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Exquisite Corpse:
The Love Letters
by
Dan Burt
and
Diana Grove
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Harold and Doris were a young couple of extraordinary passion. After a fatal car accident, their bodies were wisked away to seperate institutions for scientific study. He to the Harvard Medical Lab, she to a forensic Body Farm in Tennessee. Read how their lives were ripped apart by a jealous mother, a faulty break line, and a nasty bout of extreme decomposition. Below is a record of their final days.
Warning: The following correspondence is rated R for language, sexual content, and graphic scenes of putrefaction. American Sideshow is not responsible for loss of appetite or any major organs.
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Dearest Harold,
I've been in this field for only three hours and I already miss you terribly. It seems like just moments ago we were in the front seat of the Pontiac at Mooners Point. What happened? Did your foot slip? Did you forget to set the parking brake? One minute we were locked in an embrace, and the next thing I know the glove compartment is lodged in my thorax. It took the EMTs an entire 20 minutes to remove the tire gauge from my tricuspid valve, and even then they couldn’t find the map of Tennessee.
Harold darling, from the look of things I'd say that was our last car ride. I know we agreed to donate our bodies to science but somehow I thought it would be...oh I don't know...more romantic. I never thought I'd be laid out in something called "Area 52" with a family of blow flies in my left nostril. Oh well, what did I expect - angels, a white light, a sumptuous funeral with roses and tuna casserole?
Someone came by earlier with a clip board to measure the gaseousness of my abdomen. It was at level 3, but considering we had burritos for dinner last night it will probably be at a level 4 by day break.
Oh Harold, if only I knew where you were...if you're safe...if your head is still attached to your neck.
Your loving wife,
Margaret
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My Darling Doris,
Worry no more my sweet, I am safe...and dead. Safe and dead and lonely. Oh how my cold, motionless heart still longs for you. Though I lie nude on a gurney in a freezer, I can still sense your warm, soapy touch around my manhood. I can still see the impressions left by your stout, sexy fingers as you tried to jerk my gear shift into overdrive. If not for the lubrication provided by the bar of Ivory soap and a moist towelette, your firm grip may have secured a fleshy keepsake when I was thrown from the Pontiac. Alas, I am intact - though Spike is permanently bent to the right at a seventy-eight degree angle.
Death can have traumatic effects on a person. So traumatic, in fact, memories become obscured, repressed, even erased, as if certain brain cells leaked from dainty, velvety ears. That's the only explanation I have for you signing your initial letter as Margaret.
Your Harold
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Dearest Harry,
It’s day two and my legs are so bloated they look like Johnsonville brats (Johnsonville brats that have knees and black toenails, that is). Oh Harold, why did we have to get separated? I know you come from a long line of Harvard men but shouldn’t we have stayed together? Didn’t you know “’Till death do us part” is just a phrase?
I can’t help but feel your mother had something to do with this. In fact, wasn't that her plastic rain cap in the rearview mirror? Could all of this be her fault? I know she never approved of our elopement, but how could she be so cruel as to put me here…in a desolate field…at a body farm…next to a guy with a missing mandible?
I’m scared Harold and my thoughts are all jumbled. Is it because it’s dusk and I hear wolves, or because my brain is slipping into my uvula. Why can’t you be next to me, to comfort me, to hold me? Why did your mother have to ruin everything!
The man with the clipboard is coming by again and I look terrible. My hair is a mess and I seem to have misplaced my forehead. Please, for the love of God, tell me you are all right!
Your loving Helen….
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Darling Doris (Heavenly Helen?),
I am concerned about the rapid deterioration of what scientists call the sexiest part of the body--your legs. Your description of the present state of your voluptuous stems leaves me longing to caress them, and even more disturbing, arouses my appetite for kielbasa.
Concerning Mother, I'm afraid your suspicions are true - she was the cause of our demise. Despite the gearshift in 'Park', emergency brake engaged, and wheel chocks under all four tires, Mother was somehow able to push the car over the cliff with her superhuman strength (strength she developed, no doubt, during her cow-tossing days at the rodeo.)
I must apologize for the way she unceremoniously dumped you at the body farm. Manners were never her strong point. I know you two never saw eye to eye, especially after the “skillet incident.” And now, with her involvement in our deaths, I feel your relationship with her will suffer additional strain. But honestly, I don't think she meant to offend when she said you were "a hunk of fetid, rotting meat." She was just trying to be accurate.
I noticed how slyly you signed your letter as Helen-- an attempt, I’m sure, to remind me of one of our favorite role playing games. Is it the one where you pretend to be a sleeping Helen Keller and I loudly bolt into the room, strip off your flannel nightie and lustily teach you the language of love? Or is it the Helen of Troy scenario, with me and the other guys? Either way, I dream electric, erotic dreams tonight.
The new semester begins tomorrow, so I'll be busy with anatomy classes. In the mean time, I'm still lying on the gurney among the other stiffs just chillin’.
Your loving, cooling husband,
Harold
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Harry,
You know, the more I think about it the more furious I am with you. You knew your mother was following us, that’s why you kept looking over your shoulder when I was giving Spike the “Fuzzy Zimple.”
