Havok Publishing

Saving the Uglies

By Rosemarie DiCristo

Detachment of limbs is a superpower.

Really. Being able to pop off your legs or hands and send them to do heroic things while your body stays safely behind can be… handy.

Of course, I attach limbs. No one considers that a superpower, just like absolutely no one considers me a hero. Besides, the limbs aren’t even mine.

I’m usually called “Frankenstein,” but that was my creator, so I’m more accurately considered “Frankenstein’s creation,” which is bad enough. Do not get me started on people labeling me “monster.”

There’s lots of things they mess up. Like, I speak flawlessly. And am I evil? Look, we all have our bad days, but, generally, no. Revisionist twaddle, invented by the not-so-good doctor.

Unfortunately, one thing the books and movies get right is my looks. Like, Doctor Feel-bad had the pick of any head in the city and couldn’t make me handsome?

But my pain is other creatures’ gain. I’ve taken Dr. Frankenstein’s methods and improved them a million-fold. I specialize in the repair and replacement of imperfect and unloved body parts.

I hear what you’re saying: Dude, been there, done that. It’s called prosthetics. Well, I say, you’re absolutely right.

Except…

Prosthetics are plastic and metal and wood.

And for those few who do attach real body parts, it’s for strictly medical reasons, not to make a person beautiful.

I should know about the need to be beautiful.

I’ve found thousands of folks who’ve donated their best parts to science. This science, of shuffling up one’s looks and being delighted with the results. I guess many people who weren’t “beautiful” in life want to make it better for those who come after.

Think your nose is too big? Your legs too short? Got a bum so large the entire population of Cleveland could set a picnic table upon it? Relax, I can get you a new nose, Wilt Chamberlain-like legs—although not his; he’s not part of my program. But Walt Disney was—and a tiny derriere. Just like I can get flowing red hair and emerald-green eyes for you gals who’ve read too many romance novels.

I’ve reanimated Betsy Ross and hired her as my helper. Don’t know if she really sewed that flag, but her stitches make my prosthetics neat, safe, and successful, not like that nineties flick where the med student sewed his girlfriend’s head onto a new body and… Nah. Never mind. Let’s just say I know all the Frankenstein reinterpretations. And they all suck.

Anyway, my practice is wildly successful. Not to drop names, but among the people I serviced were Bigfoot, Cyrano de Bergerac, Richard III, the Ugly Duckling, Mr. Hyde, Rumpelstiltskin, Phyllis Diller, a whole gaggle of trolls, ogres, gargoyles, and formerly-evil witches, plus the Queen of Hearts. Oh, right, I also fixed Dracula’s smile and Medusa’s hair.

Cinderella’s stepsisters are now gorgeous, but, alas, still have rotten hearts. Ditto for all those nightmare slasher dudes from the movies. Hey, a fella can do only so much. It’s the outsides I treat, not the insides.

But besides that, there are two problems with my service. One, since I’m the only person who can perform the precise science of attaching body parts, I cannot work on myself. Yep. Still plug ugly. Sigh.

The other problem is what caused me to write this.

One warm summer day, Quasimodo burst into my clinic, barreling past the dozen or so patients in the waiting area.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, but I was pretty sure I knew the answer. If I had those eyebrows and that wart, I’d come see me, too.

“Nothing.” His fists were clenched in rage. Then he pounded the counter and shouted, “Shame on you!”

If my attached brows could pucker in confusion, they would have.

Quasimodo stretched up in an attempt to look me directly in the eyes. “You should use your skills to help the world. Instead, you’re using it for vanity.”

“No!” I cried. “I’m curing these people’s flaws. That’s different.”

“How?” It was all he said as he stared at me for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I murmured, “Because… it’s…”

He answered for me. “Because you want to eradicate ugly? No! Embrace it.”

“Fella,” I shook my head slowly, “I’ve been embracing ugly for two hundred years.”

Quasimodo leaned in so close I discovered he had halitosis on top of everything else. “Not true. Maybe the world doesn’t see it,” his voice was a whisper, “but there’s beauty inside you.”

“In you, too, Quasi,” I said, mechanically.

He huffed in frustration. “I’m not fishing for compliments. I want you to listen. Don’t eradicate ugly. Ugly’s only on the surface. Inside we all have beautiful souls.” His face lit up. “The Beast had one. So did the Phantom.”

“What? Of the Opera? Newsflash. He killed people.”

“So did you, dude,” called Cyclops, who’d come in for his second eye.

“How many times…! Revisionist twaddle!” I shouted.

“Boys,” Quasimodo said.

We stopped squabbling to listen.

He touched me with a big, gnarled hand. “Newsflash. Your soul’s so beautiful, it shows in your face.”

I looked in the giant mirror I keep for folks to see their improved bodies. I watched my stitched-on hands touch my stiff, dead face. I saw my head shake, No. And I wondered, as I have so many times before, why, just once, can’t they let the hero of a story be ugly?

“Why did Dr. Frankenstein reject you, big guy?” Quasimodo’s voice was super-soft. “Then think about what you’re doing to these people.”

As I looked out at my waiting area, overflowing with the uglies of the world desperately seeking beauty, I had to ask myself: what is beauty? What is ugly? Why is one good, and the other bad, and what gives someone the right to decide?

After two hundred years of living with the stigma of ugly, you think I’d get it. Maybe I finally have.

What am I doing to these people?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosemarie DiCristo has been writing ever since she could pick up a pencil and paper—or maybe before that, “writing” stories in her head. She often shamelessly plagiarized—and retold to her spellbound friends—and added episodes to—her favorite TV shows. She’s always had a fondness for stories where the heroes are plain, ordinary, and—yes—ugly.


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