Old Mo lowered his head and looked at his body like a butcher examining meat on a chopping block.
Where there was more flesh, where there was less, where skin clung to bone—but skin was flesh too, and could be sacrificed.
He began to cut.
The tip of the knife pierced the skin at the second joint of his left pinky.
That layer of shriveled, blackened skin was as thick as kraft paper. When the blade went in, it made a faint squelching sound.
He pushed forward with force, the blade cutting along the bone. There were knife marks on the bone, dry and rough enough to make his hand tremble. Gritting his teeth, he gave a hard pull, and the pinky snapped off at the second joint.
There was no blood. The severed end showed grayish-white marrow, already dried out like chalk dust.
He placed the severed finger into a clay jar with a crisp ding.
Then came the ring finger, the middle finger, the index finger, the thumb. He cut off all five fingers one by one and placed them into the clay jar one by one.
He lowered his head and looked at his left hand. The palm was still there, the wrist was still there, but the fingers were gone.
Bone protruded from the stumps, their cross-sections grayish-white like sawn-off branches. He did not care. His right hand gripped the knife and kept cutting.
His left forearm.
Three inches above the wrist, he brought the knife down in a single cut.
The skin split open, muscle spilling out, but there was no blood.
The blade caught on the bone. He used his left hand—no, his left hand had no fingers anymore. He used his left palm to press down on the back of the knife.
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