Sometimes I imagine this:
I stand in a clean well lit place -- dreamlike, no details. A large reclining chair waits behind me. There is a clean expanse of counter for me to work on; a large mirror faces me behind it. I pick up the scalpel in my right hand and begin.
I start at the top of the hairline, and trace carefully around the edge of my face. After a moment or two I close my eyes and work largely by feel. I keep the scalpel blade inclined just slightly, so that I am cutting with half the length of the blade, going just down through the skin. Tracing carefully past the edges of my sideburns, I slide the blade down in front of the ear to the corner of the jaw. Then I do the other side, exactly the same way. There is no pain, just a heightened tingling in the skin.
When I am finished, there is only the faintest tickle of blood from the incision. I lay down the scalpel. Sliding and working the skin gently with my fingertips, I start at the top again and peel my face down slowly. Here and there are points of attachment to the muscles underneath, which must be neatly broken with a smaller scalpel. The eyelids peel neatly away from around the eye sockets, with a little tug. There is a little twinge of pain when I must cut again around the nostrils. Cutting around the edge of the lips is more painful; I put it off as long as I can, and try to be careful about it. Once my face is completely peeled down, I pick up the larger scalpel again and cut carefully along the under-edge of the jaw, holding the skin of my face up gingerly with my left hand. I try not to hurry and take the chance of spoiling it.
When I am finished, I lay the skin mask gently on the table and gaze at
the mirror. My inner face looks back at me, exposed, rapt, and
glistening. My nerves sing, exposed to the touch of the air. Every
muscle, and every nuance of expression is open to the viewer, open to
the world; I can no longer close my eyes. I hide nothing. This is a
truer expression of myself than I have ever seen before.
It is not enough.
I take a sturdier scalpel and begin again. I work around the periphery I delineated before, carefully cutting the tendon attachments. Each one resists the scalpel, like a stiff rubber band under the blade; then the edge punches through and the tendon recoils as it is cut. When I have freed the entire periphery, I begin to peel off the musculature. I still feel no pain. I work the elaborate labyrinth of tendon and muscle forward and down as I did my skin. It is slow; I must cut many tendons, and sometimes pry with the back of the scalpel. At last it is free. I place the wriggling red mass on the counter beside the skin of my face and look again.
A red and white mass looks back. I take a soft cloth, and gently clean the surface of the bone. Better. My eyes loll in their sockets without the surrounding musculature; I must sit down and tip my head back to align them at my image in the mirror.
Now all is clean white bone, save eyes, gums, tongue, nasal cavity. This is the opposite of the last face. Unchanging; expressionless; showing no emotion; partaking of the eternal. This is like unto the face I will have after I am dead. The bone can remain unchanged for centuries. Pure; clean; simple. The true self underlays all emotions, all complexities of the flesh. I gaze at it as best I can, for a long time.
Of course it is still not enough.
I pick up the little bone saw, heft it in one hand, and start it whirring. The sound echoes, high pitched in the enclosed space -- nearly ultrasonic. I tip the chair back and tilt a smaller mirror towards me.
The saw screams like a tomcat as it begins to cut. My sense of smell is filled with the pungency of burnt bone. With no eyelids or lips, I can no longer shield my eyes or mouth; particles spray into them. It does not seem to matter. I can still control the depth of the cuts , through some sort of strange intuition. Slowly and carefully, I segment the cranial bones and slice through the zygomatic arches so that the eyes will come clear. When all of the cuts are finished, I remove the bones of my face. I catch a glimpse of quivering grey white before my eyes fall away.
This is the innermost self that I can reach. The seat of my identity is exposed. My cerebrum, frontal lobes, and cerebellum are open to all that can see. I can no longer see. It does not matter. This is the self of unknowing. I fall into contemplation forever.
Does it end?
-- Pope C
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