This piece is an older piece that I've edited a bit. See what you think. Apparently, for some reason that will become evident, it grosses people out. Mwahhahaha

-§-

It was all about taste and texture thought Murylo as he picked a particularly satisfying scab free of his scalp. He inspects it. About a quarter of an inch long and half that size wide. He smiles and then pops the scab in his mouth ... Texture. ‘Well, it was mine, not as if I’m eating you?’ Gerald just stares at him, both grossed out and fascinated in equal measure.

Later he would ask their mutual friend Tangerine; on off girlfriend of Ulysses, rhetorically, ‘who does that? Who tears scabs off their head at any time, let alone in public! He said he liked the feeling of relief ...’ the pair of them giggle and simultaneously gag at this. ‘Now, how did he explain it?’

 -§-

He explained to Gerald, without worry or concern at his shocked face that he loved the feel of release as the scab broke away. There were two places on his head that were in a perpetual state of damage/recovery/damage. ‘It usually takes about four or five drags of a sharp fingernail over the wound area to completely free the site of dried skin.’ 

‘Thats disgusting’ gasps Gerald, ‘doesn’t it hurt? Why ... Why would you do that?’

Murylo sighs to himself. Texture and taste.

‘Look, I think a lot. It dries my brain a little; I have a bad scalp, eczema as it happens. So why should I not investigate it like I’ll deconstruct Ben Jonson’s Volpone. Yes, it is all a bit lurid but what the hell. You were shocked, possibly nauseated, yes?’

‘Yes’ replies Gerald disapprovingly.

‘But you’re still here, awaiting an answer.’ 

‘Oh no you don’t - I don't pick my scabs and eat them at any time, let alone in a MacDonald’s.

‘Frankly I couldn’t think of a more appropriate place’ laughs Murylo ‘genuine fast food really.’ They both laugh at this, Gerald feigning disgust.

‘Look, do you want me to explain, warts an ... scabs and all?’ 

Gerald eyes Murylo and then acquiesces. ‘OK, but please don’t do it again.’ He half points nervously to his own head with his right hand. The left is playing with a spare straw Murylo had grabbed just before they sat down to consume, a Big Mac Meal for him and a Cheeseburger and coke for Gerald.

‘Right’ Murylo takes a deep breath ‘I have a bad scalp ok, I suffer from eczema which makes the scalp itch. 

His look is quite unreadable.

‘It itches a bit, not much, but enough for me to bothered by it from time to time. Maybe I have too much time on my hands. Maybe I’m not screwing you enough, or too much. ‘Maybe I’m allergic to lager’ he mock crosses himself at this. They both sort of smile, more snort smile really. ‘And perhaps the very act of noticing the itch is the important, originally important fact.’ He ponders this a moment

‘So therefore I’ve scratched, scratched my whole scalp - at first, and for a long time I hadn’t really realised it. But I did it. A subconscious and conscious act so to speak. Borne of a so called ailment. The ailment by the way is simply having a yeast that reacts sightly off key.’

‘So I would scratch my head, generally in private. At times I might be aware of the act, and would then either stop (most of the time) or continue vigorously for relief.’ It is at this point he raises both hands and points his fingertips and nails into the back of head and scratches. 

‘Stobbit’ remonstrates Gerald as his stomach does a flip and then tightens. People are aware of them and he is feeling embarrassed. So embarrassed that if Murylo does that, or anything similar again, he’ll walk out. It was horrific. 

-§-

‘I’ve no idea why I really stayed at all’ he says later to Tangerine ‘everyone was staring, one or two kids were mimicking him and others simply laughed.’

‘So why didn’t you go?’

‘Because no-one else did’ which I think was his point now I think about it, damn him.’

‘So go on then, what happened next?’

-§-

Murylo stops.

‘Does that hurt?’ asks Gerald

‘What, oh no - I’m nowhere near the wound.’ Murylo replies.

‘Wound ...s! They must hurt?’

‘They’re sore, that’s for sure. I can feel them drying out.’

‘Ugh, why do you do this to yourself Mury?’ For the first time that lunchtime Gerald allows a little sympathy to creep into his voice.

‘You’ve got to be fucking up your scalp, for what, an intellectual point?’

Murylo says nothing so Gerald continues.

‘You think this could be some variation of bodily harm?’

