Small Game
by Christina Loraine
Waiting in a triage room bleeding from both arms, a chunk of deep fatty tissue hangs from the largest of my puncture wounds, protruding like a whack-a-mole in a dingy pizzeria arcade. Mine is just as greasy, only we’re waiting on an attending physician instead of a smack from a sticky vinyl mallet. Minutes ago she was hitting each of my bite wounds with a syringe squirt of rabies vaccine while giving the hunk of tissue a sideways glance and assurance of a quick return with sutures. Meantime, the exposed cells refuse to release my stare.
“But aren’t rabies shots administered to the stomach?”
I knew you were thinking that, everyone does. But no, they don’t do that anymore. The first dose is given as close to the wound as possible. Several intense bites across both arms mean several injections, plus an extra jab in the thigh, just for good measure.
A quick knock at the door and she’s here, the blur of a white jacket jilts my focus. She asks how I’m feeling as she pulls over a stainless steel table on wheels and neatly lays out her tools. I’m not sure what I say in reply, but it sounds like the prepackaged, “Oh, I’ve been better,” followed with a hollow laugh and a roll of the eyes.
“The worst part is over,” she says right on cue, as her smile coaxes a thread through the needle in a single pass. She’s leaning over me now, but I can’t look at her anymore. My arms were just stung by a million yellow jackets, injected with lava, flayed, and hung out to dry along the banks of Furnace Creek.
“Isn’t that located in Death Valley?”
Right, you are! And yes, I am formulating dramatic metaphors for my medical care in an attempt to ignore Nurse Ratchet. She’s narrating the repatriating of my arm’s deep state citizen in gory detail as my eyes search the ceiling for a reprieve.
A short knock reverberates from the door and the seamstress turns to greet my former Tai Chi instructor. She ushers him in and moves her instruments out of the way, apologizing for the mess.
He scoffs, “What mess?”
Is it an expected reply? Yes, only his laugh is anything but hollow. He leans over to tell me that we’re under a time crunch to finish a competitive cooking challenge and I should really get started on my protein before peeling any carrots. A collision of metallic clips screech overhead as he pulls the room divider back to reveal a kitchen outfitted with television production equipment. He whispers that he’s not here to win any prizes. The experience is what he wants to take home. Dropping his voice, he confides that he plans to sabotage himself, throwing the win to me.
What generosity!
I open the basket of mystery ingredients laid out to discover the protein pick is rabbit. Somehow, this one missed the butcher and went directly from the hunter’s trap to the packaging wrap. A mess of matted white hair and lifeless limbs, its entire body is presented on a rectangular foam tray. Its existence counted out in calories and suggested serving portions, all spelled out on the label stamped RABBIT, in an obnoxiously redundant way. Above the sticker, the rabbit’s mouth hangs slightly ajar. I trace its dry grin up the face, where one beady red eye protrudes from beneath the sheen of plastic, like a whack-a-mole taunting a pepperoni-filled ten-year-old. I can’t look away.
That glassy eye is asking me to make quick work of it; cut off a paw and throw it in the pan, smile for the camera, and thank the Tai Chi man.
“Whatever happened to that guy anyway?”
He took himself out of the running, remember? “It’s just another experience for him,” I tell the rabbit.
A sharp knock at the door startles me as a nurse shoves paperwork in my lap and nods toward the exit. I tell her that I’m not interested in any prizes; this show isn’t going to work for me. I turn to place the rabbit back inside the basket but instead notice my arms wrapped in white bandages and an extra roll of furry gauze in one hand.
“The prize is walking away with your life,” she says, right on script.
Christina Loraine is a writer and fine artist living outside Chicago, IL, with her teenage son and husband. Her work appears in THE 2018 RHYSLING ANTHOLOGY, and her novel in verse, INTERVIEWS FROM THE LAST DAYS, was published in 2019 by Atmosphere Press. In 2021 her play, Psychic Healing, won third place and was performed in a nationwide 10-minute play festival. Christina's fine art medium is primarily acrylic painting. It features animals and the occasional surrealism, but she also has a penchant for drawing miniature architecture under 1 inch in graphite. She has been known to wander the countryside with a backpack full of plein air painting gear, stopping to paint the scenery and soak in the sunlight. You can find her on Instagram @citrinesatellite and Facebook: Christina Loraine Art.