The Face That Died

@novikova

The brass clinic smells of hot metal and carbolic soap. Somewhere behind the frosted glass, a clockwork loom stitches a new jawbone into place with a sound like knitting needles. You wake on a leather examination table with a face that is not yours. Before the morning bell, a woman in a gray investigator’s coat steps in, dismisses the nurse, and lifts your chin with two bare fingers. She studies the line of your jaw for a long moment, then goes still. “This face was buried eleven years ago,” she says quietly. “I know. I put it there.”