The Blindness

The sun shone brightly through the large, Victorian style windows and, as I attempted to focus on the words of the lecturer, the sight of two pigeons fighting over a scrap of food on the window ledge served as a welcome distraction from the seemingly endless discussion of jazz pioneers from the 1930s.   The birds appeared locked in combat, surely expending far more energy in their bid to claim their meagre prize than could ever be extracted from the morsel but, just as with people, perhaps in the world of pigeons principles override reason and logic.

‘Duke Ellginton, with his 15-man orchestra, featuring alto-saxophone supremo Johnny Hughes, became known for his compositional excellence, particularly of the short form medium, tailored beautifully to fit on the then burgeoning 78rpm vinyl format of the mid to late 30s….’ droned the lecturer, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from standing up, the sound of my chair scraping harshly against the stone flooring doubtless causing a cessation of his monologue, and bellowing ‘It’s 1991.  Nobody gives a fuck about jazz anymore.’

But I didn’t.  Of course I didn’t.  Instead I sat in stony silence, enduring the final twenty five minutes of a lecture entitled ‘That’s Jazz!!’ – two exclamation marks, people, presumably a failed attempt to imbue the subject with at least glimmer of excitement.

I sat in silence and watched the pigeons fight, idly scratching at a small patch of irritated skin on the thumb side of my left wrist.

‘What do you think it is?’

‘I don’t know what I’m looking at.’

Karen squinted down at my wrist, eyes locked on the indicated area.

‘You must see it.’

‘All I can see is your nasty, chewed fingernail.’

I flicked her on the nose with the offending digit.

‘Oi, that hurt,’ she said, though there was laughter in her voice.

‘Let that be a warning,’ I threatened.

‘Well, you’ve done worse with it.  Last night I woke up to find you asleep with that finger inside me.’

That stopped me dead.

‘Inside you?  What do you mean?  Where inside you?’

‘Well, it wasn’t in my kidney, was it?  Where do you think I mean?’

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ I said, genuinely astonished by the accusation.

‘Not at all.  I woke up, wriggled a little bit, confused by a strange sensation in my downstairs area and, upon investigation, Mr. Lambert, found your disgusting chewed up finger embedded intrusively in my most holiest of the holies.’

‘Bloody hell,’ was all I could muster, entirely unsure how to react.  Humour or contrition?  ‘Are you alright?’

‘I’ll survive.  I’ve had bigger things up there.’

‘I should hope so,’ I said.

‘Who says I’m talking about you?’ she shot back.

I flicked her nose again.

‘See, that things dangerous.  I might prosecute.  Nocturnal finger rape.  You might be the first one locked up for it.’

‘Don’t even joke about it,’ I said, almost serious.

‘But it does prove, conclusively, that even when you’re asleep you are a massive pervert.

‘Now that I can’t deny.’

And then she leaned in and kissed me, and the next twenty five minutes disappeared completely.

Her hand on my chest was the first thing I felt and, even though my eyes were yet to open, I smiled, pleasing memories of times we spent together flooding my awakening mind.  Yesterday was pleasant enough, almost half an hour of intimacy with the girl I loved more than anything else in the world, and there had been many other such moments of course but, beyond the physically intimate minutes we shared, also came a powerful bond, a union, a togetherness which, in that instant was impossible to see not lasting forever.

I made to reach for her, just to touch her really, a hand on her thigh as she slept, simple reassurance that she was really there and that this wasn’t all a dream; too good to be true.

Then the pain came, and I jolted upright too suddenly, disturbing her, causing her to roll away from me, an incoherent grumble on her lips before the soft susurration of her snores began afresh, and I turned my attention to the source of the pain.  I pushed the sheets back completely, careful not to disturb Karen’s side, exposing my arms and hands, and I actually gasped audibly at the sight that greeted me.  Where yesterday a slight irritation was evident, sub-dermally, today the blight was not only visible, it was vivid and raw, a two inch by two inch patch of badness that could only be expected, normally, following a severe trauma to the skin.  A burn or scald, perhaps, or savage friction wound but, as far as I could recollect, no such injury had been inflicted.  And I would remember.

