The Tumours Made Me Interesting Read Online Free

into my gaping, spent arsehole.
    “This is officially sick,” said the doctor. “You oughta take a look at what I just plucked from your jacksie.”
    Nothing within me wanted to know what the doctor was holding, but I couldn’t help myself. I turned my head and felt a rush of vomit climb my throat. In the doctor’s hand was what looked like a fleshy, bleeding apple. It was an abstraction from deep within – from a world that existed inside me that I had never visited. This was from a place I didn’t want to know – a place that most of us never want to know.
    “What is it?” I finally asked after swallowing my vomit accumulation.
    “Well, I’m no doctor, but it looks to me like a tumour.”
    This is when the first wave of panic hit. In one demeaning moment, everything I’d managed to successfully ignore punched me in the stomach. Breath escaped me and I collapsed to the floor. I was overcome by an animalistic response. Notions of civility were nowhere to be found. Everything I had ever known briefly vanished and all that existed was this primal moment. My face was pressed against the carpet, inhaling the traffic of every patient before me. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the doctor, feeling fragments of civility returning.
    “But you got it out, right?” I said with an air of hope that I couldn’t believe.
    The doctor burst into laughter. “Yeah, well I got this one out but your bowel is full of the fuckers.”
    “Do you know for sure that it’s definitely a tumour?” I asked hopelessly still on the ground.
    “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m a damn doctor, ain’t I?”
    “Isn’t there some tests you can run or something? I need to know for sure.”
    “Umm… yeah… I guess. There’s a dude I know. I’ll chuck the tumo… ah, the growth to him and get him to check it out.”
    “When?”
    “I’m going to his place for a jam session tonight. I’ll drop it off then.”
    “Will he look at it tonight?”
    “You’re a needy little fucker, aren’t ya?” said the doctor, disbelief filling his face.
    If I hadn’t felt so weak and pathetic, I’d have introduced my fist to the doctor’s face. This is what I told myself anyway. I’d only ever been in one fight before and that was just a bout of shin kicking when I was five. I was more of a natural born coward than fighter. What really stung was the knowledge that despite the indignity and apathy this bastard had thrown my way, I’d still thank him and offer to shake his hand afterward. It didn’t matter that I thought I was going to die; I’d still shake his fucking hand.
    “Look… I just need to know,” I said. “I’d appreciate whatever you can do.”
    The doctor dropped my anal apple on the table, where it landed with a wet splat, and helped me up, smearing my shirt with his bloody hand. He even pulled up and buttoned my pants for me.
    “Look, dude. I’ll do what I can. I’ll try to get him to have a look tonight. When we get jamming though, we rock pretty damn hard. I play a bag of scraps that I hit against things. I know what you’re thinking, sounds like a shit instrument, yeah? Well, like anything, you can spend your whole damn life mastering it. I wave a scrap bag like a rock god! He plays a coil of rope. He just throws it at things mostly but sometimes he rubs stuff with it. He’s damn good at what he does. We’re recording a demo that will blow you the fuck away! I’ll sling you a copy.”
    “That would be nice,” I found myself saying, regardless of the fact that his demo was the last thing I’d ever be interested in. He gave me a thumbs up in response. “Do you need my number so you can contact me?”
    “Yeah, why not? Wanna write it down for me?”
    I scanned the room for a pen and paper. There was absolutely nothing to write with or on. Given the appointment up until now, I don’t know why this surprised me. I made do with a toe nail clipping and a length of pipe that I’d found on the thinning