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.
