Blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. - ChatGPT (Banno)

Is that you, Dexter?

Reply to Shawn I give up. You're smart. :cool:

Quoting Caldwell

blood and gore, the guts and veins

Sounds more like a cadaver anatomy lab than the morgue. Autopsies are "rip 'em open, check the parts, and zip 'em up." Anatomy labs, on the other hand, slowly disassemble the embalmed body over the academic term, laying open the guts and gore for days on end. And they smell bad.

Quoting Caldwell

Life and death are two sides of the same coin, life could not be appreciated without death. Life was a cycle of death and rebirth, of suffering and joy.

I left the morgue with a newfound appreciation for life, for the beauty and horror that comes with it.

:sparkle:

Magnificent, poetic, philosophical and original. I liked it. Big congratulations to the author for this short story.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Autopsies are "rip 'em open, check the parts, and zip 'em up."

That is not my experience. It's true that a post-mortem examination is performed in a couple of hours, as it's presided over by an experienced pathologist, assisted by or two professional attendants, there is no ripping or zipping involved. It is a meticulous and usually respectful procedure. There is no blood and gore, no guts and veins... and no idle spectators who wander in off the street.

Reply to Vera Mont My experience includes neither autopsies nor anatomy labs, so this was strictly second, third, and fourth hand information.

I've had enough of the horror of life but examination of human anatomy would be fascinating. I think we should all be exposed to the bodies of the dead in some capacity as a rite of passage.

There was a great anatomy series of a few animals on British television a while back. The racing horse one was the most interesting. When they gallop, their guts begin to act as a kind of piston for rapid circulation of air into and out of lungs.

In my early teens, my two favourite Christmas gifts were the Visible Horse one year, and the Visible Woman in Gr 9. They were wonderful educational toys.

I saw that, or something very like it, at the Ontario Science Center a few years back. Impressive but distasteful.

Blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth.

My God, what kind of animal is this? A devouring, voracious carnivore...hmm...

Must be a human 'he' :wink:

Motivated by the desire to see and feel life in all its terrible glory. To consume until satisfied.
He fulfils some of his 'wanna's' by choosing to take a trip to the morgue. Morbid curiosity.
He has this idea of what it is, as told by others. Who? He is attracted to stories of death and despair.
Is that what morgues are all about?

As far as I can tell, they are just holding places for dead bodies. Kept in cold, steel drawers until removal for funeral, cremation or examination.
No casual visitors allowed.

Anyway, just like the story 'The last transport', it's fictional, right?

The guy stands fascinated at the exterior and interiors of dead human beings. Go figure.
But then, a profound philosophy gives him a new perspective. Or v.v.

Quoting Caldwell

Life and death are two sides of the same coin, life could not be appreciated without death. Life was a cycle of death and rebirth, of suffering and joy.

The morgue makes him appreciate life. The realisation to live in the moment with awareness.
But then, the kicker:

Quoting Caldwell

I didn't feel too good about it.

The gap between knowing and doing. Theory and practice. Would he have to change his way of life?
How difficult would that be?

***

A good story. The first paragraph was strong and full of desire and curiosity. Animated.
But he only experienced a small part and the apparent knowledge gained left him flat. Dead.
The twist in the tale.
But hey, that's life! More journeys to come...

Thanks, author. Well done :up:

Quoting Nils Loc

There was a great anatomy series of a few animals on British television a while back. The racing horse one was the most interesting. When they gallop, their guts begin to act as a kind of piston for rapid circulation of air into and out of lungs.

I saw this one! A great programme. Very informative.

Quoting Caldwell

Life and death are two sides of the same coin,

What is the coin? What does the coin represent, that the two faces are "life" and "death"? In a word what would someone ascribe to the identity of the coin?

Quoting Caldwell

I knew that I had to make the most of the time I had, to appreciate every moment.

I didn't feel too good about it.

I do like this. There is certainly a persistent doubt in life pertaining to "did I really use my time here to it's fullest?"

There is an enduring guilt about relaxing, doing nothing, not being productive, procrastinating. One reflects on it often as a "waste of precious time".

We often imagine what our life's would be like if we utilised every waking moment to the maximum, all in pursuit of a certain goal, all designed and executed to further one's objectives. What would it be like if we were 100% efficient with the time available to us?

But I think in the end this is an untenable ideal. It's nice to be lazy between spats of productivity. We cannot be constantly productive because the concept of productivity loses meaning without "lost time", slumping and lying around doing sweet eff all.

I believe the author points to the dissatisfactory nature of this angst.

"I knew I had to appreciate every moment. I didn't feel good about it".

Of course one doesn't. Appreciating every moment is exhausting.

The story was written by https://beta.openai.com/playground. A few edits were needed to meet the word limit.

The seed was the first and last line. They are from Alice's restaurant. .

Arlo:And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL, " and
He started jumping up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down Yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

I didn't feel too good about it.

Many primary schools run a competition to encourage children to creative writing - "Fifty-word stories" or some such. In such cases it is common for the boys - yes, not the girls - to write a story about their present hero killing, maiming and dismembering in the most imaginative way.

Caldwell's competition seemed to me to elicit a similar result amongst adults. The stories presented here express that same desire to shock.

This was the idea with which I was playing.

I was a bit disappointed that no one recognised Alice.

Reply to Banno
I confess I did. Unlike Arlo, though, I didn't feel up to telling them the story of her restaurant.

Reply to Ciceronianus Only we few cultured curmudgeons were up to the task it seems.

If you wanna end the war 'n stuff, you gotta sing loud.

Quoting Banno

f you wanna end the war 'n stuff, you gotta sing loud.

Well, you certainly don't want to get caught littering.

Quoting Banno

I was a bit disappointed that no one recognised Alice.

Sorry. I'm old; i have gaps. If you'd done the pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back 'o each one, telling what each one was, I'd have been right on it.

Quoting Vera Mont

Sorry. I'm old; i have gaps.

:wink:
But you remember Alice? It's a song about Alice.