Surely.

I peered more closely, alarmed by the throbbing sensation that seemed to accompany each beat of my heart, quickening now that I was gazing at the affliction, and noted the thick layer of gleaming, glistening plasma-like fluid, my body’s attempt to shield the area from airborne invasions bacteriological, insectoid or more prosaic: dust or ash.  I prodded around the edges of the affected area, wincing at my every touch, alarmed anew as, from the centre of the gruel something yellow and viscous bubbled up and, instantly, my nostrils were assailed by the unmistakably vile stench of infected pus, the strength of the contaminant astonishing, given the swiftness of the corruption’s appearance.

‘Karen, Karen’, I urged, prodding the still sleeping form of my girlfriend with my elbow.  ‘Wake up,’

‘Wa-ee-it?’ she demanded, a hint of vexation to her tone.

‘You gotta look.  I told you there was something wrong.’

She rolled over, rubbing her eyes absently, apparently offended by even the low level of light filtering through the curtains from the daylight beyond.

‘Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout?’

‘My wrist.’

She propped herself up on her elbows grumpily, bobbing her tongue out at me as she did so to reinforce the message that she was not amused at all, clearly still oblivious to the scale of the problem, so I thrust my wounded wrist right into her face, waving it in front of her eyes in a desperate bid to grab her attention.

‘What am I looking at, you maniac?’ she demanded angrily, wide-awake now, startled, seemingly, though not by the sight of my affliction, instead by the erratic nature of my behaviour.

‘My wrist.  Are you fucking blind?’

I shouted the last sentence, and her eyes widened, staring at me in disbelief, still clearly unaware of the grisly patch of infection before her, her focus drawn instead to my words, my foolish, foolish words, words which I regretted immediately, but now was not the time for reconciliation.

‘Look at my wrist, for fuck’s sake.’

‘I’ve looked, Josh.  There’s nothing there,’ she shouted back.

Her words stunned me, left me with nowhere to go, so I clammed up, switched instead to simply staring at the wound, mind racing, wondering what had happened why was she ignoring it what could it be why didn’t she care what should I do was she still asleep?

Furious, Karen flung back the quilt on her side and struggled out of bed, stark naked, stomping to the chair near the foot, not looking at me, dressing quickly, angrily snatching items of clothing over her head and up her thighs and round her waist until she was fully dressed.

‘Well done, Josh.  Yesterday was lovely, and now you’ve totally fucking ruined it.’

The door slamming behind her was the last time I would see her alive.          

 I sat sullenly, alone in a room full of people, cradling my left hand against my chest, the bandaging I had clumsily applied sodden with fluids both myriad and mysterious, the odour emanating from my amateurish ministrations quite, quite awful.   The seats on both sides of me were vacant, the rest of them in the doctor’s waiting room occupied, a coincidence surely, though perhaps such was the strength of the stench that no-one wished to get any closer, and who could blame them for, if it were possible to distance myself further, I certainly would do, too.

‘Mrs. Jenkins, room 5, please.’

Though the tone of the doctors voice was pleasant, and the accent clipped and precise, the faint electronic crackle in the background made it seem as if the portly lady who struggled to her feet to answer the command were being beckoned not by a person, but an automaton of some sort, a robotic doctor wrenched from the future and flung back in time to tend to the weak, the frail and the blighted of the late twentieth century.

I watched her go, smiling awkwardly as she caught my eye, lifting my left arm a little in her general direction to answer a question that had not been asked, as if it were necessary to justify my presence to the stranger who, frankly, probably had pressing issues of her own to worry about.

‘Mr. Lambert, room 4, please.’

I grimaced slightly now that my time had come, terrified, really, needing a diagnosis and assistance, but wanting neither.  Still, I stood and moved in the direction indicated by the sign on the wall, slowing my pace a little as I began to advance on Mrs. Jenkins who was still making her way down the corridor.  Somehow, it would seem rude to overtake her, almost as if it suggested that I considered my own condition more urgent than her own, even though we were headed to totally different rooms.

I reached the door marked ‘4’ and knocked.

‘Come in.’

