Day Twenty :Recondite - Make Do & Mend

Recondite

Definition

1 : difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend :
deep

2 : of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure

3 : hidden from sight : concealed

Recondite is one of those underused but useful words, but take off the re- and you get
something very obscure: condite is an obsolete verb meaning both "to pickle or preserve"
and "to embalm." If we add the prefix in- to condite we get incondite, which means "badly put
together," as in "incondite prose." All three words have Latin condere at their root; that verb is
translated variously as "to put or bring together," "to put up, store," and "to conceal."

I woke up in the cold storage drawers of the morgue and felt that something was terribly, horrifically
wrong. 

I failed about the small metal container - I barely seemed to have any control over my limbs - before
managing to clumsily kick the door open. I half slid, half fell out of the drawer but collapsing untidily on
the floor of the morgue. Using the open door as leverage, I dragged myself to my feet. I was so wobbly
that it felt like my legs were different lengths. I looked down. 

My legs were different lengths. Also, I didn't remember getting a pedicure lately, so those weren’t my
feet either. 

I wiggled someone else’s toes experimentally. They were a bit slow to respond, but that could have
been from being in the freezer. 

Mirror, i needed a mirror. Still clinging to the door, I glanced around the room. Clearly morgue attendants
weren’t that fussed about personal appearance, judging by the utter lack of available mirrors. 

Then I caught sight of a woman’s handbag, tucked away on a chair in the corner of the room. Ah-hah! I
thought to myself triumphantly. That seems like a stylish handbag - surely there’d at least be a hand
mirror in there.

I took an enthusiastic step forward towards the bad, releasing my grip on the door as I did so, and
immediately fell flat on my face. 

Awesome. 

Finally, by a method that combines, crawling, dragging and a heck of a lot of swearing, i reached the
chair with the bag. Panting heavily i reached up and tugged on the handles of the bag. It fell on top of
me (of course) spilling its contents everywhere, but it did contain one of those fold up brushes that had
a tiny mirror in the handle. 

Propping myself awkwardly up against the chair, I peered into the mirror. Yup, that was definitely my
face, looking like shit and badly accessorised with bruises and some pretty savage cuts, but it was
definitely my face. I looked down again. But definitely not my legs or my feet.. 

I lifted my shirt and stared at my tummy, sadly this, with its squish spare tyre, was also definitely still
mine. 

There was angry stitching around the ankles too - so i don’t think even the feet and legs belonged to the
same person. What the hell was going on? Why had someone stitched me up like a handmade rag doll
that the dog had gotten to and emergency transplants had had to be made?

I suddenly shivered. Emergency transplants? Was that it? Had I been in some sort of accident.

My mind was very,very carefully steering me away from the question of why I'd woken up in the morgue
and not the emergency room if I'd been in an accident.

Suddenly a loud noise made jump. Another door in the morgue shelving unit was vibrating with angry
thumps, as if whatever inside was trying to get out. 

I quailed by the chair, my useless legs failing in an attempt to get up and run away from whatever
nightmare creature was trying to get out - countless zombie film imagery crossing my mind as whimpered
in terror. I was clutching the legs of the chair so tight it left imprints in the palms of my hand. 

My still useless legs spasmed and kicked a stray lipstick across the morgue floor, span and skidded until
it came to an abrupt halt after colliding with the wall of storage units, right beneath the open door. 

The open door i’d come out of. My useless legs that couldn’t carry me away which were not in fact my legs at all. 

The brilliant pink pedicure on the stranger’s toenails mocked me. 

The thumps and noises were becoming more frantic now, as if the occupant was panicking that they
couldn’t get out. 

I swallowed hard, tucked the mirror into my skirt pocket (had i been wearing a skirt before? When was
before? Brain says NO - choose alternative route to maintain sanity) and started crawling carefully back
across the floor. 

Whoever was in there was going all out by the time I got there. I was surprised the door simply hadn’t
come off its hinges at the rate they were slamming into it. Leaning carefully against the side, and
hopefully out of the range of the swinging door, I opened the lock. 

The door immediately crashed open but unfortunately i was still in the strike zone. Luckily, it didn’t hurt
as much as I thought it would, although I still staggered back against the weight and ended up falling on
my arse again. 

I looked up, rubbing my bum to see a man failing about like he was on an ice skating rink. I couldn’t see
any marks around his ankle, but there were gruesome stitch marks around his neck and arms - maybe it
was the whole torso and legs that had been transplanted,i in which case no wonder the was having
trouble balancing. 

“I recommend sitting down to start off with.” I offered dryly. I didn’t have the energy to even try and stand
at this point. 

“I don’t” the guy started to snarl before he lost his balance and ended up on the floor anyway. From the
looks of it, they really had put together a mish mash.  His body and legs seemed to be pretty tan and
quite muscular, not from the gym but from outside labour, like a mechanic or a builder. His head however,
looked like a typical investment banker. Hair slicked back and immaculate eyebrows - pretty but in a
professionally maintained kind of way. Although, right now, he looked just as shit i as i did. 

He was also currently face down on the floor. Apparently, he couldn't operate his new body well enough
to turn over onto his back. No wonder he couldn’t make it out the door. 

“Want some help?” I offered. 

“I’m fine.” he snarled back. Someone was clearly not a morning person. 

