The Collected Stories of Charlie’s Body Shop
Volume I

The Camera

“Anna, you’ve got to go check this place out. I’m not joking!” Another one of her shoe stores or something. I was glad she was just on the phone so I could roll my eyes.
“I know, it’s just… that place looks so creepy from the outside.”
“It’s not! Once you get in there it’s totally different. It’s not at all what you’d expect.”
“Is it like, dusty? I can’t stand it when it’s dusty. I mean, it’s all the way out there too, on the edge of town. What kind of stuff do they sell anyway?”
“Oh, it’s um… eclectic. But I saw a camera there, a nice one like yours, and it reminded me of you. I definitely think you should go…”
“I have a camera, Katy.” At this point, I’ll confess I grew more interested.
“Not one like this you don’t. Look, I’ve got to go, so…”
“No, it’s fine, me too. Talk to you later.
“Go, I’m serious.”
“Yea, I’ll stop by, but only for you, okay? We still going out on Saturday?”
“Of course. See you.”
I hung up my phone and sighed. I didn’t really have time for this. It was the end of the semester, and my photography exhibit was going to open soon, and pretty much my whole art degree was riding on that. I shouldn’t have been shopping, I should have been taking pictures.
The place in question was this run-down little shack, way out on the east edge of town, practically in the country. Its name was “Charlie’s Body Shop” which made it sound like a junkyard more than anything, but that wasn’t where the strange appearance ended – all the windows were blacked out so that you couldn’t see inside, and the building itself was a color I can only describe as “distressingly red”.
But I went. It was out of the way, but hey, I’ll procrastinate if I get the excuse, and my photo professor was big into photographing weird things, so maybe I could shoot a roll or two while I was down there. I tossed my camera bag on, and got on my bike.
Took me 30 minutes, but I made it out there. That’s where everything started I guess, how I got this whole thing done. It was like this – I walk in, expecting it to be dusty and forgotten, but the inside was pretty much just a store – there were aisles, shelves, and an array of all kinds of things – costumes, apparently, but also gadgets I had no idea what were for.
Behind the desk was a woman with dark curly hair and reading glasses, maybe 40ish, but tried to keep herself up. She looked up at me with casual disinterest, and then returned to a crossword on the counter.
For a few minutes, I wandered the aisles, trying and failing to figure out what sort of place it was. There were odds and ends scattered around, along with clothes of all kinds, some bottles of clear liquid with pictures of various mythology-themed things, a collection of knives and swords, some gadgets I couldn’t really understand, with names like “Vision replacer”, party-themed boxes of “Home Piñata Kits”, even snacks and cooking supplies. I didn’t see any cameras.
“Excuse me,” I said, approaching the woman at the counter, “do you sell cameras here? My friend recommended I come by.”
“Oh did she?” said the woman, smiling much more warmly than I’d expected. “I was hoping she would. You’re Anna, right?” Before I could speak, she added, “I’m Miranda,” and extended her hand.
I stepped forward, confused but now more curious, and shook her hand. She looked down again, and started speaking, “Now then. I suppose this is your first time here, isn’t it?”
“Yea, I heard… Yea, it’s my first time here.”
“Well, let me start this way – do you know what kind of store this is?”
“No clue at all.”
“Okay then. We sell… well, yes, to answer your question, I do have some cameras for sale, but first I should explain this – what we do here, you’ve probably never thought it was possible. I don’t mean that in a sales-pitch way, I mean it in a sense that – hell, the easiest way is to show you, stead-a breaking it to you this way. We do magic here. Think about that for a second, then I’ll show you the erm… the real store – the back part.”
Magic. I suppose that made … no it didn’t make any sense. Was this a prop store? Did she mean some kind of pagan whatever? I followed her around to an unmarked door, which she opened and gestured for me to enter. Instinctively, I took out my camera, and walked inside.
It just blew me away – magic, that’s the only way to put it, I guess. This was the dark little shop you expected, but it didn’t feel dusty or drab as much as homey and inviting. But the real shock was, well, the magic – there were body parts, apparently alive, and in pieces. Hundreds of body parts, sorted by category and size, then in a display case were bits of faces, lips that licked themselves, eyes that followed me. And taking up an entire wall in the back were heads. Real, living heads, I swear – they weren’t all talking, but I swear they all smiled when they looked at me.
“So you see,” said Miranda, once I’d had a moment to take it all in. “There’s not a good way to just explain it.”
“This is amazing!” I lifted my camera up, and began to shoot, but then her hand was on my shoulder.
“Wait dear,” she said, “I think there’s a few more things you should see first.”
She led me through to another unmarked door, which turned out to be some kind of workshop – oddly. medical looking machines were here and there with chairs built in, and all kinds of more complicated gizmos lined the walls.
Also, there were cameras. Nice looking ones too, though some were rather unwieldy, large format SLRs.
Then, from a door behind the counter, came a large man, with a thin black beard, and thick but small glasses.
“My husband Charles,” said Miranda.
“Hello,” said the man.
We got to looking at the cameras, and even for someone who’s spent years in the darkroom, it was intriguing. Not that the cameras were anything other than ordinary high-end models, but just that…. my mind kept returning to the other room. The one full of body parts. And now, machines?
“Hold on,” I finally said, “what exactly are cameras doing here? I just passed a wall of heads, and I want to see what that was about…”
“Didn’t Katy tell you anything about this store?” asked Miranda, laughing. “I suppose she didn’t. Nothing at all. Well, let me be blunt dear – if you’d like, we can … well, replace your head with one of these.”
I paused. I stared at the camera I’d been looking at. This could replace my head?