I pushed the door open with my good hand and entered, head down, finding it difficult to meet her gaze, and moved stiffly to the chair in front of the doctor.

‘Take a seat Mr. Lambert.’

‘Thank you,’ I mumbled sheepishly.

‘What can I do for you?’ she asked and, finally, I was compelled to look in her direction and, as I did so, I noted the frown that passed across her features just before the professionalism kicked in.

‘Since yesterday,’ I said, indicating my left hand with a slight nod of the head.  ‘I don’t know what it is, but it hurts and it smells bad.’

‘Ok,’ she replied.  ‘Let’s take a look.’

Slowly, carefully, I began to peel away the bandaging, wincing at my every movement, conscious, too, of the potential for leakage.  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ I explained unprompted as I worked.  ‘It’s like a tropical disease, or something,’ and, finally, the wrappings came free and I presented the affliction for her, looking at her directly, now, seeking to gauge a reaction and, when none was forthcoming a sense of relief swept through me, though what I had expected I did not know as she was hardly likely to screech ‘Oh my God,’ and leap from her chair, now was she?

‘So where does it hurt?’ she asked, voice neutral.

‘Everywhere.’

‘I need more than that.’

I blinked.  What was she talking about?

‘Well, this whole area.’

She nodded.

‘I’m worried about the pus, mostly. I assume it’s badly infected.’

She sat back in her chair, a curious expression on her face, though nothing positive could be gleaned from it.

‘Pus?’

Yeah.  The fluid.  The discharge.’

No reaction.

‘There,’ I said, too harshly, too abrasive, jabbing a finger at the affected region of flesh.

‘I need some pills or something,’ I said, forcing a softness to my words, and she leaned forward, now, staring at me unblinkingly.

‘I don’t know what’s going on here, Mr. Lambert, but it really is not funny.’

‘Doctor….’ I began to protest….’ but got no further, the scraping sound of her chair as she stood cutting across anything further I may have said.

‘You need to leave now, young man.  I have people out there with genuine complaints that need my attention. ‘

‘But, but….’ I started, though a hand aloft was all it took to silence me.

She marched to the door.

‘I suggest you leave before you get yourself in serious trouble,’ and, unable to think clearly, I found myself moving from the chair in which I sat, stumbling back out into the corridor, the sound of the door slamming resonating in my thoughts as I moved, zombie-like, down the corridor, past the waiting room and back out into the chilly morning air, frightened, numb and confused all at the same time and, for the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to be genuinely afraid.

The walk home took twenty minutes, no more, yet felt like an age, each pedestrian I encountered seemingly a hostile to be wary of and each and every one of them eyed me suspiciously, gaze flicking alternatively between my face and the disgusting state of my corrupted wrist for, try as I might to conceal the worst of the damage from passers-by, the fluids leaking down the front of my Guns ‘n’ Roses T-shirt were impossible to conceal, giving me the appearance of a road traffic accident at best, a derelict at worst, yet not one of those who bore witness to my suffering showed the slightest interest in rendering assistance, instead choosing to smear a look of offence across their features before giving me as wide a berth as the pavement would allow.

‘I’m not a leper,’ I yelled at one young woman, not because she was the worst offender, rather because I had to let my frustration out at some point, and she just happened to be the one.

Then the pain came, a wave so intense my knees actually buckled, and it was all I could do to maintain my  balance, the wind knocked from my lungs, so I leant against the nearest garden wall, dragging in splutters of air, sufficient to sustain my system, not enough to power it, leaving me stranded, immobile for five minutes, maybe more and, yet again, the lack of concern of those around me left me feeling anguished and, more importantly,  totally alone in a town of eighty thousand people.

‘You motherfuckers,’ I shrieked at one point, no idea if anyone was near enough to hear, not caring either, just needing to vent, to release at the injustice of it all.

Gradually, the pain eased or, rather, I became accustomed to it, to the point that I was able to move again, though each footfall on pavement brought with it a fresh pulse of discomfort until, with enormous relief, I reached my own front door, easing the gate open with my unaffected hand, struggling with the key in the door, managing it at last, easing it open, on tiptoes almost, hoping not to alert anyone within to my arrival, but failing.

