A skull is designed to house a brain and a very small quantity of fluid. That’s it. No room for guests.

A bullet to the head sets up a series of events, each of which may be present, absent, or appear in combination with any other.

First, a hole is created. As that happens, fractures starburst outward and wrap the skull. The bullet tunnels through the brain, pushing aside gray matter and creating space where space isn’t meant to be. Intracranial pressure rises, concentric heaving fractures develop perpendicular to the fractures radiating from the entrance, and plates of bone lever outward. If heaving and radiating fractures intersect, blam-o! That section of skull shatters.

Another scenario. No shattering, but the bullet says adios on the far side of the skull. Fractures barrel backward from the exit hole and slam into those hotfooting it around from the entrance hole. Energy dissipates along the preexisting entrance fractures, and the exit fractures go no farther.

Think of it this way. A bullet to the brain imparts energy. That trapped energy has to go somewhere. Like all of us, it looks for the easy out. In a skull that means open sutures or preexisting cracks. Bottom line: fractures created by a bullet’s exit will not cross fractures created by its entrance. Sort it out and you’ve got sequence.

But sorting out the dead ends requires reconstruction.

There was no getting around it. I’d have to put the pieces back together.

That would take time and patience.

And a lot of glue.

I got out my stainless steel bowls, my sand, and my Elmer’s. Pair by pair I joined fragments and held them until the bonding set. Then I placed the mini-reconstructions upright in the sand, positioned so they’d dry without slippage or distortion.

The lab techs’ boom box went silent.

The windows darkened.

A bell sounded, indicating the house phones had rolled to night service.