‘Hmm, I don’t think so - I’ve always associated that, the idea of bodily harm with cutting of the skin. Erm, you know what I mean?’ Gerald just stares at him.

‘Look I’m hardly slicing my wrists open am I?’

‘You sound defensive.’

‘Well, I am now, ‘cos obviously there is some tearing and cutting going on but its a tiny scab of a concealed...’

‘...not so concealed you know’ interjects Gerald.

‘Huh?’

‘You can see the picked area - it’s bleeding. Give me your iPhone and tilt your head forward.’

Murylo does this as Gerald neatly clicks on the photo icon on the phone, opening the software and takes the picture. It shows two dark spots near the crown of Murylo’s blond locks. Murylo looks up.

‘See’ Gerald hands him the phone. Murylo studies the image in front of him for some time without saying a word. Finally he looks up.

‘This isn’t bad OK. OK, it ain’t great, but it isn’t as awful as we are now making it out to be. I’m just picking at an irritating scab. People do that all the time.’

‘You’re eating them! Only kids and animals pick at their own wounds.’ Gerald just shakes his head, then changing tack slightly he says ‘You’re right, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t think you’re suicidal, far from it, but it is a little unusual, even for you. Please stop doing it?’

‘OK’ says Murylo, though for the first time today he was ridden with doubt. Would he stop?

‘You know I’m OK, right? asks Murylo, worrying that Gerald was go over the top with this.

‘I’m not so sure, you weren’t even aware of the similarities to self harm.’

‘Rubbish’ snaps back Murylo harshly ‘of course I did, I’m not tweedle-dum! I just hadn’t realised the semantics of the explanation had written all the way to the cliff-face of reality.’ Gerald is unsure whether to giggle or be annoyed at this.

‘Just be careful hun’ 

‘OK, OK’

‘So go on finish explaining, your whole dirty little secret’ Gerald laughs lightly at this.

‘Its the feel of release, as the scab lets go. Yes, there is a little sting - its quite amazing in it’s own right. It’s, it’s ... satisfying. And, the eating is like an act of triumph. Anyway it is only congealed blood, mainly, which would account for the taste and there is this particular texture to it, a sort of gummy, rubbery crunch element.’ Gerald screws up his face.

‘I know, it sounds awful, it isn’t. It’s like if you cut your finger and you suck it, to clean the cut and stop the bleeding. Well, it is sort of nice, that metallic taste. I wonder if that is the iron in the blood? he digresses.

‘Hmm’ ponders Gerald.

‘Sorry, and ... it would have been quite acceptable around the time of the sixth and fifth century B.C.’

‘What the f..k are you talking about now Mury?’

‘Around 580 B.C. The sybarites, ancient Greeks, Acheans to be exact, who were the wealthiest of greek colonies; tales of luxury were infamous, ergo the term sybaritic is now considered proverbial.

‘Gotcha’ replies Gerald as recollections of his school studies spring forward to his conscious world. Geography he thinks, as he recalls Mrs. Abalone, his former high school teacher in the afore mentioned discipline. ‘So what has that got to do with eating your head?’

‘Well’ replies Murylo as he scratches his nose, ‘the proverbial term sybaritic suggests luxury, but overlooks the reality that these Acheans were actually investigating the Self. They would try and experiment with all forms of physical and material expression to see if it were pleasurable! So the removal of a tiny scab that can cause a degree, albeit briefly, of pleasure, can easily be ascribed to the seeking of sybaritic pleasure.’

Murylo smiles his charming smile knowing that much of what he had just said was something of a conflation of a Roman sect, who were indeed disciples of pleasure and the seeking of knowledge, with the very real Achean state of Sybaris. He figured it would be quicker to explain it this way, as Gerald, who always tried to appear smart, would simply accept it at face value and not bother checking - Gerald was always a poor student in that respect.

Gerald raises his left eyebrow. It was bordering on an old-fashioned look. He had been taken in, though usually half suspecting, by Murylo’s bullshit stories before. He found them surprisingly enjoyable.

‘I’m serious’ smiled Murylo ‘really!’

‘I believe you, Ulysses would be impressed too.’

Murylo easily contained the sudden burst of anger at hearing the name of the man he disliked most in the world. Ulysses Smart. 

‘I’m sure he would, I’ll mention it to him when we all meet up tonight.’

‘Cool’ replies Gerald.

