by Aditya Bhatia
The underneath of his tongue was the cutting board in a butcher’s shop after the beautifully carved piece of meat was wrapped in paper and handed over: a bloody mess.
He’d been feeling pain for days. He’d let the cold water from the bottle filling machine in the office linger and popped in chunks of ice whenever he got the chance. He didn’t look until the white toothpaste had come out pink when he spit. Flaps of white flesh hung over blisters too numerous to count. He peeled the debris off the organ and looked in disgust at the crime scene that he assumed neglect had created.
He was told to rinse with and then swallow the Nystatin. He was asked if he had any other questions. He didn’t. He thanked the doctor, took the after-visit paperwork, and left for the pharmacy to purchase relief.
Life returned to the doldrums.
His nightly routine consisted of preventative measures. The body, a machine, required regular maintenance to continue functioning. His diet, the least affected by his want to eschew treatment, was an even split between fine tasting homemade food and the sensory overwhelming pleasures of restaurants of which his bank account could only barely handle his patronage. His stomach, regardless of amount or quality, would groan and gurgle upon ingestion, so once he was in the vicinity of his bed his exercises began. He worked his legs, arms, and core to the point of slightly shallow breath and mildly increased heart rate, but rarely much further. This, he was convinced, was enough to keep the arteries from clogging. Dessert was a cornucopia of multicolored antacids, antihistamines, and aspirins. In those moments before sleep, he felt most at peace and always believed the feeling could carry over into the next morning. It never did.
He noticed, a few weeks after the tongue episode, that he awoke with an arid maw. This in and of itself wasn’t so unusual, but upon a bleary-eyed inspection (he went straight to his full body mirror), he noticed a redness at the opening of his throat, and tonsils that he swore hadn’t always looked like that.
His diet that day consisted of lozenges. The earthy, licoricey, menthol-y taste infiltrated his sinus and brain. Saliva flowed and required swallowing every few minutes. He couldn’t feel his throat. That made him happy.
The panic set in minutes before End Of Day and, scrambling out of his cubicle and into the hall, he called the first number the search engine provided for those specializing in matters of the throat. The receptionist was perturbed, and he swore he could hear a bag being packed and zipped as he pleaded for the earliest possible appointment. It was urgent, he kept repeating. She told him if it was that much of an emergency he should hang up and go to the room bearing that name. He then insisted he would be fine waiting for the doctor.
His tonsils sat at the back of his throat, red and pulsing. The wetness of the cavern rested on them and in the white, antiseptic light of the communal restroom for all who worked on the fourteenth floor, they looked angry. His breathing was labored, and he swore a hair had lodged itself in the back of his tongue. He walked back feeling the tickle and the swelling and knew that one influenced the other. Hair carried disease, and this hair had carried the onset of something serious into his system.
His time in the waiting room was par for the course. His leg shook and bounced and he could feel an incessant ache setting in but couldn’t bring himself to stop. He arrived fourteen minutes late for his appointment time. The receptionist informed him that had he come in even a minute later, they would’ve turned him away and charged him an inconvenience fee. He found this absurd— and said as much— but his vexation wasn’t reacted to in any meaningful way. They were merely doing their job.
He was called in. He was weighed, measured, and then measured some more, and then the nurse told him the doctor would be in shortly. The doctor was a woman, something that came as a surprise as her name was Alex Delaney, and he wondered whether he could afford a second opinion after this.
She felt his lymph nodes, shined a light in his mouth, and confirmed that his tonsils were indeed inflamed. He mentioned the phantom hair and how there seemed to be a glob of mucus lodged somewhere around the bottom of his esophagus in case that changed her diagnosis. She said it didn’t. He then mentioned the recent tongue situation. He said that he was concerned about the proximity of the two episodes. He said that he believed it said something about his body’s waning abilities. She didn’t reply.
She said that a course of antibiotics and steroids could alleviate the issue. She then asked if his tonsils always became an issue when he was running ill. He wracked his brain trying to remember every instance of unwellness and realized that he never thought much at all about his tonsils. He said he wasn’t sure but that they were bothering him now. She said removal was also an option. He mulled this over.
He woke up on a cot in a dim room and was aware of the strangeness in his throat. He got off the cot and walked into the bright hallway and looked around at surroundings that he knew would’ve been more familiar had he been less foggy. A woman in scrubs rushed to him and urged him back onto the cot. She brought in a wheelchair and rolled him to the parking lot. He found the entire production unnecessary.
His girlfriend chided him over his love of plain vanilla. He enjoyed being babied in bed.
