Skinning a mouse

We were taking a tour of the taxidermy laboratory. It is a large room with long steel tables as workstations, ceramic sinks, and drains on the floor. There are refrigerators and deep freezers, some labeled with toxic warning stickers. Hoses and ventilation hoods hang from the ceiling and spouts stick out from the walls. Behind a brown door is a large closet full of various smaller taxidermy specimens, some nearly completed, some just samples of wings, or body parts to be used for reference – even little tiny fish.

When we walked the first thing I recall was being hit by the smell. It was the smell of strong, sharp, sweaty, sickly-sweet copper. I walked over and stood beside the stainless steel table, next to where a man instructed a young apprentice on how taxidermy a mouse. He was teaching her how to work carefully around the eyelids, as they are important to keep intact for the final taxidermy animal. Blood was smeared on the work trays and when they held the mice in their hands, twisting them so as to get up close and cut carefully along the edges of the eyelids, all semblance of a mouse was gone. What was visible was only a blob of dark red slimy flesh and muscle sinew. Not unlike meat from the butcher shop, except for its really small size.