◆A fully anesthetized brain is not unlike the deeply unconscious, low-brain activity seen in coma patients

THE NURSES ARE A QUIET CHORUS IN SEA-foam green scrubs. Once I change into my gown, they guide me to a large hospital bed with metal railings down the side. I climb up.

My mother clutches my hand, tears in her eyes.

“This is going to be fine,” she says, like we’re in a bad movie. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Then the doctor enters. He looks different this time, in in black scrubs and a face mask.

“How are we feeling this morning?” he asks. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling good!”

He cracks his knuckles, which will soon be inside of me, a brutal intimacy.

“A little nervous,” my mother says.

“Well, you put those nerves aside,” he says. “We’re going to take good care of Cassie today.”

He winks at me over the face mask and it takes on a menacing air since I cannot see his smile. Then things begin to move very quickly.

“All right, you’re going to feel a small pinch in your arm and then you’re going to drift away.”

I nod, then there is a pinch and I do drift away. Soon, there is nothing, just a blank space where my mind was, the needle a guillotine, my body almost a corpse.

VISION

I am nude in the Butcher Field. It is a rite of passage. The air is cool, a shiver across the belly, back, bare bottom, breasts. The landscape is vibrant, stark: gray-lavender pre-storm sky, lush green moss beneath my feet.

Faint bells clang in the distance, then a new rhythm: Feet pounding on the earth, dozens of them, the sound of a stampede until new shapes appear on the horizon.

As they move closer, they come into view: A gang of butchers move toward me in a line, their bodies muscled and broad beneath their uniforms of white rubber aprons, black pants, red rubber boots.

The sky darkens and swirls as the butchers close in. My hands cover my private parts. They circle around me, review my body.

“And what do we have here?” one jeers.

“What a delight,” another hisses.

The butchers’ faces have bulging noses, strong black beards, aging eyes. Organs are reflected in their pupils — the intestines of lambs, the grassy stomachs of goats, the long-dead hearts of bulls.

“What shall we do with this one?” another one asks.

A silence descends on the group. I can smell death on the land now that they are here. They have been in the white rooms where the blood of animals swirls down sterile silver drains.

“I think we should do the classic,” says one butcher. “Just the inventory.”

“Yep, that’s right, Don,” another one shouts back. The bells ring again in agreement.

Two butchers step forward and grasp me by the upper arms.