Malady

“You never ask for favors.”

“Yeah, well, just know I'm really sorry I have to ask for help on this.”

“You’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry. And don’t get alarmed. I don’t know where the bugs are coming from, but I don’t think they’re in the house.”

“Okay, spit it out right now. Because so far I hate everything you’ve said.”

“I’ve got these bugs, like, in my skin. Sort of like a botfly, in the sense that they’re embedded. But they aren’t that deep. More like a tick, except their heads face outward, not inward.”

The woman said nothing in response, just kept her eyes narrowed. 

“I’m usually able to extract them myself. I’ve got a sharp pair of tweezers to make sure I get them all the way out. Sometimes a little piece of the body gets left behind. This one is right in the center of my back and I just can’t reach it any which way.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re asking me to do what I think you’re asking me to do.”

“It’s killing me and I can’t afford the urgent care bill right now. Trust me, it’ll be over quick.”

He continued his narration as he gathered the necessary supplies. 

“I don’t always wake up with them. Sometimes I find one in the middle of the day. I’ve checked my bedding, my clothes, the carpet, the office, my car. I have no idea where they’re coming from.”

“You go anywhere tropical recently?”

“Haven’t left the state in something like two or three years.”

“And you haven’t shown this to a doctor?”

“I did. Some help they were. Told me to see a specialist. Some woman out of network, X hundreds of dollars—blah, blah. You know the insurance run-around. Anyway, doctor’s no help.”

He sat backwards on a chair, lifting his shirt before leaning forward.

“Oh god.” She averted her eyes. She wasn’t expecting to be making eye contact with a fully living insect. Its head was similar to that of a small roach, sans antennae, with large, close knit-eyes. Like that of a fly, bulbous, matte black. 

“How’s it possible that the head is facing outwards?"

“Small warning,” he urged her on. “Nothing crazy, but there'll be some blood. Just so you’re prepared.”

She brought the tweezers to the protruding head and felt a sickening mixture of regret for crushing the head of a living thing, and general disgust for the living thing in question. She watched his back muscles twitch as she began pulling. “Are you alright?”

“It always hurts a little, but it’s not that bad. Keep going,” he spoke with a tinge of impatience in his voice.

The bug was the size of a large pill, and it came out relatively easy, already lubricated by thick clear fluid. He made a soft sighing noise of relief that bordered on pleasure as she rushed to tuck the bug under a napkin, out of sight. A small, open crater sat in its wake. It pooled quickly with blood, before overflowing and rolling down the mounds of his spine. She turned away and wiped the mess. The flow continued, this time as a yellowish liquid stripped with small lines of red. She wiped that too, keeping pressure on the hole with a fresh napkin.

“I’m sorry Jack but this is disgusting.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have asked if I could reach.”

She lifted the napkin and saw the crater had begun to close itself. It was still inflamed but the hole was already half the size. A good two inches-diameter of irritation marked the center of his back, just off the spine. 

“I can’t believe you haven’t gone to that specialist.”

She waited for a response.

“Jack, you should go to that doctor.”

She looked over his shoulder to see what he was fiddling with. He had taken the bug out of the napkin and held it between two fingers of one hand. He held something that resembled a pen in the other.

“Jack?” Now with hesitation, “what are you doing?” she wasn’t sure she asked out loud.

Leaning, the pen was a scalpel, the blade making her doubly uncomfortable. She watched with unease as Jack split the bug down the center with practiced ease. Whatever complicated internals the creature had went unseen, drowned out by the opaque milk that was flowing out. Her viewpoint did not allow her to see, nor did she want to think about what he was doing, as he raised the bug in the direction of his face. She tried to forget the soft and violent slurp she heard before his hands fell.

“Sorry, Zoey,” he said in a cool tone. “I spaced there for a second. What were you asking?”

“Just—if you needed anything else before I left.”

When Zoey saw Jack the following week, she almost passed him without recognition, his newly gaunt features making him look like somebody else. 

He spoke normal enough, but she could hardly pay attention to the words he spoke, relying on her vehement head nodding to keep the conversation afloat. She fixated on his unusual accessories. One corner of his mouth was splotched with an unfortunately familiar milky-white. And her eyes kept falling to his shirt collar, where there was either a group of nested bugs, or a shadow cast just right. 

She pulled herself back to the conversation so she could end it. 

A few paces away, she spun around to look at him again. She saw a long archipelago, undeniable, of freshly squeezed mounds crawling from his back to his ear, disappearing somewhere in his hairline. She gagged at the thought of where those freshly sprung bugs had ended up and spun back around as quickly as she could. 

Walking out of the grocery store, leaving her half-filled cart abandoned in the middle of an aisle, she did her best to keep herself from wondering how long a person could sustain themself off their own malady.