Month: August 2017

Tom pushed his glasses further up on his nose and eyed the paper in front of him. When he reached the bottom, he sighed in annoyance, got up from his desk, and grabbed his coat.

“I’ll be out the rest of the afternoon,” he announced to his secretary, who barely glanced up from her computer screen. She was in the middle of a particularly juicy chapter in the latest romance novel she had downloaded, and everyone knew Tom wasn’t really a conversationalist anyway.

The sidewalk was damp; it must have just rained. Tom thought maybe he should have grabbed his umbrella as well, but he didn’t want to take the elevator all the way back up now so he proceeded on without it. Anyway, it didn’t rain much here so it was probably done.

Walking down the street, it was impossible to pick Tom out of the crowd of white middle-aged men in suits, hair greying, walking without glancing up from their email. The only differentiator was the grey felt hat with the thick black ribbon he wore on his head. The hat was Tom’s one eccentricity, the slight silliness he allowed himself to indulge in since business was going so well.

He was very proud of his hat.

Today, however, the hat was the last thing on his mind. He didn’t even read his email while walking as he usually did, he just plowed on ahead with his brow furrowed. An observer could tell he was agitated because although he wasn’t using his phone, he was distractedly popping it in and out of its case repeatedly as he walked. He was also muttering to himself angrily.

“I can’t believe I’m cleaning up his mess again,” he muttered,”that asshole is going to get me fired; I swear this is the last time I’m…never again. No, absolutely not again.”

And with that, he stopped in front of a brand new apartment complex and rang the bell for apartment 423.

“Yes, hello?” said a voice groggily through the speaker.

“Miked, goddammit, let me in!” Tom yelled.

Miked didn’t respond and Tom was about to yell a stream of expletive when he heard a soft click and then the buzzer signaling that the door was unlocked. Shaking his head, Tom shoved the door open and clomped his way to the elevator, jabbing the up button as though this were all its fault.

When the elevator finally arrived, Tom had to wait for a woman and her dog to get off. To make matters worse, it was one of those yappy little dogs. In Tom’s view, they were already useless, and this one just confirmed his opinions when it refused to exit the elevator, scared of stepping over the slight gap in the floor. The woman was refusing to pick it up, instead attempting to cajole it out in an irritating, high-pitched baby voice. Fed up with this nonsense, Tom walked onto the elevator without waiting for them to get off and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The woman gave him an angry glare, picked up her yappy dog, and finally walked off. Good.

It seemed to take forever to make it to the fourth floor, but finally he did. Tom got off and took a left, barely glancing at the blue-grey walls of the hallway. He walked past one…two…three doors before reaching 423. And when he got there he didn’t even knock, just opened the door and strode right in.

Mike was sitting in the living room, which was visible through the kitchen. Although there was fairly nice furniture, he had chosen to sit on the floor. The coffee table was shoved haphazardly to the side, wobbling unsteadily with one leg off the rug. The wobbling did not seem to concern Mike in the slightest, nor did Tom’s abrupt entrance.

“Hey Tommo,” Mike called happily, turning his gaze towards the door finally.

Tom stared at him for a moment. Then he strode over and grabbed the half empty wine bottle from the floor on Mike’s left, and the packed bowl from the floor on his right. Mike followed with his eyes as Tom took these items and placed them far away, on top of the kitchen countertop. He was still smiling.

“Get off the floor,” Tom commanded.

“It’s much more fun down here though,” Mike laid down instead of getting up and started to stroke the carpet. “I’m like an ant – I’m seeing the carpet like a giant burgundy jungle. You should join me down here!”

He started making loose snow angels in the carpet, humming as he did so.

Tom did not join him on the carpet. Instead, he sat down on the black leather couch and surveyed the scene in front of him. He knew that interrupting Mike now wouldn’t yield any positive results, so he just waited.

And waited.

It was 2:33 pm according to the clock on the microwave, and it was clear Mike hadn’t done anything productive yet that day. A patterned bowl sat next to the sink, filled with an assortment of dirty spoons and forks. A pile of t-shirts lay discarded on the floor next to one lone sock. Through the open doorway, it could clearly be seen that the bed was unmade. All of the lights were turned off, with the effect that the front half of the apartment was very sunny but the back half was so dark it was hard to see.

At 2:37 pm, there was a timid knock on the door.

“It’s open!” Tom yelled, not moving from the couch.

“How’s it going?” asked the man who entered, nervously adjusting his glasses. He walked halfway into the kitchen and then just stopped, waiting for a response.

Mike kicked one foot up in the air as greeting.

“As you can see,” Tom said, “everything is just great.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” Mike sighed. “I’m so glad you can finally see it. Does this mean you’ll join me on the floor now? I’m making a snow angle that fits just perfectly inside this sunbeam.”

Tom looked imploringly at the newcomer.

“Please Bill, just do something, give him his meds or whatever it is you brought with you.”

An outside observer may have been slightly confused at this point, because inside the small apartment there were now three men who looked exactly identical. The only way to tell them apart was by their clothing, which in truth was actually fairly easy. Although their faces were the same, their personalities clearly were not.

