Badman, Maya | 1

Novel Excerpt: “Women at War”

Content Warning: Indecent language, allusion to rape, explicit mortuary practices

The watch on my wrist beeps twice, my right arm freezes mid-extraction. It’s too late to

take off my gloves and silence the nuisance of a tracker; I’ve already unclothed the patient.

Including the removal of her own watch, silent, flashing red once it stopped detecting a

heartbeat. When I resume, I ignore the second set of beeps that indicate my heart rate increasing.

Extractions don’t usually surprise me, but this one does.

Straight from the patient’s vaginal canal. A long glass tube reminiscent of an upside

down tampon applicator, smooth on the outside, curved on the top with one opening, faces me.

Instead of soft cotton inside, there’s sharp hand-crafted glass needles fit in ten neat rows. Just

small enough to allow entrance, but partial to the backwards curve of an eel’s rear hooked teeth,

the tube prohibits exit. There’s dried blood inching along the inner-opening of the tool. My

throat pinches and I focus on keeping my voice steady, “Oh, you strong woman.”

Masked, but ungloved, Dad walks into the prep room. He watches as I place the tool into

a bag for the patient’s family to collect. If she has anyone left. “Elizabeth,” he wheezes, his one

lung getting worse every day. If he had to wear a watch like women do, it would be beeping

every five seconds. His next words make my watch beep, for what cause, I can’t keep track. “We

only take calls. Phone calls. From now on. The front shop,” he stops, catching his breath and

staring at the tile, “Stays closed. No more entrance.”

“What? Dad, why?” I place down my extraction tools and unglove myself, “Is your shirt

ripped? What happened?” Forcing him to sit in the corner of the room, I finally silence my

watch. From heart rate to hormones to unusual location detected, it beeps all the time.
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Dad stands in the next minute, hugging me. Something we don’t do in the prep room, or

often. “Just promise me you’ll be safe.”

“Always. Okay, Dad? I’m fine. Now, please tell me what’s going on,” I pull away and fix

his skewed glasses, once more pointing out his ripped shirt collar with my gaze. “You’re scaring

me,” I say, tacking a laugh on at the end, but it’s humorless because it’s true.

He finally takes a seat, “These two men came in and, I’ve never been so… so… sickened

at a request. They tried to request-” He shakes his head over and over. I want to grab his

shoulders and tell him to spit it out.

The glint of fluorescent light catching on glass reflects into my eye. The extraction, an

odd request, I piece it together, “They wanted her body taxidermied. Didn’t they? To keep her.”

My stomach roils with my lunch.

Dad leans back in his chair, grimacing only to take off his glasses and scrub his eyes.

When he looks back up at me, the weight of being a father to a girl is on his shoulders. “Not all

of her,” he replies.

My mouth pops open. I’m at a loss for words, “That’s sick. We should call- I dunno, the

police? Or someone else based on the news recently. Domestic services?” I ramble in my

discomfort.

“The men left. I have no information, on them. The most we can do, and this is pertinent,

to your safety, Elizabeth, is only take, embalming requests, over the phone,” Dad chuffs out his

words, breathless. I place a hand on his shoulder, nodding.

The metal storage slots for bodies are on the far wall. I look at it, knowing we are near

capacity at our little pop and daughter shop until their bodies are claimed. “It’s all women now.”

“What?” Dad asks, looking at me instead of the storage wall.

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“Every body we’ve received for the past six months. With the exception of Mr. Parched,

they’ve all been women.” Though Mr. Parched was picked up for funeral services within two

weeks. The rest are buried at some point in unmarked plots when they can no longer stay here.

With his attention now on the units holding bodies, he points to the bottom row, “Those

women. You’ve probably, noticed. Who needed, immediate preservation. It wasn't because they

were here, long, they died, and it took the men, their families too long. To bring them in. They

stunk, already rotting, but their, pardon me daughter, but their vaginas were all weeping. Those

men, just now,” he points to the doorway that leads to the entrance of our morgue, “wanted the

same thing-” his breath hitches in his weak lung. He swipes under his glasses, “If your mother,

had been treated like this…”

“She wasn’t Dad. Our friend Tony embalmed her and now she’s safe with us in her urn.”

Dad stands, “But I’m scared for you. I’ve been hearing, rumblings, of a safe place. Run

by the government.”

I scoff, “What better interest does ‘the government’ have than the men out there?” I air

quote my words but am pacing nonetheless. “News says the female population is declining. Men

to women are 70-to-30. Nothing would be different if we went to the government.”