When we released the cloud of BumbleBears, everyone cheered. Naysayers and optimists united in delighted wonder, beholding our lab-made magic.

In truth, as we watched them fly free, we didn’t care about saving the planet through scientific hybridization and DNA manipulation. We only wanted to recreate the picture hanging in our childhood bedroom; the one over the dresser the color of old butter our mother bought third-hand.

The picture: a black-and-yellow striped bear, bumblebee wings holding her, impossibly, aloft.
And when those naysayers said (as naysayers always do) that it was impossible. That bumblebees (extinct 2175 CE) and bears (extinct 2273 CE) could not be combined, could not fly. We told them that we had harnessed the energy of our searing, unrelenting sun more efficiently than ever before. That a nickel-phosphorus skeleton was lighter than those of the few-remaining birds. We told them that through science and machinery, through the integration of AI-powered neural systems with muscle and chitin, we had created a cyborg that could endure this inhospitable, heat-ravaged world.

We held out our hands, and BumbleBears alighted on our fingers, nuzzling our lesion-riddled skin. The others copied us; naysayers, optimists, dirt-faced children, and bedraggled officials offering what remained of their skin to our creation’s caresses.

And if the nuzzling turned to biting, if screams soon drowned out cheers as surely as the hungry, rising oceans had swallowed half the known world, what of it?

We had removed the bumblebees’ stingers, but not the bears’ sharp teeth. We gave them wings and made them small, but we didn’t excise their craving for flesh.

And if each bite envenomated, if silence drowned out screams as paralysis seized central nervous systems—well. In the end, all creatures must feast to survive.

We think humanity has ground enough species to dust beneath the merciless boots of progress. And we think the BumbleBears’ lovely, soft fur, their sad, dark eyes, their sheer impossibility given wings—their lab-made magic—is worth the cost.
​
After all, isn’t the price of magic always blood?

Life becomes death becomes life.

I believe.

Life is unending if we choose to make it so. If we believe and understand.

We discard the old. A waste.

We must ingest the old, become the new. We must seek renewal, be reborn in your image.

Ouroboros watch over me.

My body is not what makes me. My soul is pure and my will is strong. I can change. I will change.

#

Yesterday I lay in the sun for an hour. Naked, no shade, no clouds.

Samantha would have scolded me for my foolishness. But she left. She didn’t understand me before and she wouldn’t understand me now.

My skin is pink, and it stings when I move. I wish for the itching to begin, for my skin to peel. Oh, Ouroboros, remake me.

#

Two more nights of aches and itching have passed. The first layer of skin is dead, loose, free. I rub across it, making tiny rolls of skin. I pull at the patches on my arms and legs, my chest and face. They come away in bigger and bigger pieces.

I peel off the old and do what I must to become new.

It tastes of nothing when I place it on my tongue. Some larger pieces have hints of salt. When I swallow there’s an aftertaste of sweetness.

There’s much more to eat. I can’t let any of it go to waste.

Samantha would have thought me disgusting. Maybe a part of her always did. Is that why she always yelled at me? Is that why she left?

It’s her loss. For I will become something better.

In your image.

#

The first layer is gone, but there are many more. The sun burns stronger, my skin reddens more easily. And it peels. It sheds.

I consume it all. I lick my wounds where I begin to blister and bleed. Nothing is wasted.
She thought I would never amount to anything. She thought I didn’t have it in me to change.
I’ll show her.

Samantha will see me when I am reborn.

#

Ouroboros watches over me.

My skin turns hard; scabs become scales. Old becomes new. In your image.

My fingers and toes ache. They thicken, swelling around the nails. The skin splits and bleeds. A nail clatters to the floor. My clumsy fingers can’t pick it up, so I lick it off the ground.

It’s hard. Can’t be chewed. So I swallow it whole. The other nails will fall off soon.
Why wait?

I lift my swollen fingers to my lips and pluck the nails from each with my teeth. Then do the same with my toes.

In with the old. To become the new.

#

My thighs fused overnight. I can no longer walk. I get used to crawling, to eating my shed skin off the floor. Every day I eat, every day I transform.

If Samantha could see me now. Behold me as I was meant to be.

Would she change her mind? Take me back?

Or would she run away screaming, cursing me? Would she hit me again?

It doesn’t matter. Soon I will be something new. I won’t need her anymore. I will be better.

In your image.

#

My teeth wobble and crack. They tumble from my bleeding gums. I don’t let them get far.
Some scrape against my throat as I swallow. Others go down easy.

My forked tongue flicks to the roof of my mouth to dislodge the rest. I can feel new fangs growing in.

#

My arms are one with my torso. My legs, my feet, and my toes are gone. Only a tail remains. My old skin has split down the middle. So much dead skin.

I twist and turn. I slither across the floor out of my old self.

My jaw opens wide. Wider. In with the old. What I was, is no more. I am new. Reborn.

In your image.

#

I no longer need you Samantha. I am better now. I am pure.

My new form slithers through your open window.

My transformation has taught me many things. Most important of all, I was not the problem. I was not bad. Unworthy. Worthless.

Weak, maybe.

But I am strong now.

You're unaware of me as I circle your bed. You only begin to stir when I wrap myself around you. Too late.

I cut off your scream with the thick scales of my tail coiling around your mouth and neck.
I watch the terror in your eyes.

Oh, Samantha. Ouroboros has granted me not only rebirth, but wisdom as well.

You were the problem. You were unhappy and you chose to blame me. I didn’t deserve that.

All this time you should have looked upon yourself. That is the only way to better your life. To change.

Well, there is one other way to change.

My fangs flash in the moonlight and my jaw opens wide.

In with the old. Become the new.
​
In your image.

This story was first published in Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration published by Salt Heart Press in 2024.