Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep(Martha Huett) Story elements by Tim Norland
Written by Martha Huett


"In the year of Our Lord, two thousand and eighteen, Emma Louise Miller was taken from us and lifted unto Heaven to rest in the peaceful embrace of the Holy Father.

"Emma, 29, was a lifelong resident of Stillwater, Minnesota, who dedicated her short life to serving the most vulnerable among us. She was a beloved neo-natal nurse at St. Paul's Children's Hospital and a volunteer with the Big Sisters program for orphaned kids. She was also a firefighter and paramedic for the Stillwater Volunteer Fire Department. Emma brought selfless service, many smiles and much happiness to family, friends, patients and colleagues with her skills, warmth and optimism.

"Emma often said that happiness starts with one's own physical well-being. She was an avid runner, cross-country skier and marksman. Emma continued competing in skeet and target sharp-shooting exhibitions even after finishing high school, where she was the crowned biathlon champion for four years.

"Emma was a gourmet hobbyist when she wasn't exercising, volunteering or working. She loved making up exotic dishes and sharing her recipes online. Emma's signature dish featuring her favorite food, beets, received over ten thousand likes and a mention in the summer edition of Foodie magazine. She was described as 'adventurous and brave in the world of amateur gourmands'.

"Emma was courageous in everything she approached; new or familiar. She explained her bravery in her usual humorous way by recounting how she had been so frightened by a party clown when she was a little girl that nothing could scare her since.

"Emma Louise Miller will be laid to rest in the Stillwater Cemetery on Friday. She is survived by her parents, James and Nelda Miller; her grandmother, Lucille Miller; her sister Lucy Miller; her two dogs, Pip and Chip; and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. She will be greatly missed."

*******

Yeah, well, I noticed in her obituary that they left out the part of Emma being an organ donor. It kind of made me feel a little bit left out, as well. The others felt the same way. After all, we were the ones who worked night and day to keep our precious Emma healthy and alive. We are her organs, her tissues and her body parts. From pumping blood, filtering waste, and oxygenating her cells to giving her sight and sound, touch and feel, we gave life to Emma. We did it gladly because she cared for us and because we loved her dearly.

Now our beautiful Emma is dead. The best we can do - the only thing we can do - is carry on her legacy. I am her heart, and I will share the stories about our new corporeal homes as told to me by her donated body parts. I can assure you that we were selected for transplantation based solely on blood type and were housed in the bodies of recipients who had patiently climbed to the top of the waiting list simply by waiting.


Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep...

It was around two o'clock in the morning when Grayson Banks called a wrap on the filming of 'His Turgid Majesty'. He was tired indeed but very pleased with the final product which had been perfectly cast with the best pornographic film actors that money could buy. Everybody, including Grayson, knew that where he was lacking in social decorum and basic morality, he more than compensated with his overstuffed, monied accounts.

Grayson loved making and selling porn. His favorite challenge was not keeping his actors safe and clean; it was finding ways to get around the rules policing the age and health of said actors. "You are what you make" was one of Grayson's favorite lines which he proudly followed up with "and I make eye candy". He would always say it in a happy, sing-song way, especially after squeezing drops of liquid cocaine into his ocean-blue eyes. Grayson's conventional good looks were trademarked by those eyes. He appreciated his baby blues more to examine his fat cash accounts, which grew into astounding amounts over the years, than to attract admirers.

Almost a year before Grayson's latest production, he had cast a sixteen-year-old runaway as lead actor in a particularly raw porno flick; a role that even hardened veterans of the industry would have declined had he asked. In spite of itself, the film was an absolute hit and a huge money-maker for a delighted and coked-up Grayson. It turned out, however, that the lead actor was not a runaway. He was just a desperate boy who was raising as much cash as quickly as he could in hopes of covering his diabetic mother's medical care. Over the months and with his secretly-earned wages, the boy's mother saw her own diabetic condition stabilize while her son's health and strength diminished. He had contracted AIDS on Grayson's illicit set.

It took his mom several weeks of gentle prodding to discover the truth about the money he acquired. It took even less time to get a menial custodial job in Grayson's film studio where she was quickly entrusted to clean his office and set. On the final day of filming 'His Turgid Majesty', the boy's mother replaced Grayson's bottle of cocaine-infused eye drops with an identical bottle filled with battery acid then put it back in the arm pocket of his director's chair. It was publicly known that Grayson was addicted to cocaine and had administered it into his system through eye drops for years. That fateful early morning saw Grayson Banks sober, not high at all, but blind as a bat. With both eyes and their surrounding tissues numbed by years of drug abuse, he emptied the full bottle in one sweeping and practiced motion after calling a final wrap. Instantly, his retinas were seared and both eyes had shriveled into nubs and shrunk into the back of his head.


