Marcia: Character Development

Her hands gripped to the sides of the metal waste bin. That morning she realized Bio lab dissections and morning sickness were not the best combination. Her lab partner held back her hair, yet his desperate attempts not to watch caused thick red strands of hair to fall in front of her face. She couldn’t bear to look at the poor frog, his little claws grasping out toward her as if it needed her to help him. She remembered the reason she was there, she wanted to help animals, and if familiarizing herself with the dead corpses of a hundred frogs was what she would have to go through she figured it was worth the suffering.

            She pinned the flaps of skin to the dissection tray, trying frantically to not allow the smell of formaldehyde to cause her to gag. She remembered her sister laughing at her every time she had to stop and look at an animal. She was always looking for a way to help them, whether it was a squirrel or the neighborhood dog, she tried to help those who weren’t able to speak. As her lab partner wrote down the position of the liver, she reminded herself that she was going to be a veterinarian someday.

Yet, as the smell of the dead corpse in front of her rose to her nostrils she lost all color in her cheeks. Her lab partner looked at her incomplete horror and simply pointed to the wastebasket that was conveniently placed next to her feet. Her red hair flipped in front of her face as she lost the battle with the nausea building behind her throat. She ended lab that day away from the dead frog.