Organ - Chapter 7

ORGAN

Chapter Seven

That morning Oscar was given his breakfast by a nurse he did not recognise, which at this point was unusual for him, not that he knew every member of staff by name but now he could spot faces successfully from a distance. Naturally, Oscar did not have much to do while sitting prisoner in his new demoralising cell. Oscar could smell the nurse before he saw her, a perfume that smelt like his grandmother, it was floral but still somehow domestically musky, like the clothing section of a charity shop. Swinging his door open with force the nurse juggled with tray holding his breakfast and a polystyrene cup of tea that Oscar had begun requesting, it was something he could control at least while nothing else seemed within his power. 

“Morning young man” the nurse said with pep as she made her way gingerly over to his bedside table and plonked down the tray with perhaps excessive carelessness. 

“Morning” Oscar replied politely, “I haven’t seen you before, are you new?” he continued trying to fill the emptiness of his day with brief human moments. 

The sad reality the boy had not come to understand was the loneliness that had begun to eat away at him. 

“God no dear, I have been working her for too long, far too long” laughing as she generously answered. “Beverly” she said, 

“Oscar Rubens” he replied exchanging his name for hers like a good little gentleman should. 

“Oh, I know who you are” Bev answered. 

Oscar felt sudden vulnerability at this apparent reputation being validated. 

“How comes?” Oscar asked with childish innocence, glancing hungrily down at his food, 

“Well, you didn’t hear it from me, you are turning into a bit of a celebrity around here, the patient Boothe can’t fix” she said jokingly wiggling her fingers as if casting a spell. 

Oscar looked at her confused and then out the door behind her, it was empty, but he felt uncomfortably exposed. 

“Does Doctor Boothe not know what he is doing with me then?” Oscar asked finding his voice again.

Bev looked at him and read the situation, she had seemingly put her foot in her mouth and attempted to backpedal. 

“It’s just silly talk sweetheart, I wouldn’t worry, he is one of the more determined men I have met. And I have been around this hospital since they first installed these windows” she said while bursting into a rough chuckle. 

Oscar smiled up at her, her laugh was infectious and despite the horrible conversation that greeted him first thing in the morning, he was glad to have met this straight-shooting nurse, someone who thankfully was not scared of him. 

“You enjoy your breakfast, Oscar Rubens” Bev said as she squeezed Oscars covered leg in support.

Oscar thanked her and moved the tray onto his lap to ready his routine of eating morsels he could stomach, getting aches across his body and feeling hungry moments later. 

“Oh, what happened to the nurse who usually brings my breakfast?” Oscar asked as Nurse Bev made her way out the room. 

“She was reassigned as they try and fit Katie back into the schedule” Bev replied shutting the door behind her, locking it as instructed and making her way slowly, shuffling, down the corridor. 

Oscar paused swirling the tea in the cup in front of him, playing with the steam and the dangling bag, “Katie is back” he whispered out loud, his mind chugging into movement as he slowly put away a couple of bites of food. All the small bites that he had learned would stay down without sending him hurling down the toilet bowl or doubling over in gut ache.

It was another bout of uncomfortable waking that morning, he had managed to sleep but as per the now usual, he managed only a couple of solid hours between horrible nightmares and startling himself awake with stomach cramping pain, his alarm had been silenced but the routine from his old life still stuck with him that brought him to stirring around seven thirty every morning. Not being the biggest lover of sleep to begin with he did not really mind; he was accustomed to the sluggish cloak of tiredness and was just grateful to have woken up without straps around his wrists or a machine putting the moves on him. Even more pleasant was getting to meet someone who treated him like a normal person, Nurse Beverly was a welcome addition to the cast he had come to memorise. 

Oscar pulled himself into a seated droop, the blinds still drawn up for those outside to observe him from apparent safety, a solemn crazy fish in the worlds saddest aquarium, but they whizzed past and occasionally glanced in to gather there sweeping generalised assumption that the patient was still alive, still without need of their immediate intervention. Sweeping up his phone from the bedside table, he noticed once again the fingerprints from Boothe along the edges of the glass, it irritated him but otherwise felt like a wasted frustration knowing the doctor would never admit to invading his patients privacy, nor would be apologise. Swiping endlessly through the phones home screen of apps and functional features, Oscar found himself staring at his mother’s number and hesitated for a moment before pressing her photo to initiate a call, it would be the first time they had spoken in days but with the news of Katies return, he felt some undeserved sense of confidence bulging in his bravery, it would be the first time he could defend his position from the escape attempt and hopefully dispel some of the coercive language the hospital staff had no doubt used to sway his mother’s emotions on his overwhelmingly disappointing Shawshank tribute.

