The Polar Liver
by Alka Sandu
I needed my suicide to be grandiose to compensate for my mediocre life.
I would waste every break from my convenience store job researching ways to die or masturbating. Then, I would come home to no one but my cat, Hex. We would watch reruns of nineties movies with music from the neighboring bar and then sleep on my beer-stained couch that reeked of vinegar and piss. Things weren’t working out for me.
So, I took a boat to St. Lawrence Island. On it, a few hunters wandered. I was worse: a poacher. I bore a shotgun and a butcher knife stolen from my father.
The wood cabin I booked for two days was ugly. The wintry wind was harsh against my cigarette-stained lungs. For my last meal, I devoured reindeer sausage and wild raspberries. I shat and stepped into the glacial wilderness. Hex would never see me again. I was going home, far away from this world.
After hours of dragging my body through the numbing coldness, I found a shore. A polar bear was wading through the thick snow. I shot it. It was as simple as that: I aimed my gun and killed it.
I stood over its corpse and slit through its skin. The white fur turned crimson. Blood splashed onto my rotten teeth. I ripped out its kidney; I knifed through the spleen. I sliced its stomach, and the flesh of a seal oozed out. I puked the reindeer sausage and blood. My scarlet vomit melted the snow.
I wiped my mouth and saw it: the precious liver.
It was fatty and disgusting. I took it out and bit it like it was a summer fig. It tasted akin to pork liver but fishier. It smelled of sulfur and rain. Piece by piece, I forced it down my throat.
I swallowed half of the liver; I held in my vomit and waited for hypervitaminosis A to kill me. I laid on the red snow with my arms on my stomach, expecting sudden vision loss or a seizure.
But nothing happened. The polar bear's carcass was rotting, with its organs spread around my head like a halo. As I was awaiting death, my limbs were frostbiting. I was dying from hypothermia, and it was boring. On one of the work breaks, I read that polar bear liver would kill me. Why would they lie? My organs were withering away. I sobbed. I forgot to leave Hex food.
And then I died. That was it. Crows came and ate my flesh. It wasn’t grandiose. It was pathetic.
I would waste every break from my convenience store job researching ways to die or masturbating. Then, I would come home to no one but my cat, Hex. We would watch reruns of nineties movies with music from the neighboring bar and then sleep on my beer-stained couch that reeked of vinegar and piss. Things weren’t working out for me.
So, I took a boat to St. Lawrence Island. On it, a few hunters wandered. I was worse: a poacher. I bore a shotgun and a butcher knife stolen from my father.
The wood cabin I booked for two days was ugly. The wintry wind was harsh against my cigarette-stained lungs. For my last meal, I devoured reindeer sausage and wild raspberries. I shat and stepped into the glacial wilderness. Hex would never see me again. I was going home, far away from this world.
After hours of dragging my body through the numbing coldness, I found a shore. A polar bear was wading through the thick snow. I shot it. It was as simple as that: I aimed my gun and killed it.
I stood over its corpse and slit through its skin. The white fur turned crimson. Blood splashed onto my rotten teeth. I ripped out its kidney; I knifed through the spleen. I sliced its stomach, and the flesh of a seal oozed out. I puked the reindeer sausage and blood. My scarlet vomit melted the snow.
I wiped my mouth and saw it: the precious liver.
It was fatty and disgusting. I took it out and bit it like it was a summer fig. It tasted akin to pork liver but fishier. It smelled of sulfur and rain. Piece by piece, I forced it down my throat.
I swallowed half of the liver; I held in my vomit and waited for hypervitaminosis A to kill me. I laid on the red snow with my arms on my stomach, expecting sudden vision loss or a seizure.
But nothing happened. The polar bear's carcass was rotting, with its organs spread around my head like a halo. As I was awaiting death, my limbs were frostbiting. I was dying from hypothermia, and it was boring. On one of the work breaks, I read that polar bear liver would kill me. Why would they lie? My organs were withering away. I sobbed. I forgot to leave Hex food.
And then I died. That was it. Crows came and ate my flesh. It wasn’t grandiose. It was pathetic.
Alka Sandu is a poet, flash fiction, and short story writer. Their work is bloody, transgressive, and queer. They currently live in Romania. The country’s bleakness inspires nihilism in their texts.