The Tumours Made Me Interesting (19 page)

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’d better go,” it replied. “Just set me down if you could and I’ll be on my way.”

I obeyed and made my way for the door.
I love my tumours,
I thought.

4.

I
n the state I was in, making the trip to my mother’s on foot wasn’t possible. My legs were waterlogged and my feet had the flexibility of brick. My car had been removed by Fiona, purportedly out of concern for my safety. It was now apparent that this had more to do with limiting my ability to leave the apartment than anything else. I needed to join my sick and destitute brethren on the bus if I was going to make it. It wouldn’t be long until Fiona learned of my escape. I had no idea what she’d do, but I couldn’t imagine her leaving me be. Catching public transport at night had always filled me with terror. Humanity contorts in the darkness. Civility melts away. Nobody can be trusted… especially now.

The streetlights that lined the road bent at invisible joints and spilled a dull pink hue into the environment. Moths that approached the light flew away as something else. The occasional cars that drove by coughed from their exhaust pipes and spilled carnival music through blown speakers. Nothing was safe and the bus stop felt so far away. The only thing it seemed I could trust was the illness inside me. If I made a wrong move, the tumours would let me know. They were on my side.

Two teenagers walked by holding hands that weren’t their own or each others. They were rapping about mustard and filling the gutters with spit. I wanted to cross the road, but I knew any overt effort to avoid them would probably only attract their attention. I trained my eyes directly ahead, looking through the menacing teens. My tumours moaned just enough to convince me that caution was warranted.

“Hey, buddy,” said one of the teens.

He blocked my path, forcing me to acknowledge him. His face was an accumulation of weeping scars. I gulped at my nerves, but couldn’t force them down.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Check out this hand that I found.”

He gently slapped my face with the severed hand. It felt and smelled like cold ham. Most of the fingernails were missing.

“I’ll sell it to you,” he said in a way that didn’t make it seem like I had a choice.

I shook my head slowly. Both the teens started laughing in a forced way designed only to intimidate.

“I’m sorry. I have a bus to catch,” I said.

“You don’t seem to understand,” said the other teen. “He’ll sell it to you.”

“I have no money.”

They glanced at each other, the laughter gone and intent filling them to the brim. A man in a wheelbarrow drove by screaming, distracting them for a moment, but not long enough for me to run away.

“We don’t want your money,” said the scar faced one. “We want to sell it to you.”

These people are nothing,
said the tumours.
Let us destroy them.

I started to pat my stomach in small rotations. The tumours kicked against my palm, hungry and ready. Their assistance introduced confidence into my system.

“Get out of my way,” I said.

Their mouths dropped open. I could see fluorescent brain liquid leaking down their throats. They spat in my face. I could feel their cooling saliva oozing through my beard.

We’re ready, daddy… We’ll destroy them for you.

“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY!”

They took a step backward, letting their guard slip before regrouping and pulling knives from their hair. They waved them about, slashing the air around them until it bled.

“You are a fucking moron,” said scar face.

They dropped their severed hands and we watched for a moment as they scurried away. The tumours beat at my body with tribal momentum. I was going to be alright… somehow.

“Get out of my way or I’ll fucking destroy you,” I said.

They raised the knives above their heads, catching the pink of the streetlights on the blade. They offered each other one final glance before bringing the knives down and sliding the blade across their throats. Their eyes remained locked as the blood began to trickle. The trickle evolved into thick spurts until they were both coated in the blood of the other. When adequately doused, they collapsed to the ground and held hands as the last of their life ebbed away. It looked to me like they were smiling.

The tumours started to calm and purr, filling me with warmth. I stepped around their bodies and hobbled toward the bus stop. The bus in question screeched around the corner and began lurching up the road toward my goal. I increased my speed, suppressing the urge to vomit as best I could. I thought about my mother lying in that bed. I imagined Fiona hot on my heels. I felt my pockets for cigarettes, but there were none.
Fuck!
Catching this bus had become extremely important and nothing, not even desire for cigarettes, was going to stop me.

It callously passed me and pulled over at the bus stop. Its doors hissed open and decrepit, blackened souls clambered on and off. I fell against the rear door as it started to close and I pushed my way through. The door took gummy bites at my body, trying to keep me out, but I kept pushing until I was inside. I was on my way.

The bus was illuminated like a hospital corridor. The dead and dying sat slumped in their seats staring vacantly out of the window, seeing only their miserable reflections. I sat down beside a man whose face had been turned 90 degrees anti-clockwise like a curious bird. He was muttering something to himself about the end times. I wondered if they were coming or if they’d already been. A child in the adjacent aisle played an oboe mournfully through a nostril while the woman sitting beside him pulled his hair out in fistfuls. She stuffed the hair into her mouth and struggled it down. Behind me there were people having sex. I couldn’t bring myself to look, but the sound, according to internet pornography, was unmistakable. The bus driver barked into her microphone, flooding us with rusty static. The sex sounds stopped for a moment before starting up again, louder and wetter than ever.