“Look Tom, I think we just need to take a step back,” Bill took a couple more steps toward the living room. He stopped again.

“I received the same letter you did,” Tom replied. “He’s quit yet another job. He’s drinking in the middle of the day. I can’t keep leaving work to clean up his messes, I have responsibilities.”

“And so do you,” he added off hand, looking down at his phone as though something important had happened. It hadn’t.

Bill walked all the way into the room and situated himself cross-legged on the floor, halfway between Tom on the couch and Mike, who was still making his snow angels.

“Heya Mike,” he said pleasantly, “how’s life these days?”

“Bill!” Mike leaped off the ground and folded Bill into a very tight hug. Bill’s arms were pinned to his sides and when Mike kissed his cheek he started to worry, but in the next instant Mike had rocked back on his heels and was surveying Bill happily from the distance of a few feet away.

“He’s been here for ten fucking minutes already you idiot,” Tom muttered through gritted teeth. He was still looking down at his phone, clicking importantly through his apps.

Both Mike and Bill ignored this comment.

“I’ve quit my job Bill,” said Mike cheerily.

“So I’ve heard,” Bill nodded. “Now what?”

“Well the thing I realized the other day is that life is too beautiful to waste doing something practical,” Mike began. Tom’s brow furrowed but Bill nodded him on. “And anyway how much money do I really need?” Tom scoffed.

A few steps away, on the kitchen table, there lay heaps of paper in all different sizes and compositions. Some looked like parchment, some were loose, some were bound in journals. There really was no more room on the table, so thoroughly was it covered. Underneath several of the sheets one could pick out a pen, a couple of erasers.

“Let me show you, let me show you!”” And in an instant Mike was at the table sorting feverishly through the pages. There didn’t seem to be any order to his search. Pages shifted and what appeared to be an entire novel fluttered to the floor. After several more minutes of this, Tom got annoyed.

“Jesus Mike, just show us whatever’s in front of you now! It’s not like we care.”

Bill gave him a warning look, but it didn’t seem to matter to Mike, who was still sitting feverishly, occasionally making small exclamations like “Ah yes, this!” or “Oh no, no not that.”

He turned back to the living room with a handful of papers and an excited grin.

“I’m going to write novels!” he announced.

“No,” said Tom. “You aren’t.”

“Yes I am, what does it matter to you anyway Tommo?”

Tom stood up. “Look, I’m done. I can’t support you anymore. You’re bleeding me dry and you’re a grown man! For once just be practical, just one fucking time.”

“Tom,” Bill started, “He is family – ”

“Family I didn’t choose,” Tome cut him off. “Just because he happens to be my brother doesn’t mean I have to carry him my whole life.” By this point he was shaking slightly, trying to conceal it in tightly clenched fists. “He doesn’t have to be so fucking stupid, we just let him get away with it. Not anymore. And Bill, you’re done too – when I stop, you stop. He needs to learn.”

Bill said nothing. Several of the papers that had fallen to the floor had landed next to him, so he picked them up.

“You,” Mike retorted, turning to face Tom, “have no idea how to have fun.”

“You live in a fucking fantasy!” Tom exploded.

And they were off, Tom’s voice increasing with each sentence until he was practically screaming, Mike alternately sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling back.

Thank God it’s the middle of the day, thought Bill. Hopefully everyone around us is at work. He grabbed a few more papers off the table and slipped into the bedroom. Neither of his brothers notice.

{to be continued}

Being chronically ill is a nightmare few experience. Living every day in pain, exhausted, unable to accomplish even the simple tasks sometimes. Especially when you look fine – no limbs out of joint, all your hair present and accounted for. Worse than the pain are the looks people believe you can’t see.

Anna had tried and tried to fix herself. She had been to so many doctors, from dermatologists to gastroenterologists. She had been x-rayed, eaten radiated food, given away a bathtub’s worth of blood. Each doctor promised that if she just had this test and tried that drug, this time would be it.

And at first, Anna let herself fill with hope after every new test and specialist. But now she wasn’t even sure why she continued with them. A sense of obligation, she supposed.

It was after one of her most recent appointments that Anna met the old man. She was walking across the parking lot at a diagonal, headed towards the bus stop just across the street, and she was walking quickly with her hands jammed deep into her pockets. Every time a patch of brittle leaves entered her path, she crunched down on it, hard. Spitefully.

As she neared the stop, she noticed the old man sitting on the bench. At first, she was confused. She had been staring fixedly at that bench, plastered with the ceramic-toothed smile of a local realtor, throughout her walk and she hadn’t noticed anyone sitting there until now. But then again, he was a rather small and nondescript old man, so it was possible she had just missed him in the glare of the realtor’s mega-watt grin.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly as she sat down carefully at the opposite end of the bench. His voice was dry and grandfatherly and Anna instantly warmed to it.

“Hi,” she returned. For a moment, they sat in silence, surveying the cars parked on the street. There was no bus in sight yet.