Murylo wondered whether Ulysses would make it that evening or indeed to work today. They both worked at Grimshaw, Bartholomew, and Heart, Solicitors. Murylo was one of the  solicitors and a sort of colleague of Ulysses. He found him repellent, though, to all the world, they seemed liked good mates. A smile crossed his face as he began to feel the excitement again. He tore off another scab and ate it.

Here is the second submission this week you lucky lot! This was written yesterday (Sunday), based upon my experiences with To The Lighthose, Virginia Woolfe. It would help understand all the subtle allusions if you have the book, but it is not mandatory reading. Enjoy.

-§-

The clouds seem to growl grey as they creep in; blown on a sou’ westerly that keeps the January chill cool and temperate. His mother tears her address off the letter (hand written in this case, as in most when the envelope lacked a window) that had arrived that morning; she worries over identity theft constantly. He knows that later, when sitting alone at the dining room table, she will stamp out the address and then shred the letter; today a charity asking for yet more coin from her meagre income. 

He sits in an armchair in the lounge, distracted by tiredness that would lull him to sleep if he were less disciplined with his time. He corrals his consciousness and tries to concentrate for the umpteenth time.

The book he reads; To the Lighthouse, written by the esteemable Virginia Woolfe, frustrates him. Lily Briscoe procrastinates over whether to offer solace to Mr. Ramsey. ‘Just ask him if he is okay, nimrod’ he screams soundlessly. Ramsey, the widower, who has lost two of eight children to the Great War and childbirth respectively, continues to fish. Seeking complementary succour, rather than compliments for his sturdy walking boots. ‘Get over it, you sponge’ he screams soundlessly. Then his two youngest, James and Cam appear on the page and the excursion to the lighthouse finally sets sail, a hundred and thirty-something pages into the book. So only forty left and he would be free of the intense inner dialogues of a story that stays put on one, Senecan like, stage; albeit separated by ten years and the aforementioned first world war. The action, almost whispered, occurs off-stage, so to speak, leaving us, the readers and characters, to ponder its effect. He reads in short intervals, interspersed with cups of coffee or tea, and/or a smoke. Well, it had been a smoke until yesterday, when for reasons such a health, pride and money, he choose to quit.

‘Do not try it’ He had instructed his mother, Ermentrude Smart, whom he was visiting that Sunday, ostensibly to see how she was and provide her with company; his real motive was to get a decent meal. She would surprise him with her choice of food from time to time and today was to be such a day. Spanish potatoes with roast turkey, stuffed with brie. It was delicious by any standard, particularly to someone who had barely eaten a mouthful the previous week due to the weird concoction of medications Dr. Dolores Genocite had prescribed.

He picked up the book and considered why he was so rattled. The narrative death of Mrs. Ramsey had saddened and maddened him. It was sneaked in innocuously enough and now dominates the story, overshadowing the lighthouse, such was her beauty. 

He laughs out load at this as contemplates imagining a beautiful sixty something woman. Was he developing a literary ‘GILF’ complex? He snorts at this so loudly that Mrs. Smart overhears him.

‘Is anything wrong love?’

‘Where to begin?’ he replies, in earnest.

Another piece - Well, I find I'm writing more and more since I started writing for <www.thebowlerhat.co.uk> though, as I'm sure you will notice, these musings are much shorter. Magazine sized. Enjoy.

-§-

He woke up startled, sitting bolt upright. Sweat cloyed to the vest that stuck to his chest and back. The boxers he wore; old cyan coloured ones with red hearts on them; a gift from tangerine; had crept up the crack of his backside. He felt discombobulated, and smiled at the thought despite his feelings of apprehension.

The alarm on his iPhone chimed. It was a text. From Tangerine. She had gone to work early. Around six o’clock and had left him; snoring a tattoo of snorts and grunts that she had become familiar yet never entirely at ease with. After all she didn’t snore. She was certain of that despite Ulysses’ protestations.

At least that was how he imagined she felt; adept as he was at imagining the thoughts and processes of another’s mind. Tangerine had said these ideas were ludicrous and no-one could ever really know what another thought, yet Ulysses persisted in his own solipsistic certainty that he was the central figure of mankind. A mankind of one if he considers solipsism in its true context; whatever he imagined people were thinking must be reality. Tangerine would smile and call him daft, but then he knew she was going to say that, she always did, right?

