Irene and I ambled down the tomb-lined corridor toward the morgue when our nursing instructor overtook us. By that time of day, the starch was gone from the student nurses' uniforms and the curl from their hair, but Miss Tomaszeski looked like she had just posed for a Clinic Shoe ad.

"Miss T.," Irene said, "We've been to at least half a dozen autopsies. Do we have to go to this one?"

"Why are you reluctant?" she asked.  "You didn't know the patient."

Irene shrugged. "We're tired of them. They're gory and gruesome. Really cadaverous. I mean, if it were Halloween, it'd be okay."

Miss T. froze, her lips thinning to slivers of ice.  "Yes, you must go. This autopsy will be a valuable learning experience." She turned, walking briskly toward the morgue, the starched hem of her uniform snapping sharply against her calves.

We ambled to the end of the corridor and pushed the double doors open.

The windowless rectangular room had just two permanent fixtures -- marble slabs. The monotony of peeling white walls was relieved by six metal-handled refrigerator drawers that we knew slid into the wall.

"This room need flowers," Irene noted. "Lilies would be nice."

"Shhhh!" I hissed.

The body was on the first marble slab, a paper bag covering the head, designed to make all present forget that it was an ex-patient.

The pathologist, a balding skeleton of a man, talked excitedly to his audience of disheveled people in lab coats and weary student nurses in uniform.

The high point of the pathologist's day arrived when he picked up the rib cutter and raked through, close to the left side of the sternum, from neck to xiphoid. He repeated the procedure on the right. He then crunched the sternum up to the paper bag while a quivering intern tied the bone around the shrouded head.

"Scalpel," the pathologist ordered, extending his hand to a resident who slapped the handle into the waiting gloved palm. He flexed his elbows, dramatically raising the instrument. He sliced into the body to remove a shriveled, cirrhotic, grayish-brown liver. His eyes shone as he again lifted the scalpel to make a cross section of the "cause of death."  He dropped the fragment of liver in formaldehyde.

With fused minds, Irene and I edged our way to the exit. Risking Miss Tomaszedski's wrath, we made our escape.

The dinner bell chimed as we exited the corridor faster than we had entered. On the mezzanine we joined the cafeteria line, making selections without enthusiasm.

Dessert was a grayish-brown solidified square of chocolate pudding.

"You know what this look like?" Irene asked.

I nodded.

Irene's eyes widened in mock glee. She flexed her elbow, elevating her knife. She made a cross section of the gelatinous mass and plopped it in her milk.

We chuckled our way out of the dining room.