The doldrums.
The pain in his hip began during a period when he had begun to enjoy walking up the stairs to his floor at the office. He’d take the elevator up to twelve and then he’d go to fourteen on foot, and progressively the flights on foot increased. He’d begun stopping at nine that week, and he was practically skipping up thinking about how good cardio was for the heart, and about how satisfying the odometer readings on his phone were. When he reached eleven’s landing, he felt a twinge on the right-side, inches away from his member. He came to a complete halt and looked down as though he possessed the ability to both see through fabric and flesh.
The rest of his ascent was at a slower pace with his mind no longer on left-right-left but on making sure his full attention was on the spot should the sharp spasm reoccur. It didn’t. He took his mind off of it and spent most of the day in the regular, somewhat attentive haze that managed to provide the higher-ups with satisfactory results, until— while pouring his fourth coffee of the day— it happened again.
The reoccurrences for a while were sparse, never enough for his mind to fully wander away, but enough that before each new occurrence he’d foolishly think that the end had come. By the sixth day nothing else filled his mind. Food was mud, friends were bores, and affection was distraction. Mind could overcome matter, he thought, especially since a part of him believed that the mind had conjured the matter.
On the tenth day his girlfriend, patient and loving, had enough, and informed him that he couldn’t keep sitting and waiting for it to happen again, and that maybe some time out, doing something fun, would help. They arrived at the place where people threw axes and drank, surely a winning combination, fifteen minutes before her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend were to arrive. His girlfriend wasn’t the biggest fan of the best friend’s boyfriend and usually didn’t include the two of them in their conjoined plans, but he hadn’t done anything for four days other than mutter to himself and grab dramatically at the area.
The other couple arrived, a throwing lane was paid for, drinks were purchased, and, despite a desire to wallow, he got swept up in the night. Imbibement and revelry, balms of the mind, eased him off the ledge. He felt nothing. Throw one was fine; throw two was fine; throw three was fine; throw four was fine; but then, as he arced backwards, arms above his head, axe in hand, it happened. He was on the floor groping and groaning, tears in his eyes.
They were waiting in the emergency room within forty minutes. He’d refused the spectacle of an ambulance and stretcher and instead hobbled against her with most of his hundred eighty pounds. The pain didn’t subside. He grumbled about the wait times. How could a place so slow be called an “emergency” room? He knew the triteness of what he said but attempted to imbue it with a profound gravity. His girlfriend patted his shoulder without words, or even a look.
The doctor came in looking harried like they did in movies, white coat and a clipboard in hand. He laid there watching this constantly busy man move his eyes across his chart, trying to familiarize himself with the particulars of this situation. The spot still hurt. It was as though a hand was inside holding whatever bones, muscles, and other innards were congregated there, squeezing them in an unbreakable fist. When asked what the issue was, he began relaying everything from the tongue on. He spoke hurriedly, breathlessly, attempting to fit in every possible detail, so that this professional could, like him, connect the dots and diagnose not just this instance but every recent instance under the banner of what he knew was something seriously wrong with him.
The doctor listened attentively and took notes. He then walked over and placed cold hands on exposed skin, applying pressure to the place that his patient said was the source of the pain. He completed his various procedures and consulted his clipboard again, lapsing into silence. He could see the patient watching him closely, anxiously anticipating. He looked up from his clipboard and explained that nothing was immediately and apparently wrong. He said they could run a few more tests but ultimately there wasn’t much that they could do right here, right now. “If this persists,” he said, “Go back and see your general physician. Something new may be happening then and we may be able to give you a diagnosis but right now, it’s just hard to say why this is happening. Ice the affected area, take some ibuprofen. I’m also going to give you about ten days worth of cyclobenzaprine. It’s a muscle relaxer. Take it as needed.”
—
“I got the payment deferred again,” he said before a greeting or a show of physical affection, “They say it’s going to be another forty-five to sixty days before any new amount, if they actually do charge me, appears. We’re in the clear for, like, another two months!”
She’d attempted protest against this flawed logic before only to be met with the indignity of a nearly thirty-year-old man sulking, on the brink of tantrum, so she said nothing, just put on her coat and grabbed her purse, preparing to be whisked away to wherever his whim took them.
They were seated in a dim area of a nice modern American joint. They were surrounded by individuals, couples, and families who were all very apparently better off than themselves. She noticed two girls around her age seated a few tables away and thought about how they looked as though they would make money for taking pictures with the entrees they sat there picking at. She wondered what number glass of wine sat in front of both of them.
