The front door, as expected, had been torn away. The smell that wafted from within the house was chilling. It contained the unmistakable whimsy of childhood, but was joined by the pungent stench of fresh death. I fumbled for the light switch, half hoping it wouldn’t work. I was too scared for the clarity light provides. With the switch flicked, dirty yellow light filled the room. Everything was broken. The nostalgic stasis that had once hugged my childhood home was gone.
“Mum?” I wheezed. “Are you there?”
I received no reply. My blood became panicked and flowed through my veins at double speed. I wanted to turn around and run away.
As you’re already here, you might as well keep going, said the tumours. We’re not going to let anything happen to you. While we’re living in here, we need you to stay alive. Remember that.
I moved toward the darkness of her bedroom. I felt my pocket for cigarettes again, hoping somehow they’d magically appear. When this failed to occur, I sucked hard at nothing, hoping there were enough toxins in the air to tide me over.
“It’s Bruce, mum… are you there?”
“Is that you, hon?” came my mother’s voice, weak and childlike, from the darkness.
“Mum!”
I spilled into the bedroom and flicked on the light. My mother was still alive. My abandonment hadn’t killed her, but she didn’t look good. Her arm/body was entombed in a plaster cast and she dangled from the ceiling in a sling.
“What happened?” I gasped.
“They hurt me, dear. I was dropped on the way to the bathroom.”
I lunged at her helpless body, wrapping my arms around her.
“Who’s they,” I asked.
My mother looked at me with puzzled eyes.
“The people you sent to look after me of course.”
I slumped onto her bed and curled into a fetal ball. Fiona had tricked my mother into believing this was coming from me. She had tricked me into somehow thinking she gave a shit about my mother’s wellbeing. She had used my mother’s trust in me against her. She had used the love I have for mum against me. I wanted to tear her apart. The tumours growled in agreement.
“I didn’t send anyone, mum. These people were sent by Fiona.”
She hung directly above me and craned her neck to look down. It was like we were kids in a bunk bed.
“Bruce… darling… you look terrible.”
“I’ve been better,” I said.
We both remained silent, lost in individual variations of the same thought. I flushed hot with Fiona-induced hate. My tumours fed off the hate and bucked in delight. As much as Fiona wanted to believe my tumours were hers, they were on my side. They responded only to me. They would protect me. They would only stop protecting me when they were no longer inside me, and when that point arrived, they sure as hell weren’t going to want to be slaves to Fiona.
The house smelled like a train station toilet. My mother was snoring above me, which filled me with relief. She didn’t need to be awake right now. I thought about trying to clean everything up and flushing the horror away. Maybe she’d wake up and dismiss it as a bad dream. I needed to get her down from the sling. I needed to cut away the plaster. I stared at my emaciated hands and wondered how the fuck I would manage such a feat. It was hard enough to move her when I was in (my version of) pristine physical condition. I had never been endowed with strength. I needed one of those ingenious solutions typically found on television. I stood on the bed and tried supporting her weight with my hands. I felt and heard my left wrist crack. I fell down on the bed and indulged in a cathartic writhe. The truth was I didn’t really feel much pain. My hand hung unnaturally from my arm. A slither of bone had pierced through my skin. These were cues that pain should be present, but pain didn’t mean much to me anymore. My body had deteriorated so much that a lousy broken wrist was a mere drop in the ailment ocean. Perhaps the tumours were devouring my pain. More likely, the horrible pain I’d acclimatised to in the last month had simply drowned out everything else.
I surveyed the debris in the bedroom for a makeshift implement to free my mother. The debris’s bulk was comprised of rusty tin, contorted into abstract sculptures. I theorised that attempting to use the tin to free my mother would result in misfortune. The rest of the debris was nothing more than pebble-sized insignificance. I furrowed my brow into a deep V, willing inspiration to arrive.
Why don’t you just ask us for help, said my tumours.
The thought should have crossed my mind, but it simply hadn’t. I longed to overcome the dilemma myself, besides, I didn’t want to lose any more of them. Each time the tumours came to my aide, I lost one. My body was like a genie with a finite supply of wishes. I glanced up at my mother, still asleep in her sling.
“I really want to do this one myself, fellas,” I replied.
A warbling sound tickled at my insides.
Look, Bruce… we don’t want to sound rude or anything, but you really need our help. You’re not going to beat this one on your own. You’re in a pickle and life’s dirty mouth is about to eat you for lunch.
Their psychically spoken words melted into my brain, coating everything in reason. I stared at my arms again with one wrist pathetically broken and the other begging to follow suit. My mother began muttering something in her sleep about cake.
“Am I really this pathetic?” I asked.
You’re not as pathetic as you used to be, but you have a long way to go. Look… we’re not going to lie to you, Bruce. We have an agenda. We want out. We have grown as much as we can within your body. If we want to reach maturity, we have to get out. You’ve been so good to us. Let us return the favour.
I didn’t have a choice. There was no way I could get my mother down alone. I rubbed my stomach, partly as a way of saying goodbye to the tumours I was about to lose. I flopped to my knees and then let my face fall into the carpet. I jutted my arse out and closed my eyes. The tumultuous swirl of the tumours began.
We’ll have her down in no time, said the tumours.
I used my functional hand to work my pants and diaper down. Accumulated slush slopped out. I didn’t look — the sensation was more than enough for me to ascertain how unpleasant it all was. The walls of my bowel started to pulsate like a worm as the involuntary push commenced. I could feel a tumour move, edging its way forward, hungry for freedom, chewing a path like Pac Man. Beads of sweat burnt my eyes and tumbled down the bridge of my nose. An ambiguous moan escaped my mouth that may have been pain and may have been pleasure. I closed my eyes and felt the wet explosion leave my body. I flopped to my side and watched. The tumour was dressed as an old time mountaineer and whistled discordant shards of feedback. The tumours inside me yodeled and cheered their comrade on. It deftly maneuvered its way up the wall toward the anchor point of my mother’s sling and began chewing on the material, compromising its integrity. She remained sleeping, oblivious to the peculiar event unfolding. It didn’t take long for the sling to tear. With the aide of gravity, my mother fell to the bed below, bouncing a couple of times before coming to a gentle rest. The tumour burped and took what looked like a bow.