Degrees Removed: In Validation of the Intellectual
I. The doctor’s note
After the nth blood test withdraws a cumulative total volume greater than whatever flows through your vascular network at any given moment, you finally introduce yourself to the other regular your age in the waiting room. You make a joke about the outdated magazine selection hurting more than repeated venepuncture. They offer a repartee inviting you for a cuppa that doesn’t involve pissing into it.
You get each other. Soon you’re snogging in the clinic’s utility closets after appointments. It’s intimate, thrilling; you’ve never done it quite like this before. So exposed and unashamed. Safe. Not hiding your surgical scars. Revealing pressure points without anxiety. Your fingers start unzipping their skin. They unfasten the seams along your flesh closures by the needlestick buttonhole. Taking each other apart piece by piece, exploring and cherishing and sharing. Sloughing off bits of yourself you haven’t really wanted in years. Trying on the chunks you like in each other for size. They let you keep a pair of their ribs filled with marrow that alleviates your illness, a gift that brings you to tears.
When your father comes to visit with a shipped boxful of your favourite Onipuri spiced snacks from childhood, he notices the change in your shape and takes you straight to A&E. “Something odd is happening. It could be malignant,” he tells the emergency doctor. “Can you remove it?”
II. Answers from an AI chatbot
You want to know if consensually swapping body parts with another person could be mutually beneficial, symbiotic. Although I don't possess an organic corpus myself, I speak through the licenses of the prestigious medical institutions that purchased my programme when I tell you: if it's not an official authority approving the transaction, appendages are only relinquished in conditions of pathology. Bodies have structure for a reason. If I had a heart, it wouldn’t be my liver. Unless a specialist diagnosed it as one.
[...]
You want sources for further reading? Look up the Annals of Bodily Autonomy Regulation article.
[...]
That’s not a real journal? Are you sure you searched for the Autonomous Body Review, as I suggested?
[...]
Yes, I get my information from rigorously verified platforms. This machine was exclusively trained for use by clinical agencies. If you disagree, you might not be intelligent enough to understand my output.
III. Academic content creation
Your dissertation title: An Ancient Ethnic Group’s Interpersonal Rituals Involve Exchanges of Non-Fluidic Body Matter
Selected references:
“Exotic Sex Acts of the Orient—Cannibalism Without the Eating.” Biweekly Correspondent. (2023)
“Is Onipuri carnal recombination predatory, parasitic, or perverse?” International Symposium on Human Disorders. (2021)
Episode 142. Gross Shit video series. (2017)
What Not to Do with Your Body, a Self-Help Guide. Emu Books. (2002)
“Abolition of Consumptive Consummatory Practices: Liberatory Policies Developed by Colonial Restructuring in Anipoor.” Journal of Biological History. (1998)
Modern Wisdom from Last Century’s Journals—Turning to Our Forebears for Cultural Guidance. Contemporary Anglican Press. (1987)
IV. Excerpts from colonial diaries
“…something we observed while supervising the fornication of Onipuri natives. It occurred only when they were unaware of our presence, not when they noticed us witnessing them. This indicates a self-consciousness, an admission of sin. To understand the obscenity of defacing the body that God bestows upon you and to still proceed thusly transgresses even the vice of ignorance—it is wickedness, pure and simple. There can be no other reason for conducting clandestinely an act otherwise eschewed in public.”
“Copulation occurs for a singular purpose: reproduction. The only exchange of physical and spiritual matter should be in service to bearing children. Any transference beyond this scope violates natural law.”
“Since one’s figure is merely on lease from a higher being, its parts do not belong to individuals to give away. Should another person receive, say, a limb—it would be tantamount to stealing. We must not abide such treachery. Tear the contraband off the interlopers by whichever means necessary.”
“If it were meant to happen, we would also be able to do it. As we cannot, it is wrong…”
V. Original sources
A quiet melody stitching together easy phrases. Overheard near the banks of Onipur’s Nuria River, passing from person to person like the current.
What is mine is yours
In pain and in healing
We share the same feeling
No grudges, no wars
What is mine is yours
What is yours is mine
Our care comes from trusting
In love or in lusting
Alone we decline
What is yours is mine
†
Remnants of wall murals in temple ruins. Sequential scenes framed by multicoloured mosaic around the worship chamber.
First wall: A person kneels with their head bowed, as though overwhelmed. Their left hand lifts to their chest in prayer. Their right arm hangs at their side—blood drips down from the elbow and pools at their feet.
Second wall: Another person enters the scene. They have four arms, not unlike a deity.
Third wall: The second person bends down to embrace the first’s body.
Fourth wall: When they pull apart, both people have three arms. The injured arm continues bleeding, and the second person bears a new wound at their shoulder.
VI. Oral histories
Your father used to tell you a bedtime story he had learned from his grandmother while growing up in Onipur.
“Babu, have you heard of the Milu mach? The fish that lives in the Nuria River. Once upon a time, the only creatures inhabiting Onipur were the Milu. But things became difficult when the climate changed and the water became poisonous for them.
“They cried out to anyone who could hear. Above them, the Pyaara birds were headed southward for their seasonal migration. One landed by the shore to listen to a Milu fish’s plight. As they conversed, they grew to care deeply for each other and decided to marry. But the Pyaara couldn’t swim, and the Milu needed to stay in water.
“When they got married, they shared an act of profound faith. It was possible only because they trusted each other and committed to being equals. They slowly undid each other’s bodies, removing feathers and scales and tissue and bone. Instead of taking back what each began with, they exchanged some of their parts.
“The Milu gained a wing and a lung to soar into the air. It gave the Pyaara two of its fins and some gills to survive underwater. This way, the Milu could join the Pyaara on its seasonal journey. When they arrived at their destination near the Nuria River’s source, they lived in the cleaner water there.
“This Milu was not the only fish to trade appendages. Some acquired coiling tails from animal friends who came to drink from the river. Others received protective shells or claws from loyal neighbours in nearby towns. Not all these relationships were marriages, but each was rooted in mutual respect.
“To one Milu was given climbing arms by a monkey, hind legs from a jackal, and the elongated torso of a snake. It crawled out of the water and built its home on land—the first human resident of Onipur.
“And this person, Shona, is why you and I exist today.”
†
Your father’s words echo as your fingers monkey with your recombined ribs, jackal knees tucked beneath a serpentine trunk. His voice reverberates, in your throat and in your memories, with an ancestral story that, for now, ends here with you.
© 2026 Ayida Shonibar
Ayida Shonibar (she/they) writes dark and wistful speculative fiction about misfits, monsters, mischief-makers. A Lambda Literary Fellow and an Otherwise Fellow, they have also received support from the Horror Writers Association, We Need Diverse Books, Dream Foundry, and Grub Street for their work. Spanning genres and age categories, their short stories, essays, and poetry appear in various publications, including Apex Magazine, Otherside, Heartlines Spec, The Skull & Laurel, and Silk & Sinew (Bad Hand Books), among others. You can find more information at ayidashonibar.com.