Autopsy Report

by Finlay Gilbert

These are a collection of monologues, that are written as part of a play about death; the central conflict is the ‘dead girl’ figuring out why she’s dead.

Autopsy report

She has died and is having an autopsy report carried out on her

Dead Girl: I could see a China doll. Like something that would’ve scared me at my grandma’s house when I was 7. She was pretty, in a demented kind of way. Like the girl from the exorcist. Actually no, it’s not that something entered her body, but that something left it. Electric blue lines shocked down her body, pooling and clogging, like leaves growing on a tree. Her blood was streaming to the bottom of her body, giving her a horrible undulating bruise. It looked really painful; I wanted to look away but couldn’t quite manage it; someone should have been with her. Plus - I felt bad that the moment she stops being pretty, I won’t want to look anymore. I thought I’d be stronger, or at least more indifferent – I thought liked the idea of Irish wakes.

I want to say that she looked peaceful, but she didn’t, she looked a lot like me. Too much like me. I cried out “Mum? Mum!”. I’d scream now, but I don’t seem to have a mouth. I miss my disgusting, rotten body. I would take being eaten by worms, or bloating so much I explode over this. But it’s hard to describe this as a “this”, God, I feel like a blind person saying what do you see out of your elbow, because of course I know that you can’t see anything out of your elbow. But at least blind people know there is something beyond what they can see – I can’t see anything. Because there is nothing, or I am nothing, worse than a ghost.

I think I thought nothingness would feel like nothing.

She is a doctor who carries out autopsy reports, she has a very pessimistic view on death but remains cheery.

Dr Felicity: I love cadavers; they’re just less annoying patients. I got into industry to deal with bodies, not to deal with your grandma, or her “Dementia”. Psych rotation was hell; the only let you train if you have the temperament of Hannibal Lecter and a Russel Terrier’s love child. Yeah - and then they expect us to be nice. I’m a doctor, not your mother. Talking of mothers… when I got the job, my mum kept on talking about an old-wife's tale about seeing someone’s last memory in their eyes…

She looks forward to considering the body.

Sadly, they are just vaguely depressing meat sacks. Remember Milton, I need to be off before ten, so I would appreciate it if you stopped touching her body, like you’re a teenage boy and she’s a hot girl. There are only two people in this room. If you want to help someone, go over to oncology or maternity, because I’m sick of your whining.

He is very religious, so he has moral issues carrying out an autopsy in as brutal a fashion as Doctor Felicity wants.

Dr Milton: I’m sorry. I know I’m expected to be professional and cold and heartless and inhuman, but I am human, and so is she. There have to be things that are wrong, and this feels really wrong. It’s necessary I get it, but it is cruel you can’t deny that. She’s not dust and bone, but flesh and blood, she is here. Just please stop looking at me like I’m deluded, because I’m tired of people looking at me like I don’t understand; you don’t understand! Jesus is great, I’m sure he’d love you, but I’m he wouldn’t think this was all good. And I refuse to be the sort of person who could cut a girl up without ever thinking about the person she was, she is! Those are my guns and I’m sticking to them.

She has gone on a journey. Her best friend has died and her entire life is now defined by it.

Partner: I don’t want to hate you; I want to be able to grieve you and play my part. Cry quieter than your mother, but louder than the neighbor. It’s not a thing I think you ever considered, where I would fit into the chorus of sobs that’s been cried for you.

I don’t want to be a problem, I want to be funny and sexy; I want to be cool again, smell like Marlboros again - reds. In the spirit of honesty, I don’t like the fact that you define my life. God, I look like a youth pastor. I lied to you that I liked Bacardi instead of Vodka, because I think I like the idea of being associated with pirates. Now all that superficial complexity is gone, because everything that wasn’t necessary to survive has been stripped away. People used to look at me with a kind of jealous annoyance. Actually, I think everyone hated me. But I didn’t care because even if I’m a pseudo-intellectual arsehole, I was an arsehole people respected. But then I found out what you did, and I felt like everything I have done, or achieved, was crushed under the weight of how much I love you.