Still, he felt agitated and uncomfortable. He begins to remember. He was staying at Dean’s. This was not his flat. The last few days had been bad. Disconcerting dreams and suspicions would rent his equilibrium apart. It was like walking upon a deck of a ship cast adrift upon choppy waters. Every step rendered him vulnerable. But vulnerable to what?

His phone chimed once more. Tangerine again. What did she want? Picking up the phone he let his fingers dance automatically across the touchpad of the device, opening up the message function. Six words, split by the most important question mark of his life. Not that he fully recognised the significance.

“How are you? I love you”

Hmm, I think I'm gonna change my blog update day to Saturdays; or at least over the weekends. Also, you may have noticed, these recent pieces have been quite short. This is intentional as they are pieces that will eventually find themselves published in <www.thebowlerhat.co.uk> the eZine I write for. For that priviledge, they need to be written in under five hundred words, hence the shortness. So with that in mind, please indulge me by reading my latest offering. Enjoy.

-§-

Ulysses looked at the scene in front of him and saw nothing. His mind elsewhere in the way minds segregate what is before them; in this case the television that droned in front of him, playing a rerun of ‘Have I Got News For You’; presented that week by Martin Clunes; and what is at the forefront of his subconscious, if you will pardon the oxymoron. In the forefront of Ulysses' mind were the recent dreams; vivid, evocative and sensual. The hint that something romantic was on the horizon was overwhelming his senses. 

They felt so real; he imagines ancients feeling this way after consulting oracles at Delphi, or the sibyls and the like. Then a thought wormed its way embarrassingly up. Were these merely the mechanisms his mind, in cahoots with his body, that ensure, pardon me for saying, that his dick was erect and therefore preventing him from pissing the bed in his sleep. No. Well. Sure, that was a possibility, but ... these felt so real. As if he already knew the respondent of his affections. 

His mind continues to drift as the programme ended, followed by a brief interlude the BBC specialises in; promoting future programmes when Tangerine flicked the channel over to ITV where another repeat; Celebrity Millionaire, was about to start.

‘Crap, Tangerine’ he thinks guiltily. His feelings towards Tangerine were changing. For the past couple of years they had been friends with benefits. Which suited them both. They enjoyed the intimacy without the residual commitment a relationship would entail. They found pleasure in each other’s bodies, and, most importantly, they were friends.

Although there was nothing preventing them from seeing other people, Ulysses had only slept with one other woman. Angela Simpkins, a forty something divorcee. Very attractive and a serial man-eater. The liaison had taken place at Christmas, while Tangerine was back at her family home in Norwich. Ulysses was drunk, as was Angela, and everyone that evening was copping off with whomever they could lay their hands on. The office party. That one evening of the year when the usual social restraints did not apply.

He’d noticed her many times; she worked in accounts receivable; the department of Grimshaw Bartholomew & Hart that placed more IT calls than any other. The IT department didn’t mind. For the most part the calls were easy fixes, and that made the statistics look better when Eric Ardman, the IT Director, reviewed their performance.

Ulysses, startled by Chris Tarrant, as he yells some inane instruction to the pair of Z listers, comes out of the part daydream and part digression.

‘Do I love her?’ he thinks, though the answer, jangled it’s clarion call in his mind. ‘Does she love me? A thought that disturbs him the most ... ‘Oh this could get messy’

Sorry I missed my thursday blog spot, but have been overwhelmed with essay writing; due in on Monday. This I wrote traveling up to London a few days ago. I quite liked it, hope you do to.

-§-

It is rare thought Ulysses, that he would begin writing without content in mind. That is it would all just flow freely from his mind to his fingertips onto the screen that stares back at him, sat on his lap, as he sits askew on a train bound for Waterloo.

The train slows, pulling into the first of eight stops before his terminus. It felt good, he thinks as the words spill from empty space in his brain to the page. Well, how else are you going to pass the time, a good forty minutes, sat alone in the company of strangers. All with their own destinations and agendas. It maddened him he had not the courage to strike up an easy going non-comital type of chat, but then who did that anymore other than drunk passengers. Hmm, he thinks, the last two trips to Yorick’s, in Battersea, required him to use both train and tube, and each time he traveled home he had struck up conversations. Yup, ‘inebriated’ he thinks.

