LUCKY
Jessica
Elliott
“I’m afraid to say…”
the nurse began but then seemed at a loss to find the right words.
As if I wasn’t
already in panic mode, the hesitation coupled with “afraid to say” put me into
orbit.
She’s going to tell
me I have cervical cancer; I just know it. Know it! Oh, my God. I’m going to
die! The cramps, the bleeding, those stabbing pains. This is it. She’s going to
say six months tops. They always say that. Oh, God. Six months!
Her hesitation was
excruciating. It was probably just a couple seconds, but I felt like screaming,
“Just tell me!”
She passed an
insecure glance to her aide, the kind of here-we-go look for support. The kind
of look that a lead nurse should not be sharing with an underling. And the
aide’s forehead was wrinkled in worry. And she was busy biting her lower lip.
You’re dying, that’s
what she is going to say. Oh, God!
The nurse tried
again with more conviction, “I’m afraid to say, it seems you’ve had a
miscarriage.”
“A what? No. No, no.
There must be some mistake .That’s not possible,” I stammered. “I’m only
twenty-three. I haven’t had sex in three years, back when…boyfriend…but I
haven’t…I recently moved here and haven’t…” I knew I sounded pathetic, and
judging by their expressions, they felt pity for me, but didn’t believe me.
“No, seriously. That’s not possible.” A freak burst of hysterical laughter erupted
from me as I thought about immaculate conception. Saint Beth.
“Shh. Shh. It’s
okay…” she tried to calm me. This backfired. I was too wound up about my death
to be placated like this.
“No, it can’t be.
You got my results mixed up. Just tell me straight. I’m dying of cervical
cancer, and I have six months, right? It’s okay, I get it. I’m not a baby.
Don’t sugar coat it.”
“What? No. No, Beth.
You do not have cancer. But everything is consistent with a miscarriage…” Again,
there was that back-me-up-here look to her aide.
“But what?” I
snapped. There’s a but, isn’t there?”
Another
conspiratorial glance! And by this time the aide was no longer just nibbling
nervously, her front teeth were now digging into her chin like a plow.
“The um, the thing
is…” She lost steam again and started again with a new angle. “We’re going to
put you on a hefty antibiotic as you have a significant infection…”
“Infection,” I repeated
with unintended hostility.
“There seems to be
some tearing…”
“Tearing? What does
that mean? Is that normal?”
“Well, I don’t want
to alarm you, but, um…it looks like, and we don’t really know, wouldn’t know
without more tests of course if you insist, but it looks like, like…like little
claw marks in your uterus.” She took a quick breath and continued rapidly. “Perhaps
some calcium buildup…sometimes they can be sharp and painful…”
#
She kept talking,
but I was no longer listening. My mind raced around like pinball linking
memories. Infection. Not to get gross and graphic but even before the blood,
I’d smelled something off, something like infection. I’d chalked it up to the
oppressive August heat and humidity¾bathed more
frequently, scrubbed with witch hazel. But even then, the pains were building.
The pains that began shortly after…
…the midsummer
festival.
I’d been asked to
work the festival, to be on hand to pass out water and snacks to vendors, to
report back any issues, to remind folks that some of the shops had real
bathrooms and they didn’t need to suffer the portable ones.
It had been a long, heat-stroke-inducing
day. The sun was scorching down with not a hint of breeze. People clustered in
shady spots and visited tents just to get away from the unrelenting sun. The
food trucks were out in the parking lot with only the tiniest patches of shade
by the window. Standing in line was like lining up to enter Hell itself. I took
my break, stood in line, placed my order, and scurried to a shady patch.
Feeling dizzy,
almost sick, I lay back in the grass. Earthing, as they call it now, this
communing with the ground. Well, I felt ready to commune on a permanent basis.
Just as I pulled my arm up to cover my eyes in my elbow, I saw him.
I say him, but really,
I don’t know. Him, or it?
I thought
immediately of the legend of Slender Man. But Slender Man wasn’t real, was he?
I thought some unstable schoolgirls made him up back in the 90s. He was tall,
but not freakishly so, probably six foot or more, and so skinny…no, not skinny,
to be honest, more like emaciated. And that made him seem taller. A walking
ladder. Few people seemed to notice him. This seemed weird at first, but most
people were either looking at art or talking together, or texting on their phones.
He sure stood out as
unusual. For starters, everything about him was a sickly greenish-gray. His
hair was short, in tight curls, and made me think of mold or fungus. It was a
spectacularly weird color to choose. But then did he dye it or was it really
that color?
His skin was an
unhealthy greenish-gray as if…as if he was once dark-skinned but then rolled
in dirt or mulch. I thought of the way
that powdered sugar clings to a beignet in both firm clumps and faint dusting.
It’s so odd, I know, but there was something dusted about him. His shirt clung
to him; hanging from bony shoulders the way a shirt hangs off a hook. His silvery
belt buckle seemed to be working overtime holding his thick brown belt up just
below his jutting hip bones. A long stretch of excess belt hung limp. Surely,
he could have found a belt more to size? It undulated like an almost dead snake
as he walked. And his stride was abnormal, too, in slow motion like an
automaton, especially compared to the animated people moving around him.
He was alone. His
head rotated slowly from side to side, but not as if he was looking for anyone
or at anything. His overlarge eyes stared vacantly forward. And there was
something insectoid about his mouth. As if in lieu of skin, his mouth—a
strange, gray slit, was surrounded by chitin plates—the stiff stuff that
crickets and grasshoppers have as an exoskeleton.