“Fine.” I said, unconcerned. I had enough of my own problems currently without worrying about some
arsehole. 

There was a brief silence, broken only by the attempts of the financial broker trying to right himself. 

“Sure?” I asked again. 

“No.” he said coldly. 

Cue more scrambling. 

Silence. 

“Actually…” he started, sounding incredibly frustrated. 

“What's the magic word?” I asked brightly. 

“Please.” he said, very reluctantly.

Between the two of us, we managed to haul him onto his back and then into some sort of upright position.
We both sat there, backs against the drawers, trapped by our uncooperative, strange bodies. 

“Got a mirror?” he eventually asked. 

I handed it over. He stared at it and then went, “well, that’s my head at least.”

I’d thought it was, it matched his oh so charming personality.

“So are we like zombies now or what?” He asked after handing the mirror back. 

“How would I know?” I asked, indignant. “And thanks for pointing out the whole ‘we’re probably dead’
thing that i was trying so hard not to think about.”

“We woke up in the morgue with other people’s body parts attached to us. What part of that screams
‘alive’ to you?”

I huffed. “Well, I'm still thinking and moving. And i don’t feel dead. I feel exactly the same as I do normally
- just a bit rough.`` I paused then added. “And with someone else’s legs and feet.” I thought about it.
“So I basically just feel like myself with a hangover.”

He snorted. “Well you definitely look dead.”

I scowled. “You don’t exactly look like a bed of roses yourself mister.”

He smirked. “Whatever, and it;s not ‘mister’ it’s…..huh.” he cocked his head to the side. “I can’t actually
remember my name. Can you?”

I smiled smugly. “Of course I do, it’s…..it’s…..ummmm…” I trailed off uncertainly. 

“I see.” he smirked again. “So do you feel like eating brains?”

“You’re really set on this whole zombie thing aren’t you?”

“It seems the most logical explanation. So do you?think about eating brains.”

“No. I don’t. It’s gross.” to show willing i even picture myself trying to eat a brain. I scrunched up my face
in disgust. “That’s a definite no from me. Besides, why would we have different body parts attached?
I can’t see zombies being into personal DIY. sounds more like Frankenstein to me.”

He shuddered. “God i hope not.”

“You’d rather be an undead, unthinking, rotting zombie than Frankenstein?” I asked in disbelief.

“I’d rather be alive thank you very much.” He retorted. “But think about it. With zombies, at least you’re
kind of independant and people just want to kill you. If you are Frankenstein's monster, and remember
he didn’t even give the monster a name which is why he gets call his master’s name, you’re basically
just the plaything of a mad nutter that eventually gets in by an angry mob.”

I considered this. I was liking our options less and less by the second - and they’d been pretty awful to
start with. 

“Maybe they just put us in here because it’s nice and cool and our bodies needed time to recover from
the surgery?” I said hopefully, desperation fueling my voice. 

He stared at me for a minute and then said, “You know, I could almost respect your insane optimism.”

Just then the door opened and light flooded into the morgue. A man came into the room, a young one,
bright and perky and dressed in a spotless lab coat. He did not seem at all anxious to see us sitting on
the floor of the morgue, clearly aware and moving.

In fact he seemed delighted. 

Something inside of me shuddered. 

“Wonderful!” he said cheerily. “You’re up and about already. Are you having issues with your new bodies
at all?”

We nodded uncertainty, stunned into silence by his aggressive cheeriness. 

“That’s to be expected.” he said consolingly. “But once you get past the initial settling period i’m sure it
will be fine. Now i’m sure you’re wondering what happened?”

Again, we nodded mutely. 

“Now, unfortunately, “ he said, barely looking sorry at all, “there was a horrible pile up on the motorway
and unfortunately you were both tragic victims in it.” he shook his head with an affectation of sadness
that did not convince me in the slightest, “you came here in pieces! Literally pieces. But luckily for you,
you had both donated your bodies to medical science and so, here you are! Good as new. Almost.”

“So, we can go home then? I asked cautiously, latching onto the one optimistic thing in the horror story
that had just been presented to me, “once we're ...better?”

“Oh heavens no.” he said, chipper as ever. “No, you have to stay here miss. After all, you both died.
And, as I said, you donated your bodies to science. So you’re now both the property of the hospital.” he
nodded firmly. “The dead have no rights and we own you fair and square. I can even show you the
paperwork if you like.”

“So, we’re dead then?” I asked, my voice a miserable whisper.

“Oh most certainly.” he agreed enthusiastically. 

“Even though I'm talking and moving?” 

“Yup.” his tone brooked no argument. 

I stared at him, “Your bedside manner sucks.” 

“So i have been told.”

“So what’s going to happen to us now??” the banker interjected. 

“Oh lots of things.” the doctor beamed. “I mean, you’re our first successful cases! We’ll need to examine
you very, very carefully to see what went right this time, and use you to figure out what went wrong all
the other times. Yes, yes, we’ll have to run lots of tests. It will be super interesting. And,” he added
thoughtfully, “maybe your names will even go down in the paper for posterity, as you will be assisting us,
I suppose. Won’t that be nice?”

The banker and I looked at each other. The guy was clearly a moral free, grade A nutter and we were
completely at his mercy.

“Fancy eating some brains now?” The banker asked.