“Being bedridden because of a malady was one thing. But this superseded all illness.” The short story — Til It’s Gone
It started out as a blister. Or at least it had been a blister when he first noticed it. A blister formed by a slit in the little toe that, had it the proper care, time and patience, would’ve approached healing with vigor and haste. But this was only a blister.
So he accepted it as part of his life without breaking routine.
Work, leisure, rest. Some weeks — work, leisure, work. Often — work, work work. His lifestyle was robotic: Wake up, breakfast in bed, check or double-check his appointments. These appointments would dictate whether he would be the dull boy Jack for the day. They would also inform the equipment needed for each shoot, including which camera, lens, film and what lighting were needed in the studio.
Wake up, breakfast in bed, studio.
Sometimes a shower preceded, or proceeded. But there was always time for breakfast, and as he prepared himself for his first booking, that breakfast hung between his lips in its all white glory desperate for its scandalous meeting with flame. He obliged, like he always did, and slung what he called his ‘medical kit’ — his photography equipment, over his shoulder to leave for the studio. Medical kit, so aptly named for he approached his work with the patience, precision and meticulousness you would associate with a surgeon.
The studio’s rear wall required significant modifications for his first client. And perhaps the second. By the third, it would be completely transformed. Situations like this was why the schedule was often work — work — work. This Monday promised to be unusually busy, taking Friday’s place.
The clock indicated that he had just enough time for the second half of his meal before the client arrived. Surely enough, as he poured the amber content of his morning nutrients into a glass and sipped, the doorbell chimed.
Bookings from morning straight until the night would consume most or all of his day, and anything outside of these duties was insignificant. The one-man army shifted light stands, reflectors and passed the vacuum around to snort the runaway ashes from his breakfast. In the midst of his compulsive pre-op preparation, he felt the light nagging from his little toe.
But he hadn’t the time to play podiatrist today. His phalanges would still be intact by day’s end. Still, in the last few weeks, it had become just painful enough to attract his attention. If he remembered later, he’d put some ointment or a bandaid on it.
The city was the place where you make things happen. And even if you didn’t possess the cognitive intelligence to make something of yourself, the fact that things were happening all around you surely would render aid; unless you were completely asinine. And Ray was no idiot.
The fruits of his labour, from his endless toil behind lens and in front of screen, he meant to enjoy them at their ripest: now. But the toes, now plural, had started pining, wailing and moaning for Ray’s attention. The toes had been swept under the rug when a photography mogul contacted him about the work on his website. And completely forgotten when the man flew him to the city to work.
At some point, the toes had seemed to give up, ceasing their mournful cries. And this cessation was a welcome relief for Ray.
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Yet the entire right foot tended to issue a burning torment, daily, nightly, but behaved well when Ray was in the presence of important company. Whether it was reacting to the ointment and bandaids, plural, was questionable. But his preoccupation with city work snoozed any fussing about the little toe and its crew that had joined on a campaign for his attention.
It had been during a shoot, where an overly agog assistant had rushed forward to adjust her model’s attire that her thick wedged heel descended on Ray’s right foot. Ray had never been prone to raising his voice, so his inner howl was truncated before completion. But the hiss that tore from his lungs and the instantaneous sweat that his pores force-released, brought everyone in the studio to a standstill.
Without another word, he collapsed with a “clcxs”; his finger so firm in place on the shutter button that a final shot was taken on his descent.
In the hospital, he remembered a few words that seemed to roll and jumble in the doctor’s throat and then tumble out of his mouth. One was gangrene. Another was dorsal. The one uttered clearly was amputation.
Being bedridden because of a malady was one thing. But this superseded all illness. This was a loss, two losses, a million losses over a myriad planes: physical, psychological, emotional, social. A loss that could be ointmented and band-aided but never truly recovered. A surgery to remove, under the premise of improving, but finally. . .only disfiguring.
Recuperation without reinstatement.
After the separation, he would still flex his toes, or at least… he had the sensation of flexing the rotten, already discarded digits. And every so often, that small space between the little toe and the second last one would itch and he would lean down to scratch it to find nothing.
It wasn’t that he never saw it as an integral body part or that he failed to see how it carried him, directed him and supported his weight. On the contrary, he used to give it and its twin solid rest after long days in the studio, on pure cotton sheets with a suitable thread count.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about it, or wanted it. It certainly wasn’t that he didn’t need it! But when you know something will always be there, you get used to its presence. And only in its absence do we realise how crippling it really is to do without it; how it feels to be less than 100% — disfigured but alive.
Work could continue. In fact, work would continue as soon as the doctor’s suggested routine of rest — rest — rest switched.
Work — work — work; that would help him to think of it less.
Still, with every itch, every involuntary flex to find nothing at the root? He couldn’t help but think about the original blister. The blister that he had viewed as a simple molehill before its mountainous impact on his life.
This story is not actually about toes. Read it again.
Love,
Don