He looks across at the two women that sit askance from him, in the double seat he so envied, cramped up as he was. One young, one older. The younger was wearing he noticed tasseled patent leather shoes, dark black leggings like tights, her top remained unseen, as it was covered with a green or brown outer jacket - you know the types, the type a ‘sloan’ would wear. Whoa boy, showing your age there. And, a white wooly scarf, that adorned a poised neck and a pretty face. Long dark brown was tucked inside the collar. 

‘Hey’ he thinks, this will pass the time. The older woman, likely her mother, as Ulysses notes the resemblance, sits feigning boredom, her hand covered by an unusual glove. Black and white stripes coverlets he thinks for want of a better expression. Dark brown boots, knee length over black thin cords. 

Suddenly the girl turns her face toward her mother, and him; for that is her line of sight. He immediately notes the wide innocent eyes. The complexion is young, tiny black spots of acne are pitted about a teenage face, spoiling an otherwise attractive look.

Back to her mother then. Again the same long dark brown hair that falls outside a fake fur coat which reaches to the waist. The hair falls across the shoulders.

As the young girls shifts her weight, he notices the black top. All dark then from toe to chin. He smiles at this.

Wow, this if fun and tricky. To write down the two descriptions had taken time, three stops. He looks at his watch. 5.25 p.m. well the train had left at 5.08 and he began typing a couple of minutes later. So it had taken fifteen minutes to write less than a page. 

Not as easy at it looks chirps his subconscious. 

‘Oh what the frik do you want’ replied Ulysses in thought.

‘Hmm, I just wondered what you were going to do with it?’

The ‘it’ being the few lines of prose that he had just typed.

‘I dunno, maybe I’ll read it to them’ Though he knew immediately he wouldn’t. Then again, the idea was catching fire in his imagination. A chance to show off. 

He liked to show off. But he didn’t. You just don’t do that on the train, unless you’re pissed, right?

A short story, around 450 words, for The Bowler Hat eZine I now write for <www.thebowlerhat.co.uk> However, I rather enjoyed knocking this into shape tonight. A pleasant change from the strictures of academic writing I can tell you. This may, should the storyline allow, turn into a much longer project. Can you see the scope for this? 

-§-

She turned the key in the ignition. It sparked life into her Volkswagen GTI. Her new baby. The plates blinked in the midday sun that illuminated the street ahead. Holcolme Street. She was parked about four hundred yards from Holcolme Middle School; it was on her left. She had intended that.

Jodie was an exuberant kid. Just turned nine years old the previous month, in May. She was bright. Too bright for some adults; so they tainted her with the moniker ‘precocious’. She in turn found them childish and immature. Truly.

Looking in her rearview mirror, and seeing the road behind clear, she pulled out. She slipped from first to second and then to third. The car accelerated quickly until she reached around thirty-five miles per hour. She had changed into fourth.

Jodie was skipping. Something she had determined that she had best make the most of while she could still have fun; having rationalised that she would soon be too old to enjoy the thrill of the absurdity. She imagines herself a pony; cantering along the pavement. 

‘JODIEEE’ yelled her friend Emily from across the road. 

Jody, startled, looked up and saw her friend waving at her, standing, as she was, between a Ford Fiesta and a Vauxhall Corsa; or two reds cars, depending upon your point of view. The importance of this; the penny dropping moment; would only become clear to Jodie several years later. It would take her mind, her subconscious, that long to work it all out.

‘Come over here’ called Emily, a little less frantically now that she realised she had caught Jodie’s attention. 

Jody skipped sidewards off of the pavement into the road when she heard the breaks scream. A loud blistering sound as the rubber, having been clamped still by the Volkswagen's disk breaks, skidded, burning a black signature across the tarmac’d surface.

The driver, her heart pounding, had realised at the last minute she was too late and braked, hitting the horn simultaneously. At least make it look good she thought. She swerved around the dazed looking girl before coming to a jolting halt. 

Jodie looked stunned as the clarion call of the horn still rang in her ears. Her eyes watered until she realised that Emily was sobbing across the other side of the street. She determined then not to cry, but she could not stop shaking. 

She flicked the switch and the passenger door window wound down. 

‘You OK sweetheart.’ It was not a question. She knew the girl was fine. Her timing had been off today. Though there would be other days; in other counties; in other cars. She’d get one of the little bastards sooner or later...

