Medical School Dropout - a cautionary tale

Somewhere in the back of his muddled brain he seemed to recollect he'd been a medical student once, before the cognitive decline, the skin problems and the muscle stiffness. When he could still put more than a few thoughts together he had speculated that he must have come into contact with some exotic disease in the tertiary care hospital on campus. He should have sought medical attention at the first sign of symptoms, but he was someone who kept to himself, always in fear of being called out or considered a slacker. He was not one to self-diagnose like many of his classmates who were eager to utilize their newly acquired knowledge. He made do even as his grades plummeted and he began to sneak into the gross anatomy lab late at night for a little snack.

There was a time when the idea of eating brains would have greatly disturbed him, he was not ignorant of the risk of prion disease after all, but that was before the hunger began. He'd been studying in the medical library one Fall evening (a futile endeavor as he could retain little) when a picture of a brain in his anatomy text triggered a growl in his midsection. This was quickly followed by the thought that the anatomy lab was only one floor above him and maybe he would just put in a little time working on his cadaver. The books were doing him no good, so why not some hands-on work?

He put his books away and shuffled through the door and into the darkened hallway. He held his arms out in front of him because it felt right somehow, though he told himself it was just to feel his way through the dark. The elevator was an old fashioned affair that could only hold a few people with a metal-cage door that folded to one side with a tug. He stepped into the center under the sickly hue of the single light that cast shadows over his eyes.  He turned awkwardly then pulled the cage door shut.  The elevator jerked and rattled upward. A blank stare mirrored a growing single mindedness.

Standing over his assigned cadaver he clicked on the low hanging fluorescent light above his head illuminating the dissecting table. His eyes kept wandering up to the head before he forced them back down to the dissected abdomen. The brain dissection was not for a few more weeks into the curriculum, but his own pre-frontal cortex appeared to be misfiring. An impulse had him reaching for the bone saw and plugging it in. A flick of the switch and its half-circled cutting blade buzzed to life with a kick in his hand. He found himself breathing quicker as he applied it to the forehead and pressed downward. Flecks of skin and small bone chips began flying off into the darkness of the room.

It took some doing, but with the help of a small crowbar-type tool he was able to eventually pry off the top of the cranium as the arachnoid mater separated in web-like strands. He paused and took in the sight: a shiny grayish beige surface of what appeared to be intertwined sausages. A pleasurable shudder shot through his body. It was a welcome sensation after what had been a growing sense of numbness over the past few weeks. He pushed down on it and it pushed back with a kind of rubbery resistance. He pushed harder and his finger broke through the surface, buried to the second knuckle. He retrieved his finger and placed it into his mouth. It was a little bland, but not too bad.

The next few days he noticed that he had little appetite for his normal fare and was not visiting the cafeteria or making his typical late night Taco Bell runs. His thoughts kept returning to the anatomy lab where he'd made a few more trips taking thin slices of the brain before carefully replacing the top of the cranium. He'd discovered that the slices tasted even better when laid on a Ritz cracker, yet something was missing. This was quickly becoming his sole source of nourishment and he was growing paler by the day, preferring to come out only in the evening hours. He also began staying in his apartment less and less, hanging out instead behind an abandoned dumpster in a back alley that he could crawl into for shelter when needed.

His clothes were getting a bit raggedy and hung loosely on him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd changed them and he didn't seem to care. His main preoccupation had become one of trying to figure out how to get fresh brains which he was sure were much tastier than the formaldehyde scented slices he'd come to depend on. Before he'd descended into what appeared to be a premature dementia, he'd had the wherewithal to put the bone saw in his backpack which he kept behind the dumpster near a covered electrical outlet that was conveniently located on the alley wall.

The days passed and the lonely former medical student became increasingly depressed as his slow movements frustrated attempts to acquire what he needed to feed his hunger. The occasional nighttime passerby easily eluded him. He was dismissed as a mostly harmless and malodorous drunk by those who found their way down his alley. This went on for quite a long time as technology and human habits began to change, changes that resulted in an upturn of his fortunes.

He would never forget that first time (though it was quickly forgotten). She was likely a college student or may have even been attending his former medical school. She was using the alley as a short cut and was thoroughly engrossed with a glowing rectangle of some kind in her hand. He watched from behind his dumpster in dumb amazement as she approached, her face and blond hair cast in a bluish light from the thing that she held. He stepped out and she almost walked straight into him as he closed his hands around her throat to cut off her scream.

From that moment forward more and more distracted persons made their acquaintance with his bone saw and ended up in his dumpster. He learned to use their small devices by tapping them with his mottled finger until the batteries were dead. He no longer had to feel the anguish of hunger and their glowing boxes provided hours of mindless entertainment inside his darkened dumpster. He did not seem capable of introspection, but he thought he might be happy.

***