TheDeceased
Ex-Bluelighter
Preterm
It started out small, so small you could hardly see it. It was the size of a pin prick; just a pimple, a tiny pimple on my upper lip. If I left it alone I probably never would have noticed it again. But I couldn’t do that. The solution was so quick, so simple. Just a little bit of pressure, and it’d be gone. I’d never had a problem with acne. I’d had a pimple or too growing up, like everyone, but they’d always been easy to squeeze.
I started on my face. I could see progress instantly. As I pressed on each side with my fingernails, the whitehead pressed up against the skin. It was bigger than it had looked on the surface but nothing unusual. A quick pop and I’d be done. But it wasn’t happening. It was almost there, though. I could see it. So I pressed harder, digging deep grooves into my skin. They were visible already, on either side of my fingernails – twin purple chasms in my lips. I released. In the centre of the goal posts was the whitehead, easily three times the size it was originally. It no longer looked like a pimple. It looked like I had been stung by a bee, right in the middle of my stupid face. It felt like a bee sting, as well. The pain, which at first was non-existent, was now considerable.
I pulled my lip back. It was there, pulsating. With each pulse, it seemed to get slightly bigger– as if it was reaching out, begging for assistance. It looked like it was going to pop by itself, but the anticipation was too great. I had to give it another squeeze. I figured, if I hadn’t given up the last time, it would be over already. So, I started again on both sides with a fingernail.
The pain was clearly too much. I knew that as soon as I began, but I persisted. If I stopped, then I’d just have to start all over again. And it’d be worse the third time round. So, I pressed harder than necessary. The whitehead grew larger and larger, maybe five or ten times the size it initially was – but it didn’t pop. The larger it became, the more it pulsated. Now instead of a mild throb, it was doubling in size with each contraction. I could see small blue veins running across it, tiny rivers through a mountain landscape. Tears were running from my eyes, the automatic kind that come without warning. I ignored them. I continued to squeeze. I could see it, the whitehead, poking through the pore. On either side, the train track scars deepening, breaking the skin. The first signs of blood. I gave it once last push. Then, I had to stop. The pain was too much. And, I wasn’t getting anywhere. It hadn't moved.
I re-examined myself. It no longer looked like a bee sting. Now, it looked like the onset of cancer or a particularly bad cold sore. It had been mangled beyond recognition. What was once unnoticeable was now the predominant feature of my face. It was huge. It was so big, that the weight of it was now pulling it down like an aging breast. It hung over my bottom lip. When I moved my head from side to side, it swayed. I watched, hypnotized.
It was horrifying. I was deformed, a freak. I started wondering if it even was a pimple in the first place. Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe I had been just squeezing my lip. There was no sign of a whitehead. It was gone, if it had ever been there before. I pushed on either side of it. Now there was just a lumpy redness with two dark purple tracks running either side. The tiny blue veins. It was pulsating. I’d never seen anything so disgusting. It was like the elephant man’s head sticking out of my mouth.
I glanced around the kitchen counter. Dried soap scum and beard shavings were stuck to the counter and, stuck to the residue, was a pair of tweezers. I ran cold water over it. There was no time to be sterile. I needed to pop the fucking thing, straight away, to get rid of it. I couldn’t stand it being there for another second, being part of me. It wasn’t part of me. It was a growth – it needed to be removed, like a tumor.
I gripped onto it from either side, retracing my fingernail tracks. As I squeezed, I pushed in towards my face as hard as I could with the tip of the tweezers. My lip twisted against itself, lifting up on one side and showing my gums. I expected to see it explode instantly. Instead, I watched as it grew until it was the size of one of my teeth. The more it grew, the redder it became until it was so dark red it was almost black – liked congealed blood. Still, it didn’t pop. It shook. It quivered. Tears poured down my face like overflowing dams. I squeezed harder and harder, and it grew accordingly. By the time I stopped, it was the size of my nose. It looked like a second tongue, diseased and inflamed, sticking out from between my teeth.
I got the pliers.
After half an hour, it had grown to the size of a basketball. I could no longer grip onto it with the pliers. The best I could do was grip onto the side of it, pinch it. It was larger than my head, a huge pulsating ball of goo sticking out of my mouth. It was heavy now, too heavy to hold up; I had to lean forward and prop it against the counter. Even then, it was impossible to get comfortable. So I tried one last time to pop it. I knew that I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it.
I pushed down on top of it with the palm of my right hand, sandwiching it against the counter. I could see it bulging out underneath me, but it didn’t pop. So, I lifted myself up off my feet, balancing all of my weight down onto it. Finally it broke – but what came out of it was not what I expected. There was no winding white snake, no puss, no ooze. Just an arm.
Sticking out of the mountainous red mass on my face was an adult-sized human arm. I watched, stunned, as it reached around my face, blindly trying to squeeze the rest of itself out. It’s movements were erratic, as if it was suffocating. And, for some reason, I didn’t want it to die sticking halfway out of my face. So I grabbed the hand and pulled, slowly producing a shoulder, a head and then the rest of a body. It felt like I was pulling my internal organs out through my throat, like I had reached back, grabbed hold of my lungs and just given them a good yank.
He was me; an identical twin, born from a pimple. We were only boys. Two boys wearing the same outfit. He was a mirror replica. His breast pocket was on the right and the label on his shirt red backwards. The scar above his eyebrow was on the opposite side. I stared at him and he stared back. I moved my left hand. He moved his right.
He spoke over me, and I over him. Our words overlapped endlessly like a microphone feeding back into a speaker. It built upon itself until it was a high pitched screech. Whenever I reached for him, he reached back. Whenever I punched him, our fists would meet halfway.
I looked away, out the window.
* * * * *
When I looked back, he was gone, and the pimple had returned to its original size. On the counter: a pair of rusty tweezers still stuck to the soap scum, unused.
I lifted up my lip. It was so small you could hardly see it. It was the size of a pin prick. Just a pimple. A tiny pimple on my upper lip. As I pressed on each side with my fingernails, the whitehead pressed up against the skin. It was bigger than it had looked on the surface, but nothing unusual.
A quick pop and I’d be done.
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