Oh, I don’t know why I’m so steamed. In my condition, there’s no point in being mad. Let bygones be bygones, right? At least I’m not as bad off as the guy in Area 28. He doesn’t even have a lower half anymore. (I thought I caught him winking at me earlier, but it turns out it was just a carpet beetle eating his cornea.)
Time drifts by here. They’re re-creating the Memphis Hatbox Murder in the lot next to me. Who knew a Macy’s fedora box could be so porous? I guess they were never meant to hold 13 pounds of cranial liquid.
Harry, I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ve been cranky ever since my skin slipped down into the ravine. Do forgive me? I long for the warm, steady caress of your fingers….Harold, you do still have fingers, don’t you?
Your darling Mimsey….
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Oh Mim-sey, my Mim-sey!
You know I can't be angry with you because of Mother's insecurities. She has always been a bit possessive of me since I'm the only son of six who actually found the courage to leave home. But no more talk about her! Once again, your psychic abilities sensed something about my fingers. It’s just like the dream you had about the dancing monkeys. You remember - the night before I cut one of my digits on an empty tuna can, causing my whole hand to become bright red and swollen like the ass of a sexually excited mandrill?
Speaking of fingers, while in class last week a couple of students amputated my left hand. I assumed they needed it for some type of important medical procedure involving phalanges. However, after closer inspection, I discovered the clever devils were able to reanimate it, causing it to crawl around the classroom, grabbing students' ankles and occasionally snapping its fingers. Then, some wise ass sewed it to the taint of one of my freezer mates. Now all my left hand does is fondle balls like Queeg in the Caine Mutiny. (Don't worry, I still have my “special” hand with the double pinkies.)
Doris, I shall now proclaim my eternal love for you before you liquify and seep into the earth (oh, lucky earth!) I've created a poem that embodies my everlasting love, a poem that could only be inspired by your ethereal, if not muddy, being.
My Mimsey, my Mimsey,
what a wondrous view,
of your muscular hue,
when skin sloughs in the slough.
My Mimsey, oh Mimsey,
the flames of desire,
set my loins afire,
like a downed electrical wire.
My Mimsey, hey Mimsey,
Moist as a newborn pup,
Runneth over my cup,
With desires to schtupp.
Doris, if only I could grope and stroke you with my six remaining fingers…
Always your prince,
Harry
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Dearest H….
I don’t know how many days have passed…everything is a blur. The crows crow and the snakes slither around with absolutely no regard to my privacy. You would think the female anatomy would be a sacred place after death, but it seems it’s just a party zone for wild animals and fungi. You wouldn’t believe what a coyote will do with a pelvic bone when no one’s looking.
I’m afraid it’s curtains for me Harold. Even the higher ups seem to think so. The man with the clip board has put a big red X by my name. It’s hard to believe just a few weeks ago I was head of the Junior League, and now I’m just a cooling puddle of goo.
Everything is getting so foggy….I think I hear bells...Is that….what I think….Harold, is that a giant…meatloaf?
Gwendolyn
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Sweet Doris (or To Whom It May Concern),
I tried to pretend your multiple personality disorder did not exist, thinking maybe it would disappear after death, but the condition has only gotten worse. But that's the reason I fell in love with you; I felt like I was with a different woman every night. Now with the arrival of your letters signed by your different personalities, I've developed a reputation here at the medical school as being somewhat of a gigolo.
So, alas, it is with extreme difficulty that I must tell you that my heart belongs to another. Quite literally in fact, because it was ripped from my open chest by some idiot who carved "Real Heart, Real Love" on it, then mailed to his girlfriend. What happened to romance when you sent your own body parts to your sweetheart, like Vincent Van Gogh?
I wish I could be with you to comfort you in your time of decomposition. It tears me apart not being with you. (Again, quite literally, because my arms and legs have been amputated.) Harvard is on the forefront of tennis elbow research, so my arms are being put to good use. My legs, however, were attached to some sort of dance machine - a top secret project involving Irish step dancing, though I’ve only see them do a crude Cossack number.
But what sent chills down my already chilled spine was your hallucination of Meatloaf. I dreamt about him several nights in a row and didn't think anything of it until your last missive. I did some research and discovered that Meatloaf hallucinating is a real medical condition known as "Meatloaflysis," caused by extreme autolysis (the breaking down of tissues by the body's own internal chemicals), torsolysis (amputation of arms and legs) or attending a Meatloaf concert (deficiency of musical taste). Though there is no cure, doctors say the condition could be made tolerable by listening to Meatloaf's music to build up an immunity. Darling, I will do anything for love, but I won't do that.
Au revoir, my love(s?). I’ll find solace in knowing our mortal bodies are absorbed into the same earth. Except my brain, which I think may be in a jar on a shelf somewhere.
May we meet in paradise by the dashboard light.
Always yours...and yours...and yours...and yours, too,
Harry
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Dan Burt is the creator of the humor site www.CaptianCanard.com his bio can be read here. Diana Grove is decomposing in a field.
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Body Farms are designed for forensic pathology research. Studying the decompositon of human remains helps law enforcement officials solve crimes. To watch a fascinating film about the Body Farm in Tennessee, click on this link.
National Geographic - "Body Farm" (3.30 minutes)
If you would like information on how to donate your own body visit:
University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center - Knoxville
Texas State Body Farm, Texas State University - San Marcos
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Tour Beautiful Verblinzk!
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