I Pray The Lord My Soul To Keep...

Jasmine James knew the streets of Houston like the back of her hand; she was looking at nearly twelve years on the job as a city bus driver. Ten of those years were driving the Downtown to Sugarland Express route where she would pick up riders from the suburban Park N Ride lots and carry them to the city's center and back. It was a wonderful job, and Jasmine loved it. She had befriended many of the regular riders and enjoyed their conversations and complimentary banter about her unusual affinity for playing classical guitar. They had never heard her play live, of course, but she would hand out CDs or send audio files to anyone who asked. Naturally, the job had its downsides, too. The biggest for Jasmine was her weight. She had managed to gain five pounds for every year on her beloved, but sedentary job. Add that to an already plump form, and Jasmine was quite heavyset. Self promises were made each new year. Then they were broken with dinners of chicken-fried steak with gravy-drenched mashed potatoes or ham hocks with salted collard greens. Nobody who rode with Jasmine either noticed or cared. She was loved.

As Jasmine's bus approached the Park N Ride lot in Sugarland one sunny April morning, she eagerly searched the outdoor passenger waiting area for her favorite rider, Dr. Jerome Winkel. She was excited to give him the latest recording of her playing a classical guitar arrangement of Bach's masterpiece, 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring'. Jasmine had worked on it for months and just knew Dr. Winkel would be proud of her. His opinion as a fellow guitarist would always be important to her. It was Dr. Winkel who had gifted her with her first guitar, had shared sheet music with her and had encouraged her through a decade of beginner's to advanced lessons and practice sessions.

Jasmine spotted him waiting patiently under the open shelter in his wheelchair. She gently pulled up to the curb, put the bus in park and rummaged through her shoulder bag for the CD. Finding it, Jasmine tossed the long-strapped purse onto the floor by her driver's seat and dutifully activated the bus's automated wheelchair ramp to lower in accommodation of disabled riders. It had been seizing up lately, but the maintenance department had examined it and assured its functionality and safety. Dr. Winkel rolled his wheelchair onto the ramp and chatted animatedly with Jasmine while it slowly raised back up to the boarding level alongside the driver's seat.

Suddenly, the ramp stopped lifting its load. Jasmine gasped. The danger to her favorite rider was acute, she knew. Jasmine peered into the six inch gap between the floor of the bus and the ramp and saw one of the straps of her purse caught around the lifting mechanism. With no hesitation whatsoever, she reached in the gap to dislodge the strap. It didn't budge. She reached both hands in for added strength and at that moment the ramp's upward movement slammed into action, bringing Dr. Winkel to safety. The bus-driving, guitar-playing hands of Jasmine James, however, were neatly sheared off just above her wrists.


If I Should Die Before I Wake...


"Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict? "

"Yes, your Honor, we have."

"Members of the Jury, in the case of Bambino Holbert vs. the State of Indiana, what say you?

"Your Honor, the members of this Jury find the defendant, Bambino Holbert, guilty!"

The sweaty crowd of spectators in the court's packed gallery jumped to their feet and cheered the guilty verdict. Still standing at the defense table next to his cloudy-faced lawyer, the convicted and soon-to-be condemned man sneered at the lone-seated and shivering eyewitness whose testimony put the nail in his coffin. It was the worst moment of Carol Lind's entire (and entirely meek) life. In fact, it was probably worse than actually enduring the murder attempt against her. Having to testify against Bambino was frightening enough; absorbing his raging expressions was too much, but she couldn't look away. Her plain face, if she had one, would have spelled out her fear. Instead, the soft, custom-made surgical stocking pulled over Carol's head presented Bambino and members of the court with a beige, unmoving grimace; the look of a bandage-wrapped Invisible Woman.

Carol had once loved Bambino. They made a cute, but unlikely pair. The six-inch difference in their height was made up for by their tender public displays of affection. The weight difference was a little harder to play down. But really, who cares about the trivial things in life when love is in the air? So, when the loving couple secretly met after-hours at her art appraisal job, the high-rise building's security guard smiled at them as he pressed the entry button and waved them in. He was happy for the sweet, but homely Carol; she deserved a boyfriend even if he was a pipsqueak. He barely heard Carol's obvious excuse that she had left her cellphone on the desk of her upper-level office. The guard had known Carol for over the fifteen years she had worked in the building as an art appraiser. His family even had her over to the house for Thanksgiving several times. Carol always accepted the invitations. She was sadly needy of company. That is, she was until she met one of Interpol's most slippery fugitives - the world's shortest con man and thief, Bambino Holbert.

