Today I met a man who calls himself a pediatric surgeon; his area of expertise is decapitations. He assured me he does not do decapitations. He fixes them. Intrigued, I visited his office – more of a warehouse space on the outskirts of town. A woman escorted me to the back, where the heads of children were submerged in see-through vats of yellow-green goo. There were rows upon rows of them, neatly aligned from wall to wall. They looked to be arranged by age: infant, toddler, tween, and so on.
The pediatric surgeon welcomed me from across the expanse with a wide, veneer smile. He spread out his arms and took a spin, telling me to take it all in. I spread my arms and spun too, but slower than him, looking around again to indicate I had indeed seen it all.
“I can reattach your child’s head!” he called out.
His voice echoed, and I worried it would disturb the floating faces.
“My child still has her head!” I called back.
He sauntered down the aisle of vats; his voice approached a normal tone as he came closer. “But you’re worried that, one day, she may not, am I right? From a grisly accident or an axe attack, like the one in the news yesterday?”
I nodded, stepping closer to one of the vats, tapping on it for a reaction. The heads had their eyes closed, their lips slightly parted. A few strands of stringy matter hung from the stumps of their necks. He told me their faces reanimate once attached, and showed me a video on his phone to prove it.
“If I am contacted in time, I can reattach her own head,” he explained. “But if it is mutilated in some way during the decapitation, you can choose from any of these.”
I nodded. “Can I take one home with me? Just in case.”
“Of course, of course! But please understand that your insurance will not cover this service.”
I went up and down the aisles, browsing the submerged faces in the toddler section for one that best resembled my daughter. It was difficult to tell the color of their skin and hair, on account of the regenerative goo. But this information was listed on a placard at the bottom of each vat, along with their eye color, presumed gender, race and ethnicity. Eventually, I settled on one with brown hair and brown eyes whose skin swatch on display looked the same as my daughter’s.
“I fathered that one myself,” he said with a wink.
I did not bother to ask how or why, or where the rest of her was.
*
I place the large jar containing the inanimate toddler head on the mantle above the fireplace. My daughter gives it the name Floaty. She wants to feed Floaty and give Floaty one of her old pacifiers or a popsicle. We read to Floaty and carry her with us to the grocery store and the bowling alley. Sometimes, I remind my daughter Floaty is not alive yet, and she is sad to hear it. I won’t tell her that in order for Floaty to live she will have to suffer a horrible accident, maybe even die for a bit. The thought of having a replacement lined up might not comfort her the way it comforts me.
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