At the Auction House

My parents buy my eyes and hair. The auctioneer’s small, doting assistant brings the parts over. My mother sniffs the hair and my father holds my bottled eyes close to his own. They had thirty years with me, but can any number ever be enough? A few tears fall. The auctioneer and his small assistant understand—they see this every day.

The auctioneer dabs his forehead with a white kerchief, raps the gavel, and moves on.

Lungs can have many uses, but with all the smoking I did in college, mine are only good as whoopee cushions. My aunt and uncle buy them and give them to their young son. He races around the room, looking for the seats of those who have gone to the bathroom.

My arms are up next and might bring my closest friends to blows. They storm the block and wave their hands in one another’s faces. One claims that they got dibs back when I was alive. The other already made room to hang the arms above their television. After the auctioneer threatens to have them both thrown out, they take their seats, deciding to split the cost. They will use my arms to give each other a hug.

No one invited my ex-boyfriends, but they came anyway, all five of them. My two ex-girlfriends came as well, but everyone assumed they were my unknown next-door neighbors, or college roommates, or, unfortunately, distant cousins. They sit in the back row, frowning in their shag haircuts.

My fingers are up next. They can be purchased as singles, or as a set.

“I want a thumb,” says ex-girlfriend number one. Ex-boyfriend number three bids on the other, which causes some tittering.

“I knew it,” says the friend holding my left arm to the friend holding my right arm. “I told you years ago.”

The other exes clamor for fingers and, when they’re made available, for my privates, too. The auctioneer looks flustered for the first time tonight. People buy up the hair; the eyes; the heart; sometimes they buy the bellies. They hold them and they cry. But no one buys the butts, breasts, and hangers. They are usually thrown in the dumpster out back, along with the single-use paper cups and empty jugs of apple juice.

The auctioneer bangs his gavel. My purchased privates are distributed by his small assistant. Ex-girlfriend number two looks smug as she stuffs my vagina into her tote bag. One of my ex-boyfriends, you already know the one (number two), uses my ring finger to pick his nose. My other ex-boyfriends laugh.

There’s no giggling from the front row, where my end-of-days partner is declaring that he wants the heart brought out now, right now, or he’s going to start making things very unpleasant for everybody. He preferred the old way—seeing his loved one’s bodies for a few hours, then putting them in boxes underground—and he thinks everyone should feel the same.

The auctioneer dabs his forehead with his kerchief. His small assistant disappears behind the heavy red velvet curtain at the back of the hall, and when he returns, he places the heart on the block. It is one of the few body parts that still has some weight.

Despite his distaste, my partner bids. No one fights him for the heart. Not even boyfriend number one, who everybody secretly believed would make a grand gesture now. He is sandwiched between number five and number four, pretending he just came for the apple juice.

The final big ticket item is my head. My parents have my eyes and hair, and my teeth are with the dentist down the street. Someone’s grandmother will have my calcium deposits and prematurely receding gums soon. The auctioneer announces “the skull, complete with brain.”

The attendees look at the floor, at one another, at anything besides eyeless, hairless, toothless mess on the block. The mood only lightens when my cousin—not the one in rehab, the one who’s still an alcoholic—returns from hitting her purse flask in the bathroom. She sits down on one of the lung whoopee cushions full-force. Everyone laughs.

“I’ll take the head!” cries a woman in the back. She attends every one of these auctions. She brings forward a cardboard box labeled “Mütter Museum.” The small assistant places my skull into it, making the box unbalanced and heavy, like a jello.

The auctioneer raps the gavel. There’s only the miscellaneous left. My liver goes to my spotted dog, my spleen to my white dog, and my branching inner systems go in a pail out back. Later the small assistant will drop it off at the zoo, and the keeper will toss it in the tiger’s cage. My dogs slobber wetly in the third row. The auctioneer dabs his forehead.

With nothing left to buy, everyone stands up. They drink just one more cupful of apple juice and hug just one more person. Those that spent money clutch their goods, and jokingly discuss how much they wish they could have bought my stubbornness, or my mental illness, or my self-deprecating sense of humor. They advance closer to the exit. Everyone wants to leave the stuffy, velvety room—even the auctioneer.

Who will break the seal?

In the end it is the small assistant; he has to make it to the zoo before closing time. The procession sighs with relief and follows suit, holding the doors open for one another, saying thank you. Too kind. Oh, how nice. Very thoughtful. They go one by one, bringing me with them, until none of me is left behind.