she says she’s made sure to disclose ever since a dead man inquired about her underwear color two years ago. 

For the most part, it's very easy to write when you're dead. There is nothing else to do when you're dead except be dead. And nothing can distract you either. You can’t eat cake or fall in love or impregnate anyone with a child who will serve as yet another convenient excuse to put off your novel for another eighteen years.

All you can do is write about it.

Could you please write the dedication page you promised? I ask the woman.

Let’s get back to your story first. You’re nearly toward the resolution. 

But can you just write something short. It won't take long. I already have the words ready for you. I've been working very hard on them while you were communicating with the others.

She becomes quiet for a moment, but this time, I do not feel awkward. What is it? I ask, afraid now. Is my mother okay? If it isn't any trouble, I'd just like to dedicate my story to her. So that she knows I'm okay. That I'm not entirely useless, after all.

I—I’m sorry, John. I’ll write anything you’d like in the dedication page. I'm good on my word, but I can’t guarantee your mother will read it.

Why not? Is she okay?

Yes, she's okay. It's just that, every book I transcribe, I publish under my name—it's a sort of tax for the dead who no longer have pockets to pay me. Anything you write to your mother will be read by my mother instead.

For a long time, we say nothing, then, without warning, she hangs up. I'm alone for what feels like months, maybe years, but I have no conception of time to actually say.

I know you're probably upset, John, she says suddenly one day. Everyone is. I used to disclose that information from the beginning of the seance, but then the spirits would get so boo-hoo-hoo about it that their stories would just die right along with them. Plus, whether you'd like to admit it or not, everyone has an ego—even the dead. They want people to say nice things about them at their funeral—to throw pretty flowers on their headstones. They want people to read their stories—to see their pensive, little about-the-author headshots on the little bookflap at the end. That's why I've found there's nothing more effective than giving them that false prospect of recognition to get the stories out of them. The very thought of it alone almost makes them come back to life.

You're terrible.

Do I need to cut your line, John? I could easily have one of my other souls tie up your loose plot threads for you. I'll leave you alone in your lifeless solitude forever. Don't writers love solitude?

No. Please don’t go. I’m very sorry. 

Good. 

But may I please ask why? 

Why? Isn’t it obvious? Unlike you, I’m still living, and living people need money—to eat, to get haircuts, to buy lip balm to coat their still-warm lips with. Your dead lips are cold, John, cold and blue like you’ve just eaten a snow cone. Don't you remember what it's like to be alive? Everyone wants your money. The water company, AT&T, the Church of Latter-day Saints. I need the money more than you.

I really thought you were a doctor, here to help me. 

She laughs. I mean, what's the difference between a medium and a doctor, really? We're kind of like doctors in that we bridge the gap between life and death—only we're better than doctors, because we're the ones who bridge the gap between life and death when the doctors fail to do it themselves.

***

I am floating in my dark consciousness, like a fetus in amniotic fluid who will never come out, when I hear the woman's voice cut through. Without conception of time, I do not know how long it's been since we last communicated.

Hi, John, she says.

Where have you been? 

Your book is very popular. 

Don’t you mean your book?

I swear—I’ll cut you out forever. 

I’m sorry. 

I just wanted to let you know that the book is very successful. Your mom is one of my fans. You have quite a talent.

I bite my nonexistent tongue. Thank you. 

My husband is actually taking me to a book signing right now. We're almost to LA, so I’ll have to go soon.

Wait. Please. What does it feel like? 

What does what feel like?

Being published. Can you describe it to me so I can vicariously live what you’re living? 

I’m not a writer, John. You know I don’t know how to describe stuff good. 

Well, try. You've described things poetically before.

Those were inspired by excerpts from my other books, from the other spirits.

Do you have a copy of my book with you? 

Yes.

How does the book feel, smell? Can you describe the texture of the covers between your hands?

She flips through the pages in that calm-angry way again. It feels like—paper. I don’t know. This is stupid. I have to go. Our exit’s coming up.

Just try. Please. 

Okay. Annoyed, she flips through the pages again and takes in the paper-page aroma when, out of nowhere, I hear a familiarly deafening sound—it's like . . . two strangers violently clinking wine glasses on the I-5 freeway in an unplanned toast to their last moments on earth. Then, just like that, their cups shatter in a spray of red wine and broken glass, taking me to a place I know I've been before.

Are you okay? I ask. 

She makes a strange noise, no longer flipping through the pages, and then, in what turns out to be the last time I ever hear from the woman, she says to me, don't worry, John. It’s just a papercut.