Cadaver lab never was a source of fear to me. Having read several accounts of students’ first encounters with a dead person, I went into the lab well prepared for the formidable smell of formaldehyde. I wore one of my oldest t-shirts beneath my oldest lab coat, ready to chuck both after this semester ends.
Thankfully, the scent wasn't as overpowering as I had expected. It only got worse as we passed down a halved human head with gloved hands, the noxious fog seeping into the membranes of our eyes as fingers traced the gyri, the sulci, the nooks and crannies of an actual, dripping brain. No one fainted; all were solemn and respectful to the people who lay, dismembered, on a cold steel slab for medicine’s sake.
The structures within looked virtually identical from person to person. Sure, there were minute differences, but I could immediately name the most important parts just by looking. One of the cadavers I saw was fiercely atheist, while another was a devout Christian. One called himself a humble chauffeur; another the CEO of a government-owned corporation. All had the same set of twelve cranial nerves, thread-thin strands of fibers responsible for our vastly different perceptions of this world that then metamorphose into actions.
Alas, human interaction is no more than two blobs of neurons firing electrical signals at each other, soft and defenseless without the layers of flesh and bone. And yet we choose to fight against God, nature, and man, until we have no choice but to make peace upon realizing-for the first and last time-that we do depart as nakedly as we arrive.
Whoever thought gloves kept the smell off was wrong. A sickly sweet odor clings to my fingers, defying all attempts of removal.
But this too shall pass.
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