Piercing his ears the dial tone rang for an agonisingly long time before the subtle click and her voice answered, she was clearly not herself. 

Oscar could tell from her lifeless “Hello,” it was muted, loveless, it did not feel like it was a greeting for a child, but Oscar persisted and physically adjusting himself awaiting a verbal battery, determined not to lose his composure this time around. 

“Hello Mum” he said gently into the receiver, “You okay?” he asked tentatively. There was a brief pause as she found her voice. 

“I am fine, how are you?” Mary asked back with a softness taking over her vocal chords, ice on coals he thought to himself, 

her sons voice had begun melting her days’ worth of frosted armour. Oscar mulled over the question for a second sensing a trap before replying. 

“I am okay, doing my best” he simply stated hoping it would not be picked apart. 

“What happened Oscar?” she asked with authority asking for the reigns, the temperature of their call had changed in an instant.

“Did Doctor Boothe talk to you?” Oscar asked ignoring her question, he barely finished the sentence before his mother snapped across his path. 

“I don’t need to talk about the doctor right now, I need you to tell me what happened? You need to tell me why you did what you did so I can try and understand” she ordered, sending shivers of a troubled youth through Oscars chest.

Vulnerability was not exactly uncommon lately, but nobody brought that on to the young man quiet like his Mum. 

“I….” he swallowed the sentence before it left his throat trying to summon the words again, “I tried to run away…I was scared… I am scared and I didn’t know what else to do” Oscar tried explaining across the phone line hoping his emotion would seem genuine, he was scared and the longer he spent in the hospital the less control over himself he felt. 

“You could have got hurt Oscar? You have collapsed twice? Three times? What would have happened if you had gone down again outside, smacked your head on the concrete with nobody around to help you? Did you think that through? Did you think about anyone else except yourself?” the questions from his mother came as a cluster grenade to the senses with no system to repel. Oscar sat and took the words in as he felt was warranted, truth be told, Oscar was not thinking of himself as vulnerable when he tried to make an escape from the hospital, selfish or not he never thought of his mother that day either as he made for the hills, he was just trying to get away from whatever this life had transformed into. 

“I know” Oscar replied, it did not stifle her mood, and he gently moved the phone from his ear slightly when her volume increased as it did when she was distraught. 

Oscar could count on one hand the number of times she had lost her temper with him like this. 

“It was a stupid thing to do Oscar, they are trying to help you, they aren’t going to hurt you!” she continued with an uncontrolled wild fire of anger pushing the words to the surface air faster than they could be softened. 

“I know…Mum I know, I said I am sorry” Oscar tried to interject but nothing was working to calm her down, Oscar accepted his fate for the time being and resigned himself to accepting her barrage, the venting, and the accusations of his common sense as Mary unleashed her torrent of pent-up concern onto her son at the other end of the telephone. 

It had been over twenty minutes since Oscar had called his mother, he knew this as he would cheekily flick the screen from his face to see the time, she was still on the line questioning her want-away son as he lay wilting in his hospital bed, as time wasted he even got a glimpse of the janitor finally coming by to the seemingly unused supply closet, Oscar watched him pull out a mop and bucket before giving the young man a nod through the window and going off about his job, Oscar wished for a moment they could switch lives but the incessant rain of comments coming through the mobile was stopping him from mentally drifting away into daydream too far. Previously when Oscar had upset his mother, he felt a deep shame, the protection he felt for her was crushing his own sense of egotism, but this time Oscar felt something different bubbling in his pit, he felt anger, wounded pride and defensiveness that was uncommon in their relationship. 

Suddenly without warning, Oscar bleated out “Are you fucking done?.” 

The call went silent. 

