Author Information
Cotton
I have an extra foot, it grows out of my left leg inward and perpendicular to the root stance. I wouldn’t mind it but I always stub it wherever I go. Other people live with their extra foot, an extra limb appended to their body and find the necessity in its existence; it’s just a foot and if I didn’t have it my life would be better, less complicated. Hell, If I didn’t have any feet that would be better than having a third. My life would not end because I couldn’t walk; I could still easily get around in a wheelchair, or I could get fake feet and fake legs and walk. My foot is a problem. For years, everyday I stub a toe, I run into a table or trip and fall down. I am always reminded of my extra foot. I have gone to countless doctors and asked to get it removed. It’s not a problem, it’s a part of life and ethically it would not be right for us to remove it. Today is the day, I get rid of my foot. I began tying off the circulation in my leg. My veins swelled with congestion, pulsating into panic and reverting into pressure as a reflex. I grabbed the serrated hand saw, held it against my strangled third ankle and pressed the blade into the bloated neck of the leg. Sensation was heightened by asphyxiation as I began grinding malice against the grain of ego and nature. Burning and bleeding, hot and exposed, my infliction was drawing close to hitting bone, a split second decision was made as I reached for a hammer with weak fingers and a weaker clenched fist, began striking the deformation until I could crack through the bone. There is pain that cannot be conquered through will and head tricks. After splitting the bone it fell limp hanging from the muscle and tissue that was still left; I am mostly out of the woods. I hacked away at the rest of the connection and with the final cut the full dead weight of the foot was felt in my hand. The feeling of holding a part of you that once had sense to your body, a connection, nerves, that is now dead in your hand is visceral. For a long while you can feel a phantom limb take its place playing tricks on you. It is now I realize how heavy my foot is, it is heavy, but it can’t feel me. I can’t translate my touch of holding my foot and it goes from my foot to the foot. Pain is lost in disconnect and the foot is not my own, I am staring at something not apart of me and it is foreign. I can’t feel it, and I like it. I begin the process of disassembling myself. I start with my left leg because I already disfigured it from its purest form as a deformation. Then I cut off my right leg. I can use prosthetics. My left arm is next, only from the elbow easier to remove when it’s at a joint, not cracking bones. I go into my garage and turn on a table saw. With the stump of my left arm, I attempt to cut off my right arm from the elbow but miss and cut off just half of my forearm. With no legs and stumps for arms I place my head on the table and maneuver a position to cut off the rest of my body. The feeling and phantom radiate heat from my blood and I feel warm. I smell the sawdust on the metal table and jerk my right stump around to find the handle, press the button, whirring, safety guard up, I make the act quick. With my decapitation I absolve myself from my body, I am on the ceiling looking down at the carnage. The room is numb and warm and buzzing and mute. I feel like cotton, pure and stuffed. I pick up my head and realize how heavy it is. I can’t get off the ceiling though and I can’t breathe and while it’s not important, it feels urgent. The cords are cut the nerves gnawed off and feeling is muted by the separation of my ego and the ground. I can’t get off the ceiling. I am weightless. I am pure.
