His Stigmata

He who disperses his blood through which he acts, but sits pondering over his daily boredoms, is rightly called indolent.

How it is that a quite ordinary man, his name being Jack, finds one morning that his body’s extremities, the arches of his feet, the palms of his hands, and his forehead just below his hairline, bear open wounds crudely encircled by thin burn lines