"My tears are like the quiet drift

Of petals from some magic rose;

And all my grief flows from the rift

Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble;

It is so sad and beautiful,

So tremulously like a dream."

("Clown in the Moon" by Dylan Thomas.)

“Sleep soundly, my friends, and may such a poet whisper sweet prose into your ears. Let the moon exhale softly and quickly warm any chill of tomorrow. The memories of today are but a pillow for tonight, at once plucked by dawn's quick first peek. The poet takes such cushions with him as he makes your bed for the new day.

     Ah, I crave the coax and adore the verse ... for I clutch my pillow tightly all through the night. I'd like to think I dream in sonnets but the pusses assure me that there is never reason to my rhyme.”

(Mark Dylan Sieber)

I just read the above, posted on my dear friend Mark Dylan Sieber’s blog site, Tartuffe's Folly <www.tartuffesfolly.posterous.com>. They are both outstanding. Enjoy.

On the train it struck me -- I’m an odd shape; an odd body in most things. I decide, for no better reason than boredom; stuck here as I am, perspiring in my hoodie and leather jacket; to pull out my laptop and write my thoughts; and a particularly long run on sentence, that I hope to sneak past my new (and first ever) editor.

Damn it! Now my bladder cries attention ... this is happening all too often. Within an hour of one piss, I need another. Not to worry though, I did have a beer. So no postrate exam needed just yet. Funny? No. You think I want some random doctor, likely a newly qualified med student who’s only just discovered the difference between a liver and kidney; sticking a finger up my arse. Seriously, would you! And yes, I didn’t append a question mark. It was rhetorical. If you think different, I would think you even odder than me.

Yup, as my self-conscious (I am prone to excruciating shyness) becomes, well, less concerned; be that through medication or age; I notice I do not match. My shoes, or trainers (or whatever the fuck you call them these days) are brown. The rest of me is either blue, black or balding. 

Stylish. Nope. You cannot, (and I defy anyone to prove me wrong) look cool when you are in need of a piss. Not going to happen. So my question to myself is, “When did this lack of care, or lack of concern, begin?” 

Then it occurs to me, I’m not really bothered about the answer. Rather, I am concerned with the outcome. That I no longer care (as much) about my own sense of self. Ego, for want of a better expression. 

This recent onset of lack of care, in its way, has given me a new freedom to exist. Anyone who suffers shyness; and not paranoia, as this might read; will know the acute attention to detail one takes over every piece of minutia, and then worries, in equal measure, of what will people think? Sure, we can look scruffy - but that is because we choose to be. And, conversely, when I look smart, I’m the smartest one in the room, still looking all-self conscious.

I think it an illness of sorts, and wish that it would gain a medical moniker that people (the rest of you lucky sods) could more easily equate to. Thinking about it, persons that used to behave badly, or at least were thought to, as such; are now diagnosed with all manner of ‘conditions’ which ‘excuse’ their behaviors; often antisocial in the extreme. Whereas all a shybody wants, is to remain quiet and introverted. Yet they, rather than the badly behaved yobs, are considered weird and maligned for it. We can be smart as Einstein, but unless we start bonking a Marilyn Monroe lookalike we will not be taken seriously. The times I have been overlooked when an opinion was sort that required an element of thinking. And yes, I was right, the loudmouthed fuckwits where wrong, yet still no-one took me seriously. Well, they didn’t used to. I’ve discovered two things. The written word - and alcohol. Both give me voice.

Do I drink too much? Do I write enough? Does it matter either way? Well, those questions will have to remain unanswered. It is time to jump off the train and relieve myself of this pressing burden; and nothing will stand in the way of that.

This is the third and final part of the triumvirate of submissions. Enjoy, if you can...

-§-

It had been two days since ... two bad days. Then the same staff nurse who had denied him the water (she had relented a few hours later; and he was sick. It had hurt more) trotted into his room with the same enthusiasm as a Rottweiler espying its prey.

“Good morning Griffin.

“Huh”

“I said good morning you young stud” She started to loosen the pale blue uniform that had insinuated the idea of itself into the youngster’s thoughts. Dreams. He was still dreaming when she awoke him. She smiled.

“Oh, morning sister” he responded dully. He was embarrassed. He had a hard-on, and his muddled mind was still trying to separate reality from erotic fiction. 

“You’re still unable to pass urine then” she smiled.

