Cadaver Skin

While I was growing up my family lived in a small house of most elegant beauty. On cold winter nights our family would sit around the warmth of an open fire, and my father would tell us stories of one kind or another. He would always warn me not to get too close to the flame; "Because if I got to close and burnt myself he wouldn't be donating any of his skin". He would let the doctor stitch cadaver skin over the burn. Although this thought chilled my flesh, I always regarded what he said as complete nonsense. I was quite educated and was sure that modern medicine no longer used the skin of the deceased to treat burn wounds. I would never listen to the proverbial nonsense that was my father's warning! "It was outrageous to even think, cadaver skin, HA!" That's what I would tell him. But I always remained wary of his threat. One dark night, after I had finished the reading that I had been assigned for homework, I decided to go and warm up by the fire, for it was a cold night and I had little else to do. As it just so happens, at this very moment our cat had decided to curl up on the bottom step and warm her cold fur. During my ascent down the narrow steps I failed to notice the cat, now sleeping soundly at the foot of the stairs. My greatest surprise came to me on the last step when I put my foot down, expecting to feel the hard wood of the stairs, my foot abruptly came in contact with a warm mass of skin and soft fur. With a howl like that of a madman the cat shot like lightning into the darkness. I stumbled forward, still in shock, my other foot jolted forward but missed the floor. I fell sideways onto a hot bed of coals, my shirt caught flame and I painfully rolled out onto the slate tiles to smother the flames. In my frantic movements, I tried to stand up, but as I did so my head struck the mantel hard. The world swirled around me, I heard my father shouting, and the siren of an ambulance but they both sounded far away. After that I remember only darkness and an intense pain in my side from the burn.

When I woke up I was in the hospital. I sat up and realized that the pain from the burn was almost completely gone. The nurse came in and said a few things to my parents then left and we were free to go. Later I asked my mom what the nurse had said, my mom told me that the nurse had advised her to have me keep the bandages on for about a month before taking them off that way the skin graft would have a chance to heal, when the time finally came to take the bandages off I was very happy to be rid of them, but that happiness was soon exchanged by pure horror in the place where there should have been a soft skin graft with only a faint scar there was a hideous gray cadaver's face! It lay roughly stitched to my side with it's wrinkled skin melded into my own. It was small, it's eyes were sewn shut and across it's thin brown lips there almost seemed to be a faint mocking grin.