Snake Eyes

“I remember the films, Bill, just not the guy’s name.”

“Sure, sure. Look, you’re really worried about this?”

“I guess I am.”

“I can get you some tranquillisers. The ones that help to relax your muscles.”

“Will I be able to work all right?”

“Uh…They can make you a little drowsy.”

“I can’t take risk falling asleep at my desk, Bill. I’ve got to get that promotion.”

“You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’re overworked, just like almost everyone in this place. Take some time off.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll put in a good word. Say you’ve earned it.”

“Thanks but no.”

“Well, you’ve got one other option.”

“Yeah?”

“Go to the doctor.”

“Shit, Bill.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just never thought of it.”

Johnson laughed. Maybe the doctor was the answer. He turned to let himself out.

“Hey, Bill?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Any time, Robert. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but you’re one of the people that keeps this company afloat.”

“Thanks.”

Back in his cubicle, Johnson felt a whole lot better. An hour later, the twitching began again.

Chapter 6

One afternoon at work, a rough yank on the tube jerked Johnson’s head back hard. He’d been bent over some figures on paper, tinkering with a pencil in the columns. The unexpectedness of the movement and the fierceness of it, the almost pointed maliciousness, had caused his heart to skip a beat. With a vulnerable, fluttering sensation deep in the left side of his chest and a sweat breaking on his forehead, he locked himself in one of the cubicles of the male restroom. He put the lid down and sat on it. As he considered his next move, he wondered if there were hidden security cameras in use.

He had often thought about touching the tube but had discovered within himself his own taboos regarding it. He felt his sanity depended on the possibility that the tube was an illusion. If he discovered something else to be the case, if the thing was material and tangible, he didn’t know how he would cope. So far, he believed he’d done well keeping his reactions under control but feeling it with the skin of his hand, knowing for certain it was real and attached to him…

Raising a trembling, hesitant hand, he reached up as if it was not himself he was about to touch but perhaps the sexual organs of someone he had never before met. His fingers made contact with a smooth surface. It was not cold, as he had expected but warm like his own skin. The texture was greasy but when he took his hand away there was no residue on the tips of his fingers. There, surrounded by the faint smell of blended urines and throat catching disinfectant, under the glare of bright artificial light, Johnson discovered the tube was a fact; as true as his own body.

But the tube was not of his body. If it was, it contained no sensory nerves because, although he could feel it through his fingertips, the tube itself experienced no sensation. Or, if it did, Johnson was not the one to receive that sensation. Like an anaesthetised limb, it was numb; alien, un-him.

He took his hand away.

He stayed in the cubicle a little longer wondering what he could do, praying there was someone he could turn to. It was only then that the question of ownership occurred to him. Was it correct to say that it was his tube or was it the other way around?

He reached up once more, less confident than the first time. More daunted by the implications of further discoveries. He wanted to squeeze it, to find out what was inside. He pressed it between his thumb and forefinger. The sensation was fibrous and grainy as if the tube was packed with strands of wire or twine. It felt like there might be liquid inside too; there was a turgidity that suggested fluids under internal pressure.

He took the tube more forcefully in his whole hand, making a fist around. He squeezed. Immediately, he felt a contraction below the surface of the tube and it fattened in his grip. On his head he felt the presence of the tube for the first time as it gripped him. It yanked his scalp upwards and he felt a drawing sensation where the tube met his head. Though the sensation of intimate connection nauseated him, squeezing the tube caused no pain. He did not black out or feel short of breath.

It was all the investigation he had strength for that afternoon but he took Bill Shuckman’s advice and called to make an appointment with the family doctor.

Chapter 7

Surely, Dr. Alpert would be willing to discuss the matter in confidence.

As Johnson sat in the waiting room he tried to come up with a way of communicating his problem without sounding nuts. When the receptionist told him to go through to the surgery twenty minutes later, he’d made no progress at all.

“Robert. This is a rare pleasure. According to your notes, I haven’t seen you for four years.”

Johnson wanted to apologise for not seeing him more regularly but it seemed such a dumb thing to say that he kept quiet. How was it that doctors could make you feel so awkward?

“How’re Angie and the kids?”

“Just fine. Angie’s still makes curtains at home for a few folks and the kids are doing real well in school.” Johnson shrugged. “How about you, doc?”

“I’m just as busy as bears goin’ fishin’.”

The doctor smiled.

Johnson didn’t know what to say. He remembered now that this was always how it went with Dr. Alpert. All smiles and quaint sayings followed by a finger up your ass.

Dr. Alpert gave him his cue.

“So, what’s your trouble, Robert?”

He put on his spectacles and leaned over Johnson’s notes with a fat gold fountain pen at the ready. He was yet to computerise his surgery and many folks loved him for it. They thought it was a personal touch.

“I’ve been having a problem with my tube?”

“Oh yes? What kind of problem?”

“It keeps jerking at me.”

Dr. Alpert took of his spectacles and looked up at Johnson.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh, twitching. Jerking. You know.”

Johnson made a few sudden cocking motions with his head to illustrate the point. Dr. Alpert stared at him for several seconds before speaking. Johnson eyed the glistening conduit that rose like liquorice from the doctor’s