When the doctor opened her up, and there was suddenly light thrown upon the world of cancer-podules, they were annoyed by the disturbance, and defiant. It's always been jumbled, the furniture competing, with clenched teeth and sharp elbows, for the honor of the Most Wrong-looking Object. I picture kicking bodies as they lie curled on the ground, spitting blood as they Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I lift them over my head and then bring them down, break them over my knee, their spines like dowels of balsa. I push offenders into giant vats of acid and watch them struggle, scream as the acid burns, breaks them apart. It's an unsettling trick, and more so when my mother used to do it, because she did it in a way where her hands sort of shook, vibrated, her neck's veins protruding and taut, her face gripped with the strain plausibly attendant to pulling off one's finger. We knew it was not real, we had seen it dozens of times, but its power was never diminished, because my mother's was a uniquely physical presence she was all skin and muscles. Her skin has been leathery for years, tanned to permanence, not in an unflattering way, but in a way interesting considering her Irish background, the fact that she must have grown up fair It begins to come again, the blood thick and slow at first, dotted with the black remnants of scabs, then thinner, a lighter red.