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Well,” said Charles, “It’s rather simple. We chop off your head and fit your neck with a tripod mount. Then, we fix on a camera – we recommend these because they work better as heads than do regular 35 millimeter or digitals, but of course you could use whatever you wanted.”
“But my head…”
“You want to try it out?” He grinned broadly.
I couldn’t tell you what seized over me just then, but all my fear somehow melted away. Just the way his voice sounded so excited and enthusiastic about it, and I was convinced.
“Sure,” I said, immediately feeling giddy.
“Take a seat,” he said, pointing to a chair with some rather deadly looking devices around it. It now occurred to me that this was a … workshop – for cutting people up! Like in the other room! I bit my lip in anticipation.
“So, there’s a number of ways we can cut off your head. Do you have any preferences?”
“What are my um… options?”
“Well, use your imagination dear! We have lasers, saws, swords, but then there’s always your basic guillotine, or I can use one of these fun machines here. Plus we don’t have to cut it off, we could always leave you headless other ways…”
“Well, I um… You just slice it off, any old way?”
“I’ll tell you what. Go back to the front, find something that slices. Just lop of your head however you want, and come back in.”
The couple of them turned to each other, and began conversing quietly, then they kissed. It was cute. But as I turned to leave, the absurdity of the whole thing struck me – I was just told to go into the other room and cut off my own head. But even weirder was this – I knew I was going to do it. I could have just left, but that never even crossed my mind. I was transfixed by the idea, I had to try this.
I wandered through the other room, examining all the body parts there. I picked a few up, touched them – they were warm and definitely alive, but none of them responded. Even the heads – when I picked them up, they smiled, they made eye contact, but that was it. Besides that they just looked around. I realized now, what was going on – the body shop sold body parts, and stuff like that. I looked at the row of heads, different hair colors, different faces, and thought of switching – my head! I could switch my head! It was amazing to think about.
But I wanted something else. I wanted a camera. I wanted to always be ready to take pictures – this was practically already my life. I had to at least try it out, and if I had to cut off my head to do that, well, I would.
In the far corner of the room, I found one such device it seemed a kind of operating table, but mechanized – there was a computer screen on one side, featuring a diagram of a person, with dotted lines running all over them. Clearly this was the machine that would slice you to pieces – but I only needed to behead myself.
There was also what looked to be a guillotine, which seemed the way to go. At least, it would be difficult to fail to cut my head off with one of those. But remembering the knives and swords out front, and wanting to get a better look at the store, I kept on looking.
Out front there were two racks, one of knives, one of swords and axes. It seemed every possible way of slicing was available, from machetes to katanas to switch blades. I looked at the swords and axes, and picked up a couple of them. It was here that a curious thought somehow came to me – that I was somehow confident I’d be able to try all of these. I mean, if they can cut you up here, they can put you together right? I sure hoped so.
I really wanted to try an axe, but the idea of using on myself – it didn’t seem too practical. Then I took a knife, but stopped. There was probably a more fun way to do it, wasn’t there?
Then, on the shelf above the display, there was exactly what I was looking for. A small white box, with a  picture of a headless girl, her surprised head shooting off. I picked up the box and read the back – “Surprise your friends with this beheading chocker! Makes a great gag gift! Easy to use!”
I opened the box and looked inside. There was a black metal choker, kind of concurringly thick, but convincing enough as a necklace. The only other item in the box was a small clicker, with only one button. It seemed pretty clear what to do.
I closed the necklace on my neck, fitting extremely tightly. I decided it would be best to watch from a mirror, so I went over to the clothing part and looked in one. I swallowed once. Then I pushed the button.
There was a chunk sound from the necklace. I stood still, looking at myself in the mirror. Then, slowly, I watched my head tip forwards, and oh, wow, I was falling, and then somehow I caught myself, and now I was looking in the mirror at myself holding my detached head.
I took off the necklace and returned it to the box, setting my head down on the counter. I skipped excitedly into the back room.
“Excellent job,” said Charles, smiling. He examined my neck stump and nodded. My severed head, on the counter next to me soon-to-be-camera-head, beamed.
And that was it. He fixed it all up right there, and before I new it, I had a head again. My old head, it became just like the others, looking around, smiling, but not really … well, not really alive I suppose.
“Do you like it?” said Miranda, smiling. I nodded. And clicked a photo.

So that’s how I got this. The deal was I get to try it out for 30 days, and they kept my head as payment. If I still liked it then, the trade was permanent and they could sell my head.
But that’s okay – I love this new head. I can take pictures anywhere now, for one. And better pictures – I mean, it’s my own head, so I damn well better know how to use it. Plus, it’s still a camera, so I can take it off whenever, set it on a tripod, anything. And you know, what? I think I got it maybe a month ago. They might have already sold my head. Wouldn’t that be cool?
And that senior project I was so worried about? I just did a documentary project on Charlie’s Body Shop. Everyone’s raving about it, especially the self-portrait series – I took my head and set it on a tripod, then took shots of my body trying on different heads.
Still, there were a couple bumps here and there. I have to be careful with this thing, I can’t get caught in the rain or else I have to take it off and put it in a bag, and I can never remember where I leave it.
But for every problem, I swear they’ve got a solution. At first I couldn’t talk, but they gave this speaker here, right on my chest, below my neck, see? That’s how I speak. I also got a mouth, maybe later I’ll show you where it is…