I am itchy.
I scratch like a monkey.
I locate one itch. I scratch it. It feels good. But then another pops up somewhere else. I get it. Then another elsewhere. Endlessly.
The doctors call it eczema.
At fourteen I was hospitalized. It had gotten bad over a period of weeks, then one particular night of crazy vivid dreams, in which I battled my father through thickets of thorns and brambles, I scratched so much that when I woke up the next morning, my face was stuck to the pillow and my fingers were covered in blood.
The itch wouldn’t stop. My mum held my hands till I could bear it no longer and tore them free.
She drove me to the doctor, who immediately referred me to hospital. They gave me a steroid shot, put an antihistamine drip in my arm, covered my blistered skin in thick cream and left me there in my bed amongst coughing pensioners, on grey wards that smelled of bleach.
I lay there for a few hours trying to read a copy of “Elle” mum had left me. As if that was my thing! She might have aspired to that, but I didn’t. The pictures and articles in there had nothing to do with the world I knew, with their plastic models and over-priced clothing.
They weren’t cool like my heroes—Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed. I had come to know their music from my older brother. Through the bedroom wall.
I looked up from the magazine to see a short, scruffy-haired man wearing glasses in a white jacket with pens sticking out of his top pocket. He picked up the clipboard at the foot of the metal-framed bed.
-Doctor Osborne, he said.
-Hello, I said.
-From the Greek for boil or eruption. The doctor returned the clipboard, and looked up at me.
-Pardon? I said.
-‘Eczema’, from the Greek. He pushed back the black horn rimmed glasses on his nose and smiled the smile of a man who had never seen himself smile.
-Oh. I nodded. I pictured a tide of boiling fluids coursing through my veins and bursting from my skin in a volcanic explosion.
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, which he proceeded to stretch over his fingers like he might catch something. He took a white packet from another pocket from which he withdrew a surgical wipe. He held my hand in his and lifted it up. With the wipe he removed the cream on my inner elbow. I winced and involuntarily pulled back my arm. The doctor maintained his grip and continued without a word. A single tear formed in the corner of one eye. When the cream was off he looked at the red inflamed skin for a second or two, then reapplied more cream from the cabinet beside my bed.
-Lean forward. I did so and he looked at the back of my neck. You did this to yourself? he asked. I was unsure how to answer but I found myself nodding.
-How did it feel? His eyebrows rose up as he pronounced the words.
-Sorry? I said.
-How did it feel when you were scratching?
No one had ever asked me this question. The fact was that when I scratched with my nails, hard, it felt like nothing I had ever experienced on earth. Later in life I might have likened it to great sex or amazing drugs but now all I said to him was,
-It feels good. He nodded then checked the drip.
They kept me in for the night and released me the next day.
I’m older now. I still get it. Though not too bad. I figure it’s related to diet. I’m told I’m allergic to many foodstuffs. I’m also told it’s repressed anger.
Do you know the phrase, ‘If you’re not angry you’re not paying attention’?
I don’t want to be angry. I’ve got feelings. I haven’t always been king of my own emotions.
They just erupt out of me.
So I pick up a pen. I write longhand. I write these words and scratch that itch away. I use a rough old fountain pen. Its nib is sharp. I watch as my hand leads it across the paper, like it has its own will. It tears at the fibres of the page and leaves a smear of red ink behind.
I wanna write things that other people just think, or maybe things they don’t. Or maybe they don’t know they think them, but they do.
I wanna scratch it all out.
All images from Pixabay
[source(https://pixabay.com/en/volcano-lava-flowing-eruption-1784662/)
[source] (https://pixabay.com/en/writer-writing-paper-letter-author-605764/)
Although my upvote is small I am happy to share it with you.
The Tree of Life, or Etz haChayim (עץ החיים) has upvoted you with divine emanations of Gods creation itself ex nihilo. We reveal Light by transforming our Desire to Receive for Ourselves to a Desire to Receive for Others. I am one of the 10 attributes/emanations part of the Curator Guild (Sephiroth), through which Ein Sof (The Infinite) reveals Itself.
I also had SERIOUS hospitalization level eczema as a child. Brutal. I never have it anymore and it cleared up after (a) leaving a toxic environment and learning to express myself and (b) radically changing my diet AND my lifestyle. Much love to you, my friend. I still have scars on my ankles and hands from it.... and I too, write it out, talk it out and work it out now. :) I also have a deep love "thing" going with the sound of a fountain pen nib scratching on a piece of thick paper. :)
Glad to hear yours has gone. Did you use your herbal products on it to help things?
Childhood eczema and writer too, but I don't believe I've ever specifically written about the condition?
Enjoyed reading and will forever think of the desire to write being akin to scratching my inner arms--something I simply can't not do.
Oh the inner arms. Yes.
I just read your 5 minute piece and left a comment. I liked it. How often do you do those ones?
Is that your notion of the five minute fiction? Can I please use it too please? :)
Yes, thanks for re-posting.
And, yes, I guess you can say it's a vignette or flash fiction or prose poetry? I am always confused how to categorize my particular way of writing, but found this 5 minute prompt a good way to just push go and not worry about what to call it ;) Really though, most of my writing is based on my own interpretation of my personal experiences and I very much appreciate the confessional poets.
I find it easy to call it flash-fiction because then I can put filmy layers (the way in which I think and dream) over the black and white starkness of what is literal, because really, that is how I experience the world.
Thanks for asking. Also, a good exercise to answer these kinds of questions so that I can see my creative process outside of myself.
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