The Tumours Made Me Interesting Read Online Free Page A

carpet. With the clipping, I began furiously scratching my number into the pipe like a prisoner counting down his stay. I passed the pipe with its slight engraving to the doctor who tucked it awkwardly into his pant leg.
    “Alrighty, I’ll contact you soon. Don’t forget to grab your free spoon on the way out.”
    I made sure to do just that, but not before thanking the doctor and shaking his hand.
    2.
    I t’s hard to find the motivation to work when you think you’re going to die. I sat at my desk, staring vacantly at the empty data spreadsheet on my flickering monitor. A pile of invoices sat to my right and my phone to the left. I kept casting my gaze toward the phone, willing it to ring. I needed closure. I was too afraid to fall asleep the night before. I’d managed to neurotically convince myself that if I closed my eyes, they’d never open again. Considering how pathetic my life was, I was slightly surprised that the concept of it ending wasn’t one I could comfortably accept.
    I work for a company called ‘The Nipple Blamers’. As far as I can ascertain, the company makes its profit by abusing a legal loophole that allows the blame for certain criminal charges to be transferred to nipples. Of the more serious charges tied up in this loophole are arson and matricide. A slew of lesser charges are also covered. This works well because juries are typically reluctant to send a nipple to jail when it has a legally innocent person attached. Would be jailbirds are willing to part with a lot of money to avoid their fate. As a result, I have a job. I don’t know the first thing about the mechanics of the loophole. I’m just the guy who transfers information from the invoices to the databases. I’ve been doing this for 13 years. Any hope of following some ambiguous ‘dream’ died in my 20s. Now it looked like the rest of me was going to die in my 30s.
    I was still hurting from yesterday’s medicinal fisting, which served as a constant reminder that my body was failing. My phone remained frustratingly dormant and no amount of telepathic voodoo would change this. I get about five calls a year, usually from my mother so paying such close attention to my phone felt alien. I defiantly slid it into my pocket, determined not to be its slave. Sure, I was most likely dying but that didn’t mean I had to neglect my work. I picked up an invoice and tried to make out the information scrawled on it. My eyes weren’t cooperating. Where words and numbers should have been, all I saw was a whorl of black smudge. An attack of nausea ravaged my stomach and before I could get it under control, a spray of vomit flew from my mouth, coating my shirt and keyboard.
    I sat in my own cooling filth, completely still and feeling the eyes of coworkers boring into my back. My only desire was to run away and never look these people in the eye again. Jerry Turnbull made this impossible. Jerry was the only coworker who actively engaged me in conversation. You certainly wouldn’t call what we had a friendship – he spoke to everyone at least as much as spoke to me. He was just a slightly odd guy you could depend upon. Someone who helped you momentarily forget about your loneliness by virtue of his dependable presence. He had a reputation as a bit of a maverick, which always made me feel a little uncomfortable. Today his maverick nature had manifested in his extremely confronting nudity. He slid up to me like a waterless surfer, his penis sticking to his right thigh.
    “How goes it, Brucey Ducey? Haven’t had a chance to talk…” He stopped mid-sentence when he saw the vomit that caked me. “Shit, my man. Are you alright?”
    I managed a thumbs up that didn’t exactly ring true.
    “You got a gut nasty? Shit, dude. You gotta get outta here. I’ll cover for you.”
    “I’ll be fine,” I moaned. My watering eyes scanned up and down Jerry’s body. “Why aren’t you wearing anything? You’re going to get in so much trouble.”
    Jerry