The receiver went dead, and Oscar chucked the phone to his feet on the bed, staring in scepticism at the eruption that had just occurred. 

“That wasn’t real” he told himself. “That wasn’t real” he repeated, kicking the phone gently to the corner of his mattress. 

That phone call swirled his day into a riptide, a vacuum of distress was pooling around him, Oscar stepped around the room and considered the words that he remembered, either from himself or Mary, operating under the illusion that this was a daydream, that he could not have said that aloud to his mother, especially now that they believe he was losing his mind. Pinching aches from a brewing headache birthed from the stress, the noise of the beeping machines periodically pierced through every thought, the windy droning from the vent only pushed him further into migraine territory, he found his water from the table and slapped his feet against the cold vinyl flooring to find the bathroom sink. Reaching the mirror above the sink he gazed into his own eyes, they appeared bloodshot and puffy but blackened bags sat beneath them, the headache, or sleepless nights he assumed, his face was unfamiliar to him, it was visibly aged and now outlined with worry lines that belonged on someone twice his age. Swallowing down two glasses of luke-warm water from a sink he did not entirely trust was safe; Oscar placed his glass on the basin and splashed water across his face. Clarity was apparently unwelcome at his side and the haze surrounding him only grew bolder, it was a fog making every decision an impassable journey to reach, but the water felt good against his dry skin and although his eyes still stung, he noticed the dark redness fading to a more human pink hue. 

Noticing the gown, he wore sticking out ever so slightly at his side, Oscar straightened his posture and searched the mirror for clarity, swaying his body to contort and dispel any manipulating angles from the cheaply installed hospital mirror. Lifting his robe exposing his naked lower half, he held it to his face, tucking the bulk of the material between his chin and collar bone, peering up to assess the state of his unwelcome growth. Oscar dropped his robe from his chin in skin recoiling shock, taking in a sharp breath as he did, it did no good for his headache. Deciding this was something worth accurately assessing he pulled the robe completely over his head and dropped it to the bathroom floor beside his feet, stood naked and cold, he gently turned his body at an angle to best see the true size of the swelling protruding from his lower abdomen, it was darker in skin than the rest of his body, like a ripe puss filled pimple ready to pop, it was now obvious to find with naked searching eyes. 

Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the reality was that Oscar knew the mass was larger than the previous day. It was no longer just a pea, it was a grape, a fat swollen grape barely containing its pulp beneath thin skin, it was feeding off his body. He could feel the growing tumour drinking his fluids, consuming his calories, and inching ever closer to the controls of his humanity, blood flowed through the visitor and Oscar within the same heartbeat, the pulses belonged to both. Growing with him, aging with him, the lump was no longer an ailment, it was a merging partnership. This mystery invader stung slightly as he stretched and twisted his body to better see in the light, but this pain was nothing compared to the usual bouts keeping him awake at night or sending him to the cold ground unconscious, it was tolerable and almost reassuring to know he can still feel minor things, that this was not some purgatory of unending punishment made up of dreams and anxious waking nightmares. Oscar estimated it was larger than his eye ball on the inside, but the breached element no larger than an inch, from a rough finger measurement in the reflection of the mirror. 

“What the hell are you?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the mound, then a voice hit him again, it sounded like it was coming from his head, but it was everywhere and cruel in interruption. 

“Feed….Feed” it called out, “Feed” it followed. 

Oscar touched at the protuberance hoping this would trigger more words and remove the suspicion that this was all in his crumbling mind, the sensation was excruciating, Oscar gently applied pressure with his index and thumb to the outside, squeezing as you would an ingrown hair, he grabbed the counter with his free hand to steady himself in the event this manoeuvre embarrassingly renders him asleep on the deck. This time felt different, he stood firm and although the spots of creeping blackout swarmed into the corners of his vision, he squinted into the mirror and down at his stomach, still pinching and still biting down hard onto his lip to muffle the screams. As the moment seemed to reach that his grip on the lump would break, he felt something that terrified him and froze him to his core, his bulging brother of the belly squirmed beneath his skin and seemed to dive an inch deeper, taking the pressure off itself and away from the grip of its host. Oscar stared wide eyed in terror at his naked body, the bulge had sunk slightly taking the protrusion of the mound down with it, the squirming felt as though a ball of convulsing worms wriggled in his closed fist. It itched and ached in hot irritated skin, blood trickled into his mouth and down his chin, he had bitten through his lip slightly in the process of hiding his suffering. 

