dairy—expired cream-colored milk and thick lukewarm yolk—and that of ordinary shit.
He couldn’t sell a thing since he carried the obnoxious smell with him when assisting customers, so his mind said. Or his sales suffered because for the remainder of his shift, he made seven trips to the toilet. The odor still had its distinct flavor and more blood drops were present, concluding he might be sick enough to leave work an hour early.
At his apartment, Stuart took a short nap and felt queasiness in his stomach, yet the rapid shitting stopped, more or less pooped out. After he ate noodle soup and buttered toast, he took one ibuprofen and an antacid tablet with a liter of 7UP.
He felt instantly better—even alive—and wanted to call Shoba. After all, it was his birthday. To not have cake on your 40th didn’t feel right to Stuart. A beautiful girl ought to sing to him with a little frosting on her lip even if he was sick as hell and crossing geezer territory. But he also considered not getting naked with a girl on your birthday was, well, an outrage. So he called Shoba out of protest and left her a smooth Clooneyesque message to convince her to come over.
Meanwhile, he thought of starting Goodwin’s Team of Rivals but that would require a kind of energy he didn’t have. For the remainder of the evening, he watched a replay of the Seahawks-Steelers Super Bowl on the NFL network and wondered again why Congress didn’t order an investigation into whether referees were fixing a monumental game millions around the world watched.
During a commercial break he thought of Shoba and imagined after they’d done it her tiny caramel breasts smashed into his back while she ran her fingers through his hair as her smell of orange blossoms filled the room. Three hours later his imaginings were fried and he felt wretched, reliving the screwing of the Seahawks, the constant grumblings of his tummy, and the likelihood of a pleasure-less night from the missing Shoba.
He heard a knock on his door and got up, stumbling to the ground. His legs had given out, or perhaps it was his tummy, hurling a puddle of evening soup to the floor. Hunched over with his mouth wide, Stuart felt he had more to give, but only made a grotesque sound and delivered the dead rat air of his stomach.
He flopped to the floor, the side of his face near the puddle, his nose flaring at the utter toxicity of his funk. The roof of his mouth burned, eyes watering, puke slobber dripping off his chin.
He heard another knock, stunned to see the reflection of his father's steel face forming in the puddle. His father, the man Stuart disappointed over and over for reasons that went beyond underperformance and a lack of ambition, was a patent lawyer for Microsoft who demanded perfection of his son that would culminate to the top of a dignified profession. A dignified profession to a patent lawyer meant the field of medicine, law, finance, science, and even, government.
Yet when Stuart had momentary levels of stellar performance during his childhood years, his father wasn't satisfied, and worse, was incredibly discouraging with frequent episodes of hateful harassment and the occasional bloody punch to the nose and mouth when an A had a minus and a B had a plus.
To Stuart, his father was a prick and became a colossal prick when his mother passed from lung cancer when he was only eleven. This empowered Stuart to justify hatred of his father even after his death. In fact when his father died, Stuart felt blessed that he was given a second chance to live a renewed life without performance oppression.
His father had left nothing for Stuart; instead donating much of his wealth to the Gates Foundation and the remainder to a plastic Sea Gal he was banging for eight months prior to his cardiac arrest.
That was just swell, Stuart thought. Swell because the moment his father croaked at his Redmond office desk was the moment he dropped out of law school and walked to the mall to become a suits salesman. The very moment his life had become livable and free of a biological asshole.
The knocking grew louder and he heard his name through the door. Stu...Stu you there? It was Shoba and his body got warm, but his imagination went limp and the smell around him demolished hope of gathering sufficient energy to open the door and please her. Pleasing her would disappoint his mother, he thought. He rarely thought about his mother since thinking of her only made him sad in a pathetic Hallmark kind of way. His mother would've wanted him to find a girl to love and settle down, not drill darlings for recreation. Then again, no mother would want her only child to drill for recreation. It was obvious enough to be left unsaid, as it was obvious enough to know a mother’s love if missing creates havoc on a boy’s soul.
The knocking had stopped and he heard echoes of footsteps moving from the door and inside his head was a daze of motherly images and a word he couldn’t imagine ever uttering at his age. Flowers, babies, and hugs with his mother as a centerpiece. Flowers, babies, and hugs. Jesus. Who are you? He really was sick, he thought. But he said it. Not a mumble or a whisper. He actually said it. Clearly. Loudly. Unmistakably sincere.
Mommy.
The puddle had drifted under his neck and the smell had overtaken his body. His ashen skin, his short breaths, his body crumbling, starting to shiver as the hours went by. He shut his eyes so time could move faster, but time didn’t have anywhere to go.
He was unsure about the severity of his illness. He realized he probably should see a doctor if he had the strength to get up, or at the very least call for help. He hadn't seen a doctor in twelve years even though he was paying $106.33 per month for basic health insurance.
He thought maybe he should fight to stay strong and keep his spirits up. After all, that would be the courageous thing to do. But courageous for who? Himself? That sounded like it required too much effort, and besides, why would he even want to stay positive when he was laying in his own vomit? What really did he have that was worth living for? It was an honest question and honesty was his best answer. He had no family, no siblings, no friends, no great love, no real purpose to live a day longer, nothing to suggest he actually cared about anyone other than himself.
Mommy.
A tear escaped from his eye and he succumbed to the pain. He didn't hope for anything remotely positive since he had killed all his plus signs. Every one of them and he could smell it too. He could smell his regrets and that was enough to know the end was near. The end to the smell he created, the smell he thought he never wanted to go away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HARPER NEVERMIND is the author of I Only Got One Hot Wife. Strangely enough, he is also the first author ever to not have a website, a Facebook fan page, or a Twitter account. He lives in Seattle with himself and can be reached by email at
[email protected].
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