“I don’t know. You always seemed to spend copious amounts of time on the computer or watching this…” he gestured to the TV, “…or on that tik-tok thing. I just wanted to make sure you’re not…”

“Dad, what are you talking about? I barely watch Netflix anymore. Not like you would know.”

She shut it off, plunging them both into darkness. As his night vision struggled to adjust, he could hear her slink away. Upstairs, where she would surely be on her phone for another hour. Studious as she was, she had endless time, and this is how she wasted it. Just like him, she never knew what she had, and wasted it.

He was in the OR early the next morning, tired and hungover from the night’s shenanigans. The Multiectomy Machine tied its sutures in a fashion not far off from stringing a guitar. Damien’s fingers danced over its delicate knobs, guiding the needle back and forth like a python sneaking to its prey. It was no different than the old sword masters who saw their blades as extensions of the arm. He could feel his own hand plunging through the sides of this woman’s frontal bone, sinew wrapping his fingertips, a body becoming his clay. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” Michelangelo had said. It was always there, in Damien’s eyes. Involuntary pictures of beauty springing forth from every face he met, a new visage only a few millimeters of bone away from fruition. With how mutable our internal selves could be, why shouldn’t we afford the same care to our bodies? Sarah certainly knew that. Her big nose that he used to lay kisses on had receded, becoming delicate under the hands of some overindulged LA hack. He could tell by the way her nostrils flared upward, the newest celebrity micro-trend.

Her newest song began to play in the operating room, queued in a moment of weakness. As he rounded another stitch, he heard the notes of the bass guitar call in response. He pulled the needle back through, echoing more bassy notes. Each stitch sounded off a new stanza. Dazed, he tied it off prematurely. His fingers had released the console all on their own, now playing ghost-notes in the air. He could hear the wail of the crowd, hidden somewhere behind the notes of Sarah’s song. Just as they had cheered when he still dreamed. He had promised himself he wouldn’t abandon these big ideas, no matter how heated his life became. Had he not done enough liposuction to last a lifetime? And still there was work to be done, people to improve. He had just bought his second lake house, too, that mortgage wasn’t going to settle itself.

His curiosity broke like a floodgate, and by the end of the week, he was sitting beside Dr. Flint in his practice. His colleague scrolled through a minimalist menu, each presenting a series of operational steps. “…and so the AI comes up with each movement for the Multiectomy Machine to make. Then you just look through and review them. Like reviewing code.”

“…open the columella… peel back the soft tissue envelope…” he mumbled. “This is all too rote. No operation ever goes this procedurally.”

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