The tumours clearly appreciated the swirling negativity of the wretched souls surrounding them. They purred so loud that people around me had to plug their ears. It felt like an internal massage and had my situation not been so desperate, I could have easily drifted off to sleep. The unwavering darkness pressing against the windows from outside longed to smother the light inside.

I had no idea how close I was to my mother’s house. I had nothing in which to gauge my bearings. The sallow faces of my fellow travellers radiated hatred, which fed my tumours and hastened my decline. This bus was begging my life to fade away. My corpse would complement the others so well. Had I not loved my mother as much as I did, it would have been so easy to slip away. I could feel her inside me, manually pumping my heart and keeping me on track. I didn’t even know conviction of this strength was possible. Without Fiona’s narcotic-ridden cigarettes, I was approaching the situation with the sort of clarity I’d never had the courage to experience before. The month I’d just endured began to reveal itself in a new, macabre light.

Flashes of green lightning began painting the darkness outside, gifting me flashes of environment in which to find my way. I crawled over the mumbling man and pressed my face to the glass. He wrapped his arms around me and started to sob. I let his sadness soak into me. I let him find comfort in the embrace. I was getting close now.

Fists of rain started punching at the bus, knocking out windows and flooding the aisle. Commuters fell from their seats and writhed together, unable or unwilling to find their footing. I let the mumbling man hold me until the water washed him into the aisle where he became lost in the tangle of limbs. The bus came to a slippery halt and fell on its side. Everyone not already in the aisle fell.

I climbed the bodies of others, making my way toward the shattered window above me. What little remained of my muscles burned with pain as I moved. Nothing had ever been this hard. I’d orchestrated my life to avoid exertion and pain. I was the consummate nobody. Being nobody was so easy. I used to dream of a better life. I refused to move beyond the dream. I turned down opportunities because it was more rewarding to dwell on misfortune. I embraced failure and surrendered.

I emerged from the overturned bus and breathed in the fresh air with relief. As soon as it had begun, the rain ceased, but the green lightning remained. I tried easing my way to the ground, but lost my footing and landed hard on my back. I spat a ball of black flotsam and forced myself to stand. I wasn’t far from my mother’s house. I was going to make it.

My mother’s house didn’t look right. Its once-quaint exterior was now mapped in poorly spelled graffiti as if it had been set upon by 80s teens. It was an ominous sign. The garden gate had been torn from its hinges and now lived in the oak tree above.
It’s only been a month… I don’t understand…
I stumbled forward. The garden had been systematically destroyed. The lime green lawn of old now looked like a bog and hissed foul smelling vapour into the air. Kitten-sized bison gorged themselves on the filth that bubbled to the surface. The garden beds were strewn with medical waste and severed hooves. The front windows had been shattered and the roof was concaving in imminent collapse. It was difficult to imagine my mother would somehow be alive and well inside.

The front door, as expected, had been torn away. The smell that wafted from within the house was chilling. It contained the unmistakable whimsy of childhood, but was joined by the pungent stench of fresh death. I fumbled for the light switch, half hoping it wouldn’t work. I was too scared for the clarity light provides. With the switch flicked, dirty yellow light filled the room. Everything was broken. The nostalgic stasis that had once hugged my childhood home was gone.

“Mum?” I wheezed. “Are you there?”

I received no reply. My blood became panicked and flowed through my veins at double speed. I wanted to turn around and run away.

As you’re already here, you might as well keep going,
said the tumours.
We’re not going to let anything happen to you. While we’re living in here, we need you to stay alive. Remember that.

I moved toward the darkness of her bedroom. I felt my pocket for cigarettes again, hoping somehow they’d magically appear. When this failed to occur, I sucked hard at nothing, hoping there were enough toxins in the air to tide me over.

“It’s Bruce, mum… are you there?”

“Is that you, hon?” came my mother’s voice, weak and childlike, from the darkness.

“Mum!”

I spilled into the bedroom and flicked on the light. My mother was still alive. My abandonment hadn’t killed her, but she didn’t look good. Her arm/body was entombed in a plaster cast and she dangled from the ceiling in a sling.

“What happened?” I gasped.

“They hurt me, dear. I was dropped on the way to the bathroom.”

I lunged at her helpless body, wrapping my arms around her.

“Who’s
they
,” I asked.

My mother looked at me with puzzled eyes.

“The people you sent to look after me of course.”

I slumped onto her bed and curled into a fetal ball. Fiona had tricked my mother into believing this was coming from me. She had tricked me into somehow thinking she gave a shit about my mother’s wellbeing. She had used my mother’s trust in me against her. She had used the love I have for mum against me. I wanted to tear her apart. The tumours growled in agreement.

“I didn’t send anyone, mum. These people were sent by Fiona.”

She hung directly above me and craned her neck to look down. It was like we were kids in a bunk bed.

“Bruce… darling… you look terrible.”

“I’ve been better,” I said.

We both remained silent, lost in individual variations of the same thought. I flushed hot with Fiona-induced hate. My tumours fed off the hate and bucked in delight. As much as Fiona wanted to believe my tumours were hers, they were on my side. They responded only to me. They would protect me. They would only stop protecting me when they were no longer inside me, and when that point arrived, they sure as hell weren’t going to want to be slaves to Fiona.