“Pain” he heard a voice calling from all directions. 

“Pain” it called out again.

Begging almost for the torture to stop, Oscar gasped lifting the situation somewhat off his diaphragm and into the air. 

“What are you?” he asked through hurdling raspy breaths, no answer. “What are you!?” he repeated his question but slightly raised his volume. 

It was still in his mind that at any moment a member of the hospital staff could come crashing through the room and find the expected lunatic stood naked with blood in his mouth staring into the mirror screaming at himself, it was obviously a bad look for someone trying to convince those around his that he was in fact not crazy as they suspected. 

“Please” Oscar pleaded quietly “Talk to me” he continued digging for some evidence of what he had just experienced to validate itself, but the silence frustratingly lingered. 

Oscar felt himself tensing up once again with anxiety, seeing his options limited he resorted to once again digging his fingers into his abdomen and fishing for the lump that now fell further out of reach into his fleshy mid. 

Again, his hand found the counter to stabilise himself, again his body ached in sore jolts, his knees wobbled and threatened to buckle under the self-inflicted torture but there it was again, crying out in defence of its existence. 

“PAIN!” the voice sung through his head with pleading requests. 

“Talk to me!” Oscar grunted out between clamped together teeth and a mouthful of still pooling metallic red. 

“Not….safe!” the voice cried out getting louder as it did. 

“What are you?” Oscar shouted, the lack of control from his volume meant this was probably a situation he needed to reach its conclusion now before the nurses attending would come searching for the disturbance. 

“Pain” it whimpered out.

Oscars knees finally went beneath him, he fell to one at the sink, releasing his attached problem for a moment before catching his breath and slamming his fingers deep into the invader yet again, letting out a wobbling scream. 

“Oscar…” The voice shouted out, this was the loudest it had become, and Oscar immediately ceased his inquisition. 

Breathing deep, gasping for air, he pulled himself once more to his feet and watched in the mirror as the bulge completely disappeared from the surface of his skin and retreated inwards, it caused his stomach to gurgle and burn in uncomfortable turmoil but considering his current levels of maxed out discomfort, he barely flinched at the squirming mass slithering further into his body. As expected the knock at the door came. In a clumsy rush Oscar swept up his robe and flung it over his body, swirled a mouthful of water around his mouth and spat the bloody backwash into the sink, splattering red freckles of DNA everywhere and leaving the bathroom shutting the door behind him. Attempting to look at his best, hiding the pain he was ignoring as it stormed goosestepping through his body, Oscar had not realised a visible limp to his walk, but the face at the door noticed. Much to Oscars surprise, it was Katie staring back at him. Oscar stared up in shock and slight disbelief at Katie who stood looking back at him through the door, she unlatched some locks and gently pushed the door open stepping in confirming he was not simply imaging her and was actually laying on the ground in the bathroom beaten by his battle with the bulge. 

“Hello Oscar” Katie said breaking the silence. 

She gestured for Oscar to step back into the room and they both took a seat. Oscar on the bed and Katie on the armchair beside it. 

“I wasn’t sure when I would be seeing you again” Oscar said staring up inquisitively, subtly clutching at this stomach that still ached, his paranoia meant he checked her gaze every few seconds to make sure she was not staring at his hand firmly placed where his waistband would be sitting to relieve the pressure on his stomach. 

“Well, I wasn’t sure when I would be back” Katie replied “or even if I would be allowed back” she added adjusting the uncomfortable cushions beneath her, tossing them to the floor and avoiding his stare for a brief moment. “I need to apologise so let me just get this out of the way; it was my fault that you almost…”

The words got stuck for a second, but Katie powered through with her host still staring craters through her with intense shaking eyes. 

“It was my fault you almost got hurt and I wanted to come by and say that I am sorry personally, clear all this off the table so we can be friends” she got the words out and met his gaze with eyes that threatened to fill up with guilt. 

