THESEUS’ SHIP
Did you know you can get appendicitis twice? The trick is to not get surgery for the first time. If you catch it early enough and you ask nicely, the doctors will give you antibiotics instead. Then you get to lay in bed for a few days, smelling horrible and eating Jello.
My first round of appendicitis came when I quit my job. I worked as a guidance counselor at my old high school. I used to joke with my students that I’d been in grade 12 for 40 years.
One afternoon, Melanie Bloom came into my office and told me she wanted to drop grade 11 physics so she could take shop.
“Melanie,” I explained, “that has nothing to do with your career path.”
Melanie shrugged. “I want to be a taxidermist. I need shop.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I began, but Melanie wasn’t listening.
“Shop,” she said. “And taxidermy.”
“You can’t just change like that,” I said.
“Yes, I can.”
Something in her tone hit a nerve.
“Listen, you little snot,” I said, jabbing Melanie in the chest with my finger. “You think you know what’s best for you, but you don’t. I am your guidance counselor.”
Melanie scoffed.
“You don’t do shit. I’ll probably change careers like fifty times.”
I gasped.
“Then who will you be, Melanie? Nobody! That’s who!”
Turned out, Melanie’s father was on the school board. I got a call letting me go that night.
It was a weird sensation. I never cared about my job, didn’t need the money, but I was horrified. Like when someone you never talked to dies and you start wondering if you could have been friends. A pain twisted my in belly, and I went to the hospital.
They said it was my appendix. I said I was too scared. I asked them not to operate; they gave me antibiotics. No surgery.
…
Yesterday, I walked to my old high school. I saw Melanie from outside the chain-link. I wanted to check in on things.
“What are you doing here?” She asked.
I chuckled. “I got appendicitis.”
“Oh,” she said, picking a pimple on her chin. “That sucks.”
“So, how’s your year going now?” I said, changing the subject. “Still taking physics?”
The bell rang.
“What?” she asked, already walking away. “No. I gotta go! I can’t miss shop!”
Then there was a pain so bad in my stomach that I fell over. The last thing I remember was Melanie walking across the grass.
…
I wake up in my old office at my desk, and I’m wearing a hospital gown, a hair net, and little booties like a hazmat suit.
“Hey,” buzzes the receptionist from my desk phone. “You’ve been avoiding this one for too long. I’ve got to send him in.”
There’s a click, and the door barely creaks open and in slithers a fleshy, pinkish, slime-covered worm. It crawls up the chair across from me and sits.
It’s my appendix.
“Hello, friend.”
I drum my fingers on the tabletop. “Is everything okay?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” hisses the appendix.
“Language,” I warn.
“We’re past language.” It shakes what I guess is its head. “You’re abandoning me!”
I sigh. “You exploded. What could I do?”
“Keep me. Like, in a jar!”
“I think they have to test you for cancer and then destroy you.”
The appendix gasps.
“What?” I ask, hands splayed on the table. “You were killing me!”
“I was not!” The appendix shrieks. “You were killing yourself. I was just the part of you getting ill. That’s how appendicitis works, asshole.”
“That’s kind of beside the point,” I shrug.
The appendix gasps. “I can’t believe you.”
“Bottom line,” I say, “is if I didn’t get you removed, we both would have died. Doesn’t matter who made who sick.”
The appendix looks away sniffing. “I just don’t get it. After all we’ve been through, how could yo–”
I lean back, losing patience. “Oh, don’t do that.”
“I have been a part of you since you were born,” sobs the appendix.
“We were never really that close,” I say.
The appendix shudders. “Now you’re just being hurtful.”
I narrow my eyes. “What exactly do you do?”
“Too far!” gasps the appendix. “You know how that question makes me feel.”
“Well?” I say. “What are you for? I googled it, and not even scientists understand what you do.” I scoff. “You talk about all we’ve been through, but I wouldn’t even know you exist if you hadn’t filled up with shit and burst. Before yesterday, you were totally useless to me, and now, all you are is a huge, rotting pain!”
Silence hangs.
“‘Useless to you,’” the appendix repeats hollowly. “Wow.”
“You know, in Latin, your name just means ‘hanger on?’” I ask. “At the most basic level, you’re just dead weight.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you, too.”
“You know,” the appendix gulps. “You know, being dragged around by your megalomaniacal ass all these years hasn’t been a cake walk? The whole reason I blew up in the first place is because you’re so full of shit. I couldn’t stand it anymore.” The appendix squirms out of the chair and splats onto the floor. “Trying to control other people, hanging on to shit you don’t even care about. Maybe, if you listened to yourself, like, 40 years ago, we wouldn’t be here.” It slithers across the tiles and slams the door as it leaves.
I’m astonished. “What am I going to do?” I say into the desk phone. “I’m a terrible guidance counselor.”
“Ever heard of Theseus’ ship?” My receptionist buzzes back.
“No.”
“Well, there’s this boat, belongs to a guy named Theseus. Over the years, he’s got to replace parts. A plank here, a screw there, whatever. After like ten years, nothing is original anymore. All new parts. The question is, is it still the same boat?”
I scratch my head. “Did he sell the ship?”
“Nope.”
“Then it’s still Theseus’ ship.”
“Bingo.”
#appendix #Cancer #hazmatSuit #JessiWood #melanieBloom #shortFiction #surgery #tabletop #taxidermist
Benjamin Carr, Ph.D. 👨🏻💻🧬
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