“They can’t fix you,” he broke the silence as though picking up in the middle of a conversation they’d left off earlier. Uncomfortable, worried the old man might be crazy, Anna continued to stare down the street. But the old man did not take the hint.

“They try, they really do. But modern medicine sometimes ignores the wisdom of the past, and then it gets itself stuck. I know your pain. I’ve seen it before. And I know how to fix it. But they don’t.”

Anna wondered how he could possibly know she was sick.

“I can smell you,” he continued, “rotting from the inside. That smell is so distinct that once you recognize it you can never forget it.”

A dark blue sedan sped past, driving far too fast for a residential neighborhood, but there was no one to reprimand it. Only a couple of crushed dry leaves left behind.

“Look,” he continued as though she were conversing with him this entire time. “You don’t have to try. But I want to give you the chance to get better. One day you will realize nothing else is going to work. So when that day comes, you’ll have to meet me back on this bench. I need something from you, though, and it will be hard. I need a toe. And really, that’s well worth your health, isn’t it?”

Just then the bus pulled up and its door opened with a squeak. Anna jumped up and turned to ask the man if he was serious, but there was no one on the bench.

She boarded the bus with a prickling feeling on her neck. By the time she got home, it had travelled all the way down her spine.

*          *          *          *          *

Anna could not get the old man off her mind. She tried, she really did, but he was constantly sneaking back in, beckoning his finger.

The doctors’ appointments marched on, and the brittle leaves were replaced by a gleaming layer of snow and ice. Although she continued to go to the same clinic, Anna never saw the old man at the bus stop again. Nowadays, she only had the realtor’s face to keep her company as she waited.

One day, she woke up and the pain was so intense it lit up her vision in vivid white. She could barely move, but she managed to drag herself unsteadily to the kitchen using the walls as support. As she stood at the refrigerator, the glint of the knife rack caught the corner of her eye and the old man popped into her head. He was smiling, and as he crooked one finger towards her, he pointed his other hand towards the knife rack. She stood still and so he took his crooked hand and gestured it towards her, and this time she took it.

She took the butchers knife from the block and tripped into a seated position on the tiles. A ray of sunshine came through the window and illuminated her, warming up her skin.

It was hard, harder than she had expected. But she needed the pain to stop, so she raised the butchers knife, gritted her teeth, and brought it down hard. Her pinky toe was left lying in a pool of blood, sparkling in the sunshine. She put it in a plastic bag, wrapped up the stump on her foot, and wiped the floor. Trembling, she went back to bed with the toe in its bag beside her, ready to deliver to the old man. As she lay in bed, she realized the pain was gone.
When she got back out of bed, it was still gone. Her foot ached and she could tell she walked a little differently now, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of being better. Anna looked down at the toe, lying on her bedside table, and smiled.

The next day, Anna rushed to the bench after her appointment. And there, on the bench, was the old man. As though he knew all along that today was the day.

“I’m sorry,” Anna said, for the first time turning to face him. “I’m sorry I thought you were crazy. You weren’t.”

The old man took the plastic baggie she offered and put it in his pocket without examining the contents.

“The pain just disappeared,” Anna was rambling, she felt awkward but she didn’t know how to stop. “I couldn’t – “ He raised a hand to cut her off.

“I am glad it is working,” the man said seriously. “But I need you to understand that it is a process. The pain will come back and you will have to continue.”

The bus pulled up and Anna turned to say that she could handle it, but her words hit empty air.

*          *          *          *          *

It only took a couple of days for the pain to come back, but this time Anna was ready. The third time, she accidentally chopped off two of her toes at once, and that is how she discovered that the more she chopped, the longer she felt better.

As winter melted into spring, and then summer, Anna continued chopping away. She had stopped attending appointments with her regular doctors, preferring instead to just visit the old man as needed. And the more she chopped, the less sick she became.

First, it was just her toes. And then the left foot, the left shin. She didn’t need her pinky fingers, so those went next. Each time she met the old man, he smiled and told her she smelled less rotted. And she knew he was right. She felt lighter than ever.

One day in August, the last day the pain came back, she realized she was running out of body. She would have to cut her left arm at the shoulder this time, and that would require a lot of strength. She braced herself up against the kitchen cabinets and raised the knife. It glinted in the sun, winking at her. Winking back, Anna brought it down. Again. And again. And again. Over and over until she was sure she’d hacked clean through because the knife had gouged into the cabinet behind.

The tiles had turned slick and pink with blood. Anna smiled at it, running her fingers to paint circle after circle. Eventually she started to feel tired, and so she lay down. Her clothes and hair became the same pink as the tiles, sunlight illuminating everything. Her eyes looked to the side following her right arm all the way to her fingertips. She could see that they were still making pink circles, but she couldn’t feel it.
The sun grew brighter and brighter. In the back of her mind she heard a knocking at the door but she ignored it. Instead, she watched the sun light up the pink circles so that they glittered. Anna closed her eyes and let the warmth wash over her. She smiled and waved to the old man, who winked back.

“Thank you,” she mouthed. He didn’t seem to hear her. But it didn’t matter because finally she was better.