“Oh, I don’t want to hear that” Oscar snapped back with mild disenchantment in his voice “You did absolutely nothing wrong, I was having some nightmare or whatever they are calling it upstairs and I could have hurt myself regardless of you being there, if anything I was lucky it was you. Some else might have been slower to come back, or not come back at all” he continued attempting to soothe Katies guilt. 

She looked down at her hands letting his acceptance, this naïve kindness shower over her. 

“This was not your fault, and it is bullshit that you got in trouble for something that they STILL don’t understand anyway, Boothe is as much to blame as anyone” Oscar said, regretting saying the doctors name out loud in some fear he might summon him. “Look, I am still here for the most part, still breathing” he added with a little smirk, it faded as another jolt of stinging ran through his body. 

Katie looked up at the young man and caught the wince, but also saw kindness in his eyes that was unusual around the hospital, in her experience at least when it came to mistakes. 

“Thank you, you really are a strange boy” she replied, getting to her feet to give Oscar a hug of appreciation for not holding her responsible for what could have ended his life. 

Oscar accepted the hug and breathed in the smell of her hair, it was familiar and floral, for a second he could have sworn the pain stopped. 

“I have to sort some stuff out for my return-to-work, but I will come by soon and we can talk again, I can find out more about you” Katie said pulling away from the hug and giving him a huge smile that drew his cheeks flushing pink. 

Oscar nodded and watched as Katie slowly made her way out of the room and down the corridor, locking the door behind her in an act that no longer bothered the caged patient, for a second he found himself lost in moment, but the moment was broken by the now recognisable wriggling beneath his skin and with his hand so close it was unmistakable, the growth was moving itself back towards the surface. 

“Coming back are we?” Oscar playfully asked between squints of interrupting aching as his body moved against his will.

Later that evening Oscars phone buzzed awake, he had completely forgotten about the argument with his mother over the phone, it was more of a shouting contest but as the two rarely fought it all felt new, without labels. Hesitation had him scared to reach for the phone, but the courage came, and he picked it up from the table. 

It was a text message, he knew who this was from before unlocking the screen, his mother had sent a message asking for them to speak again tomorrow if he is not occupied with tests or something similar, he noticed the lack of kisses or pet names that normally accompanied her messages and it hit him again at how distant they are growing, how this situation had turned them against one another when in fact they should be closer than ever, Oscar blamed Boothe, but secretly he knew that this was only part of the reason. But not for a moment did Oscar feel apologetic for the words, he truly felt in his occupied stomach that he was in the right for putting an end to her never-ending parade of accusations and belittling comments, he clicked off the messaging screen and scrolled through the phone looking for a distraction from replying, even though he knew she could see the message had been read and would no doubt be waiting at home for a response from her son. Oscar tried to remember how he used the phone before coming to the hospital, it brought a wrinkle to his nose of annoyance, he opened his social media app of choice and glanced at the tedium from his timeline of old friends and relatives photos or weird personal posts, occasionally seeing his mother liking the odd post here and there, Oscar used the opportunity to do some snooping and typed in Katies name into the search bar. Irritatingly it returned nothing as he could not recall ever hearing her surname. 

“Oh well” he sighed aloud.

About to close the app, at the bottom of the page that he vacantly scrolled through a tiny advert for a cross-country coach service caught his eye, Oscar had seen a couple of them driving through town in the recent past and it sparked another idea. If he could get onto one of the coaches, it would be an uncomplicated way to get some distance between himself and the hospital, another plan was hatching in his minds warm nest, this time round one that would not consist of simply ambling out the front door in full sight of the sunshine, the staff and hoping for the best. 

But as he considered the various quirks of his new mission, he knew he needed help and while it was not immediately obvious where that would come from, the smell of Katies hair grabbed hold of him once again and in that moment of perfume laced clarity, he saw his ally. Oscar needed Katie if he would have any chance of getting away undetected, but he knew what he was asking was for her to sacrifice the career she had just clawed back, and he knew that it was risky enough simply putting this idea forward. It would be a long night planning this out, his words, his route, his supplies. Oscar clicked off his phone and plugged in the charger, noticing his backpack under the bed, a stab hit him in the base of his stomach again and he placed a hand at the source “Not now” he whispered as the bulge wriggled and writhed under his skin, 

“Feed” it whispered to its host.