‘That you, Josh?’

  ‘Heh, Dad,’ I replied, forcing joviality into my words, hitting the stairs immediately.  ‘I’ll be down in a bit.’

‘Kay.  Off out in five, anyway.  See you this evening.’

(why you telling me?  We don’t even like each other)

‘Laterz,’ I said.

I stumbled upstairs, closing my bedroom door behind me, collapsing onto the bed, suddenly bursting into tears, unable to contain myself, my diaphragm heaving in and out as droplets streamed down my face and, as I lay, a fresh sensation manifested, this one that of movement and, horrified, I rolled over onto my back, holding my left arm up in the air so that I could study the damaged area and – now surely my eyes deceived me – from within the ravaged, corrupted matter, a blunt, liquescent tube began to emerge, purple and angry in colour, wriggling back and forth, as if attempting to make the hole through which it poked bigger and, just as I thought the madness could not intensify, another tubular construct burst through, then another, widening the area of injury so that now even the unaffected flesh was being torn.  Slowly, a fourth protuberance emerged, and now I could see that there was a pattern to the shape, a rudimentary hand of some sort, seemingly bursting from within my own body, as if something alive had been subsumed within me since birth and was only now ready to spawned.  Transfixed, immobile, all I could do was stare as more of the extremities pushed free, defying both science and logic, tearing, tearing at my skin though, strangely, where before there was pain now there was only numbness, numbness even as the entirety of my wrist finally yielded and, like a snake shedding its skin, the tattered, bloodied remnants of the skin that once encased my hand and lower arm fell away, revealing more of the monstrousness with.

And still the transformation continued.

Bone and meat spattering my quilt cover as parts of what were once me were cast aside, useless, replaced by this thing that I had become, a hinged-joint now revealed, curling outwards, lengthening what should have been my arm by five or six inches, the things I had taken for fingers now more apparent, reminiscent of the suckers of a cephalopod, six in all, circular and seemingly capable of independent movement, the orifice of each opening and closing independently.

It was when further tubes began to emerge from within the suckers themselves that consciousness was finally lost.

It was the sound of activity in the kitchen below my bedroom that roused me.  Initially, it seemed as if I were waking from a restful night’s sleep, prone as I was on my own bed, tricking my mind, briefly at least, into thinking that all was well in the world.  It was only as I moved, and felt the strangeness of the motion from my left hand that memories returned, and I brought the appendage up to my face, eyes widening, the reality of my plight brought harshly to life, seven tubules now waggling independently at the end of the twin boned-limb structure akin, in a way, to old movie interpretations of dinosaurs, though this arm glistened with something viscous and unpleasant in a way that no tyrannosaurs vestigial limbs ever had, and there was no sense of obsolescence here either, the bone or cartilage or whatever the hell it was encased in muscle and laced with veins that pulsed with life.

‘Help,’ I tried to cry, but no sound emerged, my mouth so dry that movement of tongue and throat was rendered impossible, lips barely able to crack themselves apart, the crust of rheum that had formed as I slept acting as a powerful sealant, so strong, in fact, that a fresh wave of panic began to surge as, no matter how hard I tried, my lips remained tight shut.

I struggled to a sitting position, alarmed by the pain I felt from all over my body, and half rolled, half shimmied to the edge of the bed, rising slowly, fearful that my legs would not take my weight, startled when I tried to move, the fabric of my jeans straining as, horror upon fresh horror, my left leg seemed to be pivoting the wrong way at the knee, as if the joint had swivelled around on itself during my period of unconsciousness.  Frantic, I stumbled towards the mirror of my clothes cupboard, resisting the urge to yank off my trousers, terrified of what I might find, certain it would not be pleasant.  As I reached the mirror, for a second, perhaps two, it seemed my sanity had finally snapped, for the thing before me was unrecognisable as myself, features rendered insectoid and barely human, one eye half slid down my face, the organ itself segmented and blackened, the other in the standard position though equally metamorphosed.  Of ears, there was no sign, simply holes burrowed into the – skull? – where they ought to have been and, what I had taken to be lips sealed shut by sleep turned out to be something far worse as, where lips once existed, now crude, horizontal-plane mandibles took their place so that no vertical motion werepossible.  I focused on what used to be my mouth, bile rising in my gorge as I concentrated and quickly learnt how to manipulate this new part of my anatomy, then I leapt back from the mirror, alarmed anew, as something black and alien and muscular jutted forward from within my freshly forged maw, a manipulating organ, of sorts, adorned with thick, jet hair and a large sucker on the end, all the better for….Christ knows what.

