White. Silent. The void holds one human specimen—description to add emphasis—a center point on top of a steel table. Perfect rectangle. Perfectly rectangular. Probes reach in from the empty. All are racing towards our subject: Ms. Beatrice. Into each probe is injected the liquefied verve of former U.S. Surgeon Generals. Once they—phallic imagery—penetrate the flesh and get inside—coital imagery—their mission is to detect and eradicate all pernicious organisms.

Your—yes, you the reader—camera is attached to the probe with the most dangerous destination of all: the heart of darkness—in layman’s terms: the large intestine. Luckily, for you and the specimen, your probe contains the essence of one C. Everett Koop:

Born in Brooklyn New York, Dr. Koop graduated from Dartmouth College and received his M.D. degree from Cornell Medical College. At the University of Pennsylvania he was named Professor of Pediatric Surgery in 1959 and Professor of Pediatrics in 1971. Presently—11:44 am November 7, 2000—he is a Professor of Surgery at Dartmouth Medical School. A pediatric surgeon with an international reputation, Dr. Koop was sworn in as Surgeon General on November 17, 1981. As Surgeon General, Dr. Koop advised the public on health matters such as smoking and health, diet and nutrition, environmental health hazards, and the importance of immunization and disease prevention. He also became the government’s chief spokesman on AIDS. After serving two terms, Dr. Koop continues—11:46 am November 7, 2000—to educate the public about health issues through his writings and electronic media.

The probe has just been implanted—“tell don’t show” good teachers always say—the mission has begun.

“I’ve just entered the bloodstream,” announces Koop. Waves of red flow around the probe—metallic and waterproof. With its constant push, the blood-red blood sweeps the probe up and into its current. Bobbing along in a constantly ebbing flow, Koop approaches the stomach’s opening. He pauses at the entrance, sighs, and looks around. Rudely carved into the tissue is a scarred inscription: “abandon every hope, who enter here.” Bold and ominous the words loom and echo pervasively—yes; words, though merely carved, can both see and speak. Koop pauses, breathes deeply, and scans around the inscription. Beside the oddly placed “DA was here,” “Class of 1300 rules,” or “Minos sucks dick for change,” the inscription stands alone. “I’m going in,” Koop says. The screen goes dark and the volume drops.

Regaining visual: Koop looks out over mountainous folds of flesh weaving their way into the distance. Transgressing the rugae will be difficult. Though the probe is covered in an alkaline mucous mimicking that of the body itself, one wrong turn into a pool of concentrated hydrochloric acid and no amount of coating will protect it. The winding, bloody, pink tissue rises and peaks in one spot and then drops down to the plum purple ground in another. Bubbling pools burn away fleshy bits of animal still
Regaining aural: crying out in agony. Moans fade in/out from all around. “The smell in here is rather disturbing. A mixture of burnt flesh and pungent gas that’s simply nauseating.” A figure appears in the distance; a speck quickly growing—rapidly coming into focus. “Oh my God,” Koop says, voice dropping to the silence of breath, “it’s Cerebus.”

The three-headed proteolytic enzyme clarifies: a gangly, black beast foaming at the mouths. Two metal flaps open from the probe’s undercarriage. Lumps of dirt shoot out and hurtle towards the enzyme, impacting hard. Cerebus falls back three steps; stumbling—trying to maintain—falling—legs collapse. A dull thud sounds. Faces down, it doesn’t stir. The probe creeps up to the fallen—pepsin—monstrosity; it twitches three times and then dissolves into the epithelium, fading from sight. “I’d best be moving quickly,” announces Koop.

The probe races forward through the snaky pathways and finds passage through the mucus-laden labyrinth. Chunks of flesh zip by, some smoldering and some reduced to fatty oiled pools of ooze. “Occasionally, you’ll hit a pocket of air that smells of equal parts burnt hair and bile,” observes Koop. Slowing to a halt, the probe reaches a great stretch of water known as the Pyloric Canal. Rumored to have been built by the Americans in the early 1300’s, this canal separates Koop from the small intestine.