And even though he
couldn’t have been much more than thirty years old, his eyes looked sunken,
ancient, and slack as a hound, with gaping pockets on the lower lids. But the
worst, the thing that made me sit up straight and stare was his wrists.
Weird, right?
Wrists? Who notices wrists? His arms were orangutan-long and skeleton thin hanging
down, bent inward at the elbows. This caused his forearms to jut outward such
that his elongated fingers flapped almost to his knees…flapped because the thin
wrists seemed to want to detach, seemed to be such a tenuous link between hand
and forearm that with the slightest movement the hands might just drop off
entirely.
I stared, transfixed.
The hands flapped as if only connected by a small ball joint. Birth defect? I
shouldn’t have stared. But as you can imagine, the combination of the elements
I described were so unusual that I wondered if I was hallucinating. Others veered
around him. The few who looked up to his face startled or blanched and got out
of his way.
So, it wasn’t my imagination.
Then he turned
toward me as if he sensed me watching him.
Oh, God! Thick lips,
mouth gaping, breathing like a dying fish. Dead, opaqued fish eyes, sunken
cheeks, and spikey chin hairs sticking out like bent nails!
I looked away
hastily.
Oh, dear. I hope
that woman has some water for her dog…panting like that. Looks like a friendly
old Labrador.
Suddenly, he was
looming over me, his shadow blocking the harsh sunlight. How was that possible?
He was over thirty feet away a second ago! My nostrils were filled with the
overwhelming smells of sickness and infection. I thought of an ingrown toenail
and the awful smell when I removed the bandage revealing the pus.
My stomach lurched
as the face got closer.
Those horrible eyes!
That awful smell! Those hands! OH!
I must have passed
out just after the…the what? My memory here was filmy and frankly impossible,
but…yeek…the cockroachy feeling of pinching as if legs had sprouted out of his
body and held me fast…needle pricks and that one horrid, gut-punching jab.
#
I became aware of
voices.
“Burger all the way
for Beth?”
“Hey, are you Beth?”
“Are you okay?”
“Your order is up.”
Someone helped me
up. I looked around with dread, but he was gone. That was that. I got my order,
choked the food down, still feeling out of it. I finally felt a bit better
after I ate.
I saw the man twice
more at a distance, moving as before like a lost zombie. Each time I felt dread
and the wild urge to hide. Once, I saw him walking close behind a child. I felt
an irrational pang of panic.
I should rescue that
child!
They child scooted
around behind a tent. I lost sight of them.
Just my imagination
gone wild, I told myself.
I finished out my
workday feeling understandably drained.
It was only that
evening in the shower that I noticed the mark: a scabby, jagged triangle below
my bellybutton about the size of two quarters. Had I been scratching at a
mosquito bite? It seemed a lot bigger than a normal bite, angrier. The blood
was thick, the wound deeper than usual. I told myself that being fair-skinned,
I often blew up with weird insect bites. I was fairly new to town. It was
summer. Horsefly bite maybe? Twig ant? They seemed to love to get up in my
clothes and bite for the heck of it. Yet, I felt revulsion when I looked at it.
I felt weak all over again. I washed it
with care, smeared salve on it, and
tried to forget about it.
But not long after
the scab finally disappeared, the cramps began. And got worse. Then that awful
sharp feeling that something was carving its initials on my uterus…
#
The nurse and aide
had withdrawn to a corner to whisper in private. And while I missed most of it,
I thought I heard the word “outbreak”. And I was sure the aide whispered to the
nurse, “Six last week. Two yesterday and the day before. Third one today. This
one’s lucky.”
“What?” I asked.
“Lucky?”
This was really too much! I sure didn’t feel lucky! What were they talking
about? I’d been in horrid pain and now I was having deranged, paranoid ideation
about being impregnated by some alien creature. This was worse than death by
cervical cancer, wasn’t it? They were acting so secretively!
Down the hall, a
hysterical woman began shrieking like she was a victim in a horror movie.
The nurse said,
“I’ll be right back,” and was gone in a flash. An alarm began to buzz. The hall
filled with sounds of urgency. The aide hugged herself tightly and chewed her
lip.
The shrieking rose
an octave and came in shorter waves. The aide glided to the door and locked it.
“I’ll just stay with you for a bit until it’s safe¾”
A fast-moving,
animal growling came barreling towards our room followed by bashing sounds. A
speeding procession of snarling, yelling, and bashing shot past our door ending
abruptly in a snarly squeal.
“Got it!”
“Make sure!”
Another bashing
sound vibrated against the wall. This was followed by whiffs of that horrific,
unmistakable smell.
“Oh my God!” I
yelled, slapping my hands over my nose and mouth.
The aide said
sweetly, “We’ll get you those prescriptions for pain and infection and…I’ll
remind the nurse to get you something for nerves, too.”
The screaming had
stopped. The siren stopped. I caught bits of murmured conversation.
“You okay?”
“I think so.”
“Here. I’ve got
a
Hazmat disposal bag.
This was followed by
a muffled dragging sound and stage-whispered exclamations and gagging sounds.
“Ugh,” and “So gross,” and “Oh, that smell.”
The
aide’s face flooded
with relief as she unlocked the door.
She patted my arm with false cheeriness. “There we are. You’re good to go. No
worries. You know, you really are very lucky.”