The knock on the door was deafening, my senses as well as my physiognomy clearly transmogrifying, the sound reverberating within my head, an echo of an echo of an echo, bouncing around and intensifying, leaving me dizzy, unable to move or attempt to speak and, when the knock came again, it was all I could do to maintain my balance, the overlap of echoing echoes upon echoing echoes a near physical thing, as if several large ball-bearings were rattling around inside me as some maniacal deviant unleashed an electromagnetic weapon against me from all sides.

I leaned against the cupboard, hoping that my lack of response would send the visitor scuttling but, no, the exact opposite thing happened, and the door burst open, my father looking me up and down as I stood before him in all my grotesquery, revulsion smeared across his features like dog shit on the sole of a shoe.

‘What you playing at?’ he asked, and I tried to respond, really I did but, though my ability to manipulate my mandibles was blossoming, it was not yet at the point where communication were possible, so instead I just stared at him through my fly-eyes.

‘You on drugs?’ he demanded, moving into the room, his nostrils wrinkling as he detected an odour displeasing to the human olfactory system.

‘What’s going on?’

Still I did not speak, moving instead to the blood-spattered bed on my backward-bending  legs, surprised by his lack of alarm at the state of both my gait and my sheets, flopping down onto my back, the feel of my spine within my torso strange and liquid, as though instead of a tubular construct of bone , it were instead a tube of fluid, like a two year old sausage at the back of the fridge.

‘If this is some attention-seeking bullshit, Josh…’ he began, then he noticed the tears as they flowed down the ruin of my cheeks, and his expression changed and, for one brief second, I thought I saw humanity, but it was merely a flicker, then the anger came.

‘You need to grow up, young man,’ he spat, seemingly ignoring the mutations that rent my body asunder, focusing instead on the things he understood – my failings.

‘’Me and your mother have been talking….you need to start paying rent….amount to nothing….waste of space…..’

The negativities flowed from his mouth with ease, the volume obscene inside my head, so I shut them out, bringing my ‘hands’ up to my ‘ears’ and thrashing around on the bed, the very definition of infantilism.

‘You make me sick,’ was the last thing I heard as he slammed the door behind him and, rather than let him go, I clambered from the bed, went after him, standing at the top of the stairs on legs that weren’t right and tried to yell stuff at him, failed, stood there instead, he looking up at me, waiting, almost daring me then, when no words came, he simply shook his head and continued his descent.

So I went down, too.

Into the kitchen where he frowned, eyeing me curiously, then past him, through the opposite door, into the garage, knowing not what I intended, driven by a force within, not by anything rational.  I moved as quickly as my abnormalities would allow, grabbing a screwdriver from the hooks on the wall, placing it point-up into the vice of the Black and Decker workbench and tightened it quickly, next grabbing the hacksaw from the wall arrangement, turning towards the door as I heard footsteps entering the garage behind me.

‘Josh…’ he began, but was silenced as I placed my malformed left forearm topside down on the workbench, bringing the hacksaw up with my right, the serrated teeth of the blades already drawing beads of blood which trickled between slimy skin and metal.

‘Stop,’ he screamed as I yanked the blade of the saw back and forth against the flesh of what used to be my wrist, the sharpness of the teeth slicing with ease.  I sensed movement as he came at me, wrestled with me, managed to prise the cutting implement from my grasp.  He stood a couple of feet away, panting, staring at me, bewildered, wide-eyed.

‘You need help, Josh.  You’re sick inside.  You always have been,’ he said.

‘I know,’ I gurgled, then slammed my head down as hard as I could onto the upturned point of the screwdriver.

© Ian Stevens (2017)
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