As they rode the elevator up to the appraisal company's floor, Carol bent to kiss her lover. Bambino's short arms reached up to embrace her neck. Passion consumed them. Well, at least it consumed Carol. Bambino was quite literally repulsed by this fat, quivering farrago of a woman. Only the image of the tiny multi-million dollar gold reliquary figure of the Madonna and Child nestled safely in his pocket kept him from vomiting in Carol's mouth as she crammed her cow's tongue down his throat. Once he had secured the 9th century figurine in his jacket, all that was left was getting rid of Carol, which should have been easy had he not botched his calculations so badly.

Bambino had had it all planned out. He would easily crack the security around the figurine without Carol noticing a thing and pocket the Madonna and Child. Since he had already deactivated the passenger-side airbag of her car for the ride home, he would drive, with Carol as passenger, straight into a tree just after reaching over and releasing her seatbelt. He was, of course, supposed to walk away from the 'accident' and drive off in a nearby car to a private airstrip, but Bambino's own airbag was deployed and because of his short stature, its inflated cushion smacked him squarely in the face, breaking his nose and concussing him. Carol's face went through the windshield and in the violent whiplash, it was instantaneously ripped off in shreds.


I Pray The Lord My Soul To Take.

I am Emma Miller's heart, but my new home in the body of William S. Connolly feels right. Bill was such an asshole before I came along though, that I actually thought about rejecting him only three days after the transplant surgery. I mean, who would want to direct the internal circulation of an empty, ruthless man globally driven to getting rich off selling weaponry? Bill's original organs talked me out of it. They were adamant. They said he'd been showing some promise of empathy lately by changing his will to include a small bonus to the workers of his munitions factories should he perish under the transplant surgeon's scalpel. And not once had he tried to buy his way to the top of the transplant waiting list, they assured me. So, I decided to give it a shot, and I'm glad I did. Emma would have been proud. Bill needed me because I was the only one who could give him a change of heart.

It's been over ten years now since Emma's organs, tissues and body parts have been transplanted to save human lives and limbs. I've been keeping in touch with all of them, and I'd like to think that we're all changing things for the better.

I know for a fact that my man Bill has a kinder, more philanthropic heart. His actions proved it. He closed his factories, melted down his armaments and sold the metal to sculptors and artists. The money was divided among his workers. Bill and I live in Florida now where he likes to walk the beach and volunteer in soup kitchens. He's become more fearless than ruthless, standing up for the homeless and all, even volunteering to entertain at children's parties in shelters. Just not as a clown. He's now scared to death of clowns. Just like my Emma. It made me chuckle.

I got word from Emma's eyes the other day that was, well, eye-opening, to borrow a phrase. I was charmed to know that Grayson Banks, the blue-eyed pornographic film-maker, the one who considered his looks and films as eye candy, now has the gentler eyes of a bird-watcher and bird documentarian. Years before, after squirting his coked-up eyes with battery acid, an 'accident' that all his victims agreed he deserved, Grayson spent over a year in complete darkness and slumped in an unmoving and deep depression. His studio was shuttered and eventually went bankrupt. When Emma's beautiful brown eyes were flown to him in California and transplanted into his eye sockets, he was elated and excited to get back into the porno business. Make some money! Get it on! But, unfortunately for Grayson Banks, porn film-maker extraordinaire, the vision from his new, dark eyes would blur to the point of blindness every time he even thought of anything pornographic or untoward. The only things he could clearly see were all G-rated. He eventually gravitated to the outdoors where there was absolutely nothing that could blur his vision. He soon discovered that when it came to spotting birds, their habits, coloring and movements, his vision was that of a champion marksman as Emma had been. So he trained Emma's dark eyes and his cameras on birds and shot the most extraordinary footage the birding world had ever seen. Proceeds from his world-renowned documentaries went to the former actors of his long-dead porn flicks. Humble and useful for the first time in his life, Grayson surprised himself and became a volunteer firefighter in the small, rural California town where he had located. He felt the birds needed his protection. Grayson, film-maker cum birdwatcher, grew so accustomed to these genuine feelings of service and empathy that he found himself reveling in the warmth they generated. He dedicated his life to service and clearly saw his role in the world through Emma's soulful eyes.

I also know that back in Houston, as former city bus-driver, Jasmine James, rubbed a creamy drop of aloe vera lotion onto her strong, but pleasantly tired hands, she was remembering the grateful surprise she felt over ten years ago when the bandages were finally removed to reveal newly-attached hands whose hue perfectly matched her own deep skin coloring. Jasmine often wondered about the life of the young woman whose hands allowed Jasmine to perform classical guitar to packed crowds in Houston's piano bars and clubs. She liked to imagine that the poor dead woman got some comfort from the lovely symphony of chords and melodies that were so deftly coaxed from her guitar.

