The Surgeon [10-2017]

The surgeon had done this many times before, for many years, and he loved this procedure more than any other.  Paper had been lain beneath to catch the refuge, and the cold metal tools waited in a row, glinting in the harsh light.  He drew the lines across the orange colored flesh with precision and palpable excitement. He held the knife as an artist does a paintbrush and made the first incision, the jagged blade penetrating through the outer layers of flesh and then deep inside to the hollow body. He admired the dark cavernous insides, where no eyes had before seen its hidden beauty. He whistled while he worked, his hands steady, the shapes of his carving taking life. The viscera lay around him in piles, and his hands were sticky with the wet bowels of his work. Upon completion, he stood back from the corpse and smiled. And the face of the jack-o-lantern, its jagged-toothed mouth, grinned back at him.