Story of the Flying Head

It is a night of exceptional tranquility at the hospital. In the rhythmic silence of the ticking clock, two nameless visitors devote their loyal company to her by sitting with her in her room. They don’t appear to be interested in tending to her needs. The man sitting on a chair beside the window is wearing a black suit slightly too big for his figure. The other one sitting next to her bed is wearing a military uniform, one that reminds her of the military training they made her go through when she was a kid. Their faces are evasive, but she is certain that they are her acquaintances from some point in her life.

A tide of uproar breaks the silence. “A mob is taking over the hospital!” she hears someone scream from the top of his lungs. Sensing that the turmoil is soon to creep up to her door, she fixes her eyes on it, the only connection between her room and the outside world. Suddenly, the door breaks open. Through the fissure a grenade is tossed towards the center of the room, landing right on her bed, on her white linen. Out of instinct, she jumps up from her bed and runs towards the opened window. The grenade explodes like a monstrous platinum flower blooming violently from her bed. Before she knows it, it has ended and the room resumes its silence. She is overwhelmed by a sense of joy and gratefulness for having escaped the attack unscathed, and the incident that caused her to be admitted into the hospital seems only trivial. Only when she turns around, she sees what has truly happened: where the military uniform used to end, a flood springs forth and washes the sheets wine red. What it has shot out—the ejected head—is rolling merrily on the ceramic floor.

She picks up the head. The man in the black suit is watching her. Neither of them speaks a word. She cannot stray her eyes away from it, for he is watching. If she does, he will condemn her for rejecting an old friend for his physical deformity, in this case, a severed head.

Story of the Flying Head

The head has a black façade and a white core, with parts of its right side carved out and pitted with holes, like honeycomb. She looks for his eyes, but they are closed. Even the most compassionate eyes, the teary eyes of hers, will not wake them now. But still she dares not move her eyes away because the man in the black suit is still watching. His onlooker’s eyes, cold and serene, are accusing her for faking her grief. “Weep a tear,” she thinks to herself, “Grieve!”