Jasmine was very close to Emma's hands and often let them lead the way. They seemed to make the wisest choices. Once, maybe a year after her double hand transplant, Jasmine was really hungry. Strangely, instead of heading to her favorite diner for a calorie-and fat-laden plate lunch special, she stopped by the farmer's market for beets and other fresh produce. Then, she went home and made up an absolutely delicious bowl of what she would later find out was borscht. Since then, Jasmine allowed her hands to do the thinking when it came to diet and exercise. They planned meals, did the shopping and prepared the meals. The hands sketched out walking, then running, routes and even selected workout gear. Years later, every time Jasmine looked in the mirror or easily ran up a second flight of stairs, she would glance toward her tawny hands and whisper, "Thank you."

Emma's face filed a report last week that was really promising for a certain recedingly shy woman named Carol Lind. Years ago, bits of Carol's own face had been left drying on a smashed up car windshield as part of a criminal forensic scene. The investigation was really unnecessary; Carol's boyfriend had obviously tried to kill her in a faked car collision after he had stolen a dear piece of art, a golden Madonna and Child, from her place of employment. Carol's lifelong struggles with her towering height and its consequential shyness were slowly dissipating, partially as a result of the murder attempt, but mainly because Emma's beautiful face was now her own.

The doctors and psychologists had a harder time accepting Emma's face for Carol than Carol did herself. It's just too much of a skin color contrast, they argued. It's going to be impossible to psychologically adapt, they warned. Carol, who had been the quintessential shrinking violet her entire life, surprised herself and her doctors with an outburst of anger and impatience. She pretty much told them she would rather have the face of a bug than spend another day in her facial stocking. Besides, when would another unfortunate donor of the exact same blood type ever come along with a face for Carol? When she finally emerged weeks later out of recovery after the surgery, cameras from the BBC, Aljazeera, CNN and all others were there to capture images of the world's first interracial face transplant. Emma's face and Carol's body became one. It gave Carol a strength she had never enjoyed at any time in her life. She became fearless, yet more loving. She strengthened her tall body throughout the winters with cross-country skiing, yet softened her touch with dogs, for whom she suddenly felt a warm, enduring affection. When she got two dogs of her own and named them Pip and Chip, I wasn't at all surprised. Emma had sure loved those two pups, and I was glad to see her face had such a benevolent influence on Carol. Finally freed from her insecurities and fortified with a personal strength in purpose, Carol Lind lived a full life as protector of dogs and spokesperson for UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing.

All of our Emma's organs, tissues and body parts were harvested and given new homes. Emma wouldn't have wanted it any other way, I guess, though I was still mad, really mad at her brain. I mean, if it wasn't for her brain, all of us would still be with Emma and would probably be aging nicely. But, no. Her brain got in the way before I could stop it.

This is what happened. Emma had just celebrated her 29th birthday the previous month when her stupid ass brain told her to go out and buy a gun. We were all like, what the hell? She had plenty of shotguns and rifles from her skeet and biathlon competitions, so there was no reason to purchase a handgun. But she did. Then, she drove to the emergency room entrance and parked in the circular drive. She took the ugly, shiny gun out of a bag and laid it on her lap. Suddenly, I knew what was up; Emma came to the hospital door to die so they could harvest me and the others to save lives. Typical Emma. That's when my begging started. Listen to your heart, listen to me. Please. You know that deep in your heart you want to live, I cried out. Think of your patients, the babies. Your dogs. Your cooking. Your volunteerism. I threw everything at her. But her brain countered me at every turn. It had been diagnosed as bi-polar for over a year, and was proudly untreated. It was also very determined. I thought I had lost when Emma asked me to pray with her as I had done every single night since she could talk...

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Before I could close the nighttime prayer, her eyes saved us from the gun. They popped open at the sudden screech of tires and honking horns coming from the adjoining two-lane highway. Emma quickly spotted the tiny pup, tail tucked and dodging oncoming cars speeding past him. To my all-consuming relief, Emma tossed the gun on the seat, bounded out of the car and sprinted with her runner's legs across the hospital parking lot to the highway. She grabbed up the pup and carried him to the grassy area to the side of the emergency room entrance. The little dog squirmed out of her arms onto the grass. His stricken humans, a couple who had rushed a critically injured relative into the ER, came running for him, crying gratefully at Emma and lifting him into their arms. As she straightened up, Emma vowed to listen more closely to her heart. She vowed to live. And as she strode from the side of the building toward her car parked in the circular drive, an ambulance carrying a gravely ill child barreled around the corner, struck Emma Miller and sent her body flying like a dart to its bull's eye. Her skull cracked against a sturdy pillar and Emma's traitorous, betraying brain trickled out and settled in a sad, gelatinous puddle.

As the medical professionals rushed out to save us, it was I, Emma's heart since birth, who closed the prayer for her. Still beating at 70 bpm, I murmured, "Amen".

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