“There’s a ferryman who’ll take me across. He’s a good guy; I’ve worked with him before, goes by the name of Phlegyas—not the handsomest of fellows, it’s best not to stare.” The probe waits—personification, or rather unification of the probe with Koop—and rests against the wine-red bloodied bank. Slowly, a rippled parting in the canal washes toward the probe. The shadowed outline of a figure, coal-black against a crow-black background, approaches. It’s Phlegyas. His eyes emanate a gray energy that condenses into drifts of smoke, which encompass the probe. Slowly, forward motion. Splashes of wine stain the metallic probe as the spectral manifestation guides Koop toward his three-part destination: duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. Roger lodging into the opposing shore, the Phlegyas-led convoy separates. The freed probe spins away as Koop nods graciously back to the ferryman.

Ahead, electrolytes dance back and forth like drunken fireflies on a burnt August night. They illuminate millions of microvilli—phallic little fingers fingering—sweeping the probe along. Excremental rivers—“But feces aren’t formed until the large intestine!” the scientists will scream, but this, friends, is ‘fiction’—excremental rivers rush along both sides and drown Sullen ingesta. Bubbles burp up from the muck: last exhales giving way to complete submission. The probe continues onward but begins to slow. The sewage-river gradually rises before the camera. Up and up it builds. “I’m losing power,” gasps Koop. The shit-brown septic sludge engulfs the probe. The screen goes out. “I’m completely submerged. I haven’t much time. My only option is auxiliary power. On ‘five’ I will attempt the changeover. Five, four, three, two, one. Switching now.” Visual is regained. The probe launches up and out of the muck—trailing droplets fall from the probe and splashdown into the braised river. “That was close,” Koop sighs. “I should have enough auxiliary to continue, but I don’t know how it will effect my viral confrontation. I should be coming upon the large intestine—the final Distination—shortly.” The probe rejoins the densely packed microvilli; Koop lowers the probe’s power to standby and the intestinal brushing pushes it forward—albeit slightly slower than before. Ahead, the passage gets darker: a deep shade of red-brown. Visibility drops to millimeters. “I’m almost there.”

Teeming with enzyme-producing microbial life, the large intestine greets the probe with mixtures of bacteria and mucus swirling in pools of shit. Excrement rains down upon the remnants of life. “One ancient legend has it that every person—no gender bias—has a statue of themselves in their heart. If the heart gets broken, the statue breaks. So pained by this fracturing; the statue cries. Tears flow throughout the body ultimately ending up here. They collect in a pool, torn and distraught, and wait for their chance to leave the body—forever.”

Awash in a sea of fecal-forming mucus, the probe bounces and splashes around fighting its way forward. “Let Fortune turn her wheel as she may please,” declares Koop. “At this point you need to have faith in the probe’s structural integrity. You’ve got to have faith.”

--And sure enough, the probe comes out the other side. Koop turns the probe’s power back on and charges toward the colon; a colony of goblet cells who do nothing but secrete. “The infectious virus is supposed to be somewhere in this region.”

--And sure enough, there it is ahead. Koop maintains a comfortable distance, analyzing the three-headed pathogen. “My God, it’s huge,” exasperates a nearly breathless Koop. Each horrible head sways serpentine, and screams reverberate out of each mouth.

Sound waves composed from the combined moans of all who’ve been eternally damned. An aural slaughterhouse filling every crevice of the cavernous tube and beyond. Sound beyond containment, beyond structure. Chaotic warbling noise weaving together and then separating into fragments of sonic distress.

Foam dribbles from the corner of each mouth--bubbling down acidic droplets that burn holes in the ground tissues. The eyes sit deep like smoldering bits of charcoal burning an endless supply of amber sap. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” Beneath each head, wings of ribonucleic acid jut out and wave back and forth in deliberate, powerful thrusts creating icy winds that blow across the rugged colonic battlefield. Shards of ice whip past the probe. A few occasionally hit, knocking it back. “He sees me,” Koop says, voice beginning to tremble. The beast raises its arms, blackened with hair, and grabs onto the epithelial tissue. Tearing off handfuls, he launches them at the probe. They splatter across it—pock marking blotches of red-brown. The camera loses video. “It’s beginning to move…I’m losing auxiliary,” Koop’s voice cracks and stutters, “it’s c-c-coming t-t-towards me.” The camera loses audio.

Email: brooklyn303@attbi.com