My meeting with Fiona was to take place at a restaurant called ‘Truman’s Basket’. It resided on one of those trendy, foodie streets that I never bothered visiting. Each place had a ‘funky’ name that faded into a blur of banality due to sheer volume. Each try-hard eatery swarmed with middle class boredom and lifeless ‘cool’. My desire to meet with Fiona waned with each passing café.
I couldn’t escape the sensation that people were recognising me, and I swear one person even pointed straight at me. Clearly the coverage the evening news gave my cancer had turned me into something akin to a celebrity. I’m not the sort of person that gets noticed and the attention upset me. I consoled myself with the knowledge I’d be a nobody in a few days. At the same time, I was strangely dreading the loss of my meager grain of recognition. People had become famous for far less.
‘Truman’s Basket’ sat nestled between two restaurants of similar name and style. I walked past it several times before it registered. I didn’t want to go in. The thick scent of coffee beans wafted around the entrance. Inside was populated with the expected crowd of suited working drones and identically individual University students. I wanted to waltz up to these students, direct their attention toward the depressed workers and say, ‘welcome to your future!”.
An overly pierced waitress approached me and asked me if I needed a seat. I mentioned Fiona, was told there was a booking and led toward a small table in the far corner.
The woman waiting at the table had short red hair and a porcelain face. A faint smile contorted her lips. She was attractive in a profound way. My cock was flooding with blood and I had to take my seat fast to hide it. She reached out a delicate, manicure-tipped hand, which I greeted with my pale, sweaty one. She retrieved a packet of cigarettes from her handbag and placed it on the table.
“Would you like one?” she asked.
I stared at them. I hadn’t smoked in over ten years but that desire never really goes away. I wanted to suck one down bad. “I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to smoke inside,” I replied, primarily as an excuse to ignore my own destructive craving.
“It’s fine,” she said with a slow wave of the hand. “I know the owner. Please, have one…”
She pushed the packet closer toward me and it was impossible to refuse. If I was going to die anyway, what hurt would a cigarette do? I swooped up the pack, shook one out and flipped it toward my mouth where it sat, dormant, waiting for flame. Fiona clicked open a Zippo lighter and waved it over the cigarette tip. I sucked hard, watching the tip glow with glorious orange light. The smoke flooded my lungs and sent my brain into a joyous spin. My body went limp and a goofy grin formed on my face. The beautiful fragility that rides the fine line between sickness and bliss occupied my blood.
“Thank you,” I said in a drawn out tone. “I forgot how nice these bastards are.”
“Have as many as you like. Take the pack. You look like you need them more than me.”
A strange rhubarb aftertaste began to form in my mouth.
“These don’t taste like the cigarettes I used to smoke,” I said.
“Let’s just say you won’t find these in your local supermarket. This is my special little recipe.”
I stared at the packet before me. It was a black cardboard box devoid of information.
Fiona’s slight smile remained. This wasn’t the way I expected our meeting to start. There was something devious about this woman. What kind of cancer counselor begins a meeting by offering cigarettes to a cancer sufferer? I was disarmed, but in a pleasant way. My cock throbbed in response to her measured movement. I savoured the cigarette until I got a dirty blast of burning filter. I coughed a spray of blood over Fiona, colouring her face with my innards. I froze. “I’m soooo damn sorry.”
Fiona maintained her smile and calmly wiped the blood from her face with a serviette. “These must be troubling times for you.”
“Yeah… I guess you could say that,” I replied, still mortified by the bloodbath I’d delivered.
“You must be wondering why I’ve been so eager to meet you.”
“Due process? It’s your job to meet up with people like me.”
She chuckled quietly. “Absolutely not, Bruce. I see very few people. To say my consult is exclusive would be an understatement.”
My brow furrowed in confusion. I reached for another cigarette, which Fiona was quick to light. “So… why did you want to meet with me?” The smoke churned in my lungs.
“I’m not sure you understand how special you are.”
Before I had a chance to dig deeper, the waitress intervened. I had no idea what to order… hadn’t even looked at the menu. I just pointed randomly and hoped she’d return with something edible. Fiona was taking her time, asking questions about the menu. I wanted to slap it out of her hands and tell the waitress to fuck off. This lady had referred to me as special. Other than my mother, no one had ever referred to me as special. My ego was turning in cartwheels of impatience. Why the fuck was I special?
When the waitress walked away, I waited for Fiona to rekindle her previous line of conversation but it was almost like she’d forgotten. I couldn’t take it anymore. “So… you said I was special? Why am I special?”
She placed her hand on mine. It felt so warm and soft. I prayed she’d keep it there. It was a tactile drug.
“Your cancer is special, Bruce. I want to show you something.”
She placed her handbag on her lap and started foraging around inside. “I know it’s here. I was very careful to pack it before I left,” she said. As she foraged, I could feel the tumours inside me buzzing with an apian intensity I’d never experienced. They were making my body shiver and tingle. I took up another cigarette, hoping to calm it down but it only seemed to strengthen the vibrations.
“Got it!” exclaimed Fiona. I didn’t know what it was at first. All I knew was it smelled terrible… like rotting meat. She placed it before me. It was a spherical piece of flesh, pocked with hair and chewing gum wrappers. “Do you recognise it, Bruce?”
I shook my head slowly, an ominous current running through me. The internal vibrations were only gaining in strength.
“You should recognise it. After all, you made it. It’s one of your tumours, Bruce.”
My mouth fell open. There was nothing I could say. Fiona held it up like a crystal ball, slowly rotating it in her fingers. Violation didn’t even begin to describe the way I was feeling. An endless stream of questions started accumulating on my tongue, forming a ball too big to spit out.
“Look at it, Bruce. It’s so beautiful.”
I stared past the tumour and directly into Fiona’s eyes. They beamed with seduction, refusing to betray her motivations.
“Who are you? What’s happening? How did you get my fucking tumour?” These questions came in one hyperventilated breath.
“Calm down. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about. As you know, my name is Fiona Sinclair. What you didn’t know up until now was my ‘occupation’, if you can call it such a thing. I spend my time looking for perfect cancers. I obtained your tumour via your doctor, whom I share an arrangement with.”
The sense of indignity escalated. Reason was a concept fast becoming foreign to me. Out of all the doctors in town, I had to choose the most inept… the most morally bankrupt.
“That cunt gave you my tumour?”
“He’s really a very nice man, Bruce.” She pointed at the cigarettes. “Please, have another. You’ll feel better.”
I obeyed, although I didn’t know why. “What do you mean by ‘perfect cancers’?” I asked between panicked drags.