“We die as we live,”
says Fareed, reaching for a ruler.
“Our mental and physical traumas, our pasts, daily habits, lusts, desires, fetishes, addictions—it’s all written into the body.”
He glances at them from behind his plastic face shield, which will soon be spattered with blood and bone gore when he brings out the saw.
“Our bodies keep score even if we don’t ourselves. Nothing left to hide once you’re up here on my table. Death is the great equalizer when it comes to alcohol, too. Whether cheap vodka or Dom Pérignon, it’s all ethanol. All toxic, and the human body metabolizes it to exude the same sickly-sweet smell, privileged or poor.”