the INLAID EAR

“Transplants are commonplace nowadays, even routine, so no impediments remain to performing the process on oneself. Pleased to meet you. Doctor Kenneth Frank—Ken’s fine. Transplants. Symbiology . You’ve probably guessed the hand you shook just now was not always mine. My gardener, a former cowpoke and prizefighter, possessed musculature that was enviable, indeed. When he quite unexpectedly passed, I imagined a mutually beneficial arrangement. His cadaver agreed, you might say. His arm lives on, serves me and retains the strength and soul of his brawn and breed. You felt him in the handshake. You met him, too, just then. Sadly, his left hand would not accede motor control (damned thing). But look here! Mismatched, it’s true. My left belonged to a concert harpist. Female, yes. It was her dominant hand, so although in school, I was right-handed, I now find myself ambidextrous— and master of this limb’s delicacy. My sutures have become gesture...

I am a chef. I have seen nearly three centuries because I have learned to cook cuisine of formidable sorcery. My orchard yields only weeds. You can look. I fetch a pailful to the scullery, warp creeping jenny, pokeweed and hemlock into aromatic strawberry crepes. It takes me weeks of precise handiwork, metamorphosing moss to muscat grapes— and all the while I am madly hungry. Springtime to springtime. That’s the time it takes to set the banquet, set the trap, then rest my eyes, side by side, on the pewter plate. There’s nothing then but to wait, unconscious, until, at last, some door admits a crook. More than anything, I love having guests. I count the skulls, the times I’ve been so blessed. . Eric Lindsey If you'd like to watch the Pale Man clip from the movie "Pan's Lab yrin th," brace yourself for some serious creepy .