The waiter was excitable and introduced himself (Charles), asked if it was their first time in the restaurant (it wasn’t), and rattled off the specials for that night (a creamy leek soup, a braised lamb shank with a mushroom risotto, and red snapper with charred asparagus and mashed potatoes) without seeming to take a breath. They ordered drinks. She got something with Empress gin. He ordered a brandy straight up, a weird new habit of his. It took a minute, then the waiter returned, drinks in hand. Before the waiter could ask what they were to eat, he’d turned the glass upside down and placed it back on the table, empty, with a grimace. He then smiled sheepishly and said that he was going to need another.
In total they’d ordered three drinks, an app of pimento cheese hush puppies, two burgers, and a piece of pecan pie with ice cream. He didn’t let her see the check.
At home he stepped back out into the cold to light up a cigar, another strange recent habit of his. She disliked the smell. She also disliked the amount of time it took to burn through them. But, like with her prior reticence, he seemed on the verge of tantrum whenever she voiced her opinion about this pastime. She sat on the couch scrolling on her phone and through the sliding glass door she watched the smoke curl and dissipate. Lately, he spent most evenings this way.
He woke up coughing, clutching his throat. He looked at her with juicy eyes and burrowed his head into her shoulder. She could feel him suppressing a full-on breakdown. He made her shine her phone’s flashlight into his mouth and relay to him what she saw. He made her feel his neck for any swollen lymph nodes. “There’s nothing. I promise. You’re fine.” He looked at her and nodded, trying to believe.
She got to work at her usual time and waited for him to let her know he’d made it to work as well. He told her he’d started taking the elevator again. He said this with some sadness, and she wondered how much the stairs had done to improve his daily mindset. He let her know he’d arrived. They spoke mostly of perfunctory things for the remainder of the day.
The doldrums.
Each day began and ended with the belief that something was terribly wrong. Flashlights in mouth, eyes on patches of dry skin, hands on limbs where the bones ached, all were requested in hopes she would confirm his suspicion: that he was dying and that the end was near. In-between was the application of make-up, the making of coffee, the driving to work, the dealing with the public, the return home, the sharing of mutual affection, the happy moments in which things like dinner and television took his mind off his body. But then she’d see a hand slowly move to places where there was a pulse, and he was sure once again that something was wrong.
It was the end of the month. She’d checked the mail and had seen adverts and bills. She left them on the kitchen table when she’d gotten inside. It was five-thirty. He was still an hour from arrival. She went upstairs, took a call from her best friend, and laid on the bed. They were laughing about something when she heard the apartment rattle from the force of the shutting door. He must have gotten off early, she thought. She kept talking, waiting for him to appear in the doorway, ready to flash a smile. He didn’t appear. She cut her friend off, let her know that she had to attend to something, said bye, and went downstairs.
He was standing at the kitchen table, paper in hand, looking intently at its contents. “Hey, what’s up?” she said. He continued to stare at the paper. “Is everything okay?” she asked. He looked up. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “Everything’s fine.” He trailed off. “Hey,” he started again, “Do we have anything planned tonight? I think maybe we should invite some friends over. Just like, have a good time, yeah?”
Her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend and a handful of his buddies were crammed into the apartment within the hour. They set up Catan on the kitchen table and Quiplash on the TV. Drinks were brought by all and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” blared from a phone speaker. There was talk of ordering a pizza.
She watched him drink his drinks and step out for cigars; she watched him play his games and laugh with his friends; she watched him win and she watched him lose; she watched him, despite the distractions, snatch a glance at the paper which had been moved to a counter in the kitchen, and move his right thumb to the spot on his left wrist where the pulse could be felt.
—
The steel and plastics branched out like a modern art sculpture. Shattered glass caught the light of the sun, beating down into the asphalt, shining beads of light onto the faces of the emergency respondents who’d arrived on the scene. Traffic was at a halt, and they could see through their windows the others, also stuck on the road, twitching and tapping their fingers, itching to go. They were on their way to the dentist. He’d noticed a spot on his gums and swore it wasn’t merely a blister. He said his teeth ached, all of them. They watched an ambulance struggle to get to where it would be useful. They didn’t look at each other, they didn’t speak a word. They betrayed nothing.
****
Aditya Bhatia is a writer/filmmaker from Atlanta, Georgia. You can find his previous works at Eulogy Lit, don't submit, Expat Press, Something in the Water, and Whiskey Tit Journal. He was also a credited writing apprentice on Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis.