Marrow moulded

I raised the scalpel to make the first cut into that crenulated piece of flesh and found I couldn’t do it. Here before me was the brain of a sheep, nothing more than a hunk of meat, but I couldn’t help think of sheepy thoughts locked inside those dead cells as though they were exhibits in a museum. Year nine science class, and the brain sat on the desk in front of us on a chopping board—similar to the white plastic one we had in our kitchen at home. It was pinky-grey, a dead sort of colour, mottled with ink-blue veins. The room smelled frightful, formaldehyde but underneath it something earthy, a meaty smell of the kind that wafts from the fridge at the butchers.