“I guess so, yes. I mean no. No, no I haven’t been able to go, no” 

His level of embarrassment ratcheted up two notches. She really was quite beautiful. Curly blonde shoulder length hair that complimented her shocking blue eyes. Eyes to fall asleep to, the youth felt, and his ardour outdid itself.

She smiled again and began unwrapping a tube. A long thick tube.

“I’m going to insert this” she indicated the enormous pipe, “into your penis” which, for some reason, had just turned turtle, “all the way to your bladder. Then I’ll inflate the attached small bag using a syringe, which will hold it in place.” 

“A blow-job of sorts” thought the youth, as he, for the first time, revealed a talent for dead-pan humour. He hadn’t the heart to try the joke on sister Tracy. He really didn’t feel like saying much, other than

“Will it hurt?” 

“Not as much as the chest op” she smiled. 

“Oh great, a fucking comic” thought the lad, who’s dick had now skedaddled up past his kidneys in fright.

“I’m an amateur comic in my spare time. I’m not very good at it, yet” she smiled and began squeezing an anesthetic gel into his cock. 

‘Sorry, she said, this is the only thing we can do now to relive the stress in your bladder”

“You’re taking the piss then” he didn’t say out loud. “The gel is very cold” which he did.

‘Yes, I’ve been told that before.’ She smiled, though, as before, the smile failed to register in the cobalt blue ponds. She seemed distant, almost disappointed. 

“There” she announced as the giant pipe that bore into his dignity thumped silently into the wall of his very stretched bladder like a lead weight clipped on a fishing line might land soundlessly on a riverbed. 

He noted that orange liquid was pouring into a large plastic bag, similar to the clear  innocuous bags that held the pain, and mind altering, substances within. The pressure in his abdomen began to subside. Curious how he not noticed that before.

She inserted the syringe into the little opening of the ‘airline’ and pressed her fingers together. He thought, for one mad moment, that he would go ‘pop!’ He didn’t. She repeated the process and then gave the tube a gentle, yet firm, tug. He felt an odd pulling sensation in his groin area. 

“That is nice and secure then. Oops! We’d better change that bag now.” The bag was already full. A second bag was filled before the flow subsided.

“Someone will check on that in a few hours time” she smiled and left.

“Wow, he thought, she touched me” He smiled

Pain again. Pain like nothing the youth had ever experienced, or would again (he hoped, begged even) ripped through him as the birth of a cough became a toddler; demanding attention. The staff nurse standing next to his bed had looked on concerned (he imagines), and asked, inanely, whether he was OK. If he had not sweat so much, thus drying out his tear ducts, he would have wept as he answered 

“No, it really hurts. My mouth is so dry. Can I have water, please?”

“No, you’ll be sick”

“Please”

“I can’t give you water. You’ll really be sick, which will really hurt”

It could hurt more then. How could that be possible? He prayed to no one in particular that he would gladly invite death and make a deal for a remission of this pain. It was unbelievable bad. Every breath tore the soul out of this man-boy before, finally, he passed out. The pethidine that was being pumped into his vein finally got the better of the lad’s resolve. Though maybe the effort to utter those few words of lament had taken too much. 

The blood that was being siphoned from his chest still oozed significantly, and would have pooled around his lungs; crushing them and his heart, if not dealt with. More blood would issue out at each shallow breath. Gurgling as it left his body, staining the plastic vacuum tune that was stitched in place for that very purpose. As for deep breaths; well, they had become an unimaginable dream. Like the time he played rugby and had crashed into tackle after tackle, stretching sinew and ligament to breaking point. His body had always held together and he had played with courage, determination and a great deal of skill. Now he simply sobbed tearlessly in his dreams of a time when water would be allowed and the blood would stop. 

That the operation had taken place was unfortunate. The old man’s dreams; freed to roam, if not to wake; remembers. He remembers as the youngster repeatedly asking for this operation, again. It had been performed, badly, four years earlier; leaving him physically sound but, importantly for an impressionable teenager, aesthetically devoid of any chest shape. Just a rocky mass of juxtaposed bone protrusions. He had gotten tired of the cruel jibes teenage ‘friends’ would opine. So he chose the physically pain over the mental.

To this day, the old man is not sure whether it was worth it. The jibes continued, albeit in whispers, and more refined. That scar, then, drew attention.