3
"Wednesday, December nineteenth, nineteen seventy-three, ten twenty-four pm," said Geoff softly but clearly into the microphone he'd duct taped so that it dangled near his head. "Geoffery Jason McKenna performing a necropsy on what appears to be a reptile of unknown identification featuring strong avian characteristics." He swallowed, hoping that sounded official enough. He stood in the garage at his father's old workbench, the immediate area cleaned and covered with plastic sheeting he had stapled into place. The portable lights he used were bright and clean, but kept the illumination corralled into small projections. He wore surgical gloves and a rubberized apron. It was cold in the garage, but he had already grown accustomed to seeing his breath bloom before him with every exhalation. A kerosene heater occupied the farthest corner to provide some warmth. He despised them for the odor they produced that he seemed strangely sensitive to. He wore white cotton long johns beneath denim jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled at his elbows. In order to remain alert through the night he had consumed two bologna and cheese sandwiches and had carried a couple of bottles of Coke into the garage.
Surrounded by aluminum frame lawn chairs supporting open books and his medical bag, he dissected the little corpse, jotting notes in a large sketchbook, taking photos with his Polaroid XS-70, and collecting samples he inserted into test tubes nestled within a bed of ice.
The message hastily scribbled on the fabric of the pillowcase bothered him. Nadean had succeeded in pinching the folds of cloth until the original hand had been revealed, spelling "help" on the makeshift bag in childlike block letters. All capitals. The blue ballpoint had not marked the uneven surface clearly, but the word was unmistakable. Why would someone write "help" on the bag, insert an animal into it, and then cruelly fling it like garbage from a passing vehicle? Had the culprit genuinely wished the animal to receive veterinary care or not? But Geoff was only a veterinary student, not yet a full-fledged DVM. So the person had to know he had returned home for winter break. Had he or she actually known he would be there to tend to the animal, or had it been a guess? And why not seek emergency services from an actual, practicing veterinarian? He squinted at the butterflied creature he'd set atop a sterilized bake sheet. Because it's been illegally imported, he thought. But that implied value, so why risk flinging it from a moving vehicle into a cold, uncertain night?
The creature's skin was pebbled around the orifices and the inside of its joints, scaled near the claws, and smoother elsewhere though textured similarly to alligator hide. Very tiny protuberances beneath the eyes, when plucked free, resembled the small feathers that decorated the cheeks of macaws.
Geoff notated everything on paper with a ballpoint pen and on cassette tape with his narration. He pored over some of the nicer books from his collection, finding aspects of the animal that somewhat resembled one known creature and then another one entirely. He drank his Cokes and intentionally refused to check the time, pausing only to urinate outside in the darkness so he wouldn't waste time returning to the house. When his observations were complete, he concluded the recording with the revelation that the animal had perished due to uricemia, or kidney failure. Exhausted, he had trudged back into the house after carefully cleaning up after himself and packing everything neatly away again. He wrapped himself in a towel and deposited his clothing in the dank-smelling wicker hamper before hopping into the shower. Donning a fresh towel, he padded to his old bedroom and flopped onto the bed he had outgrown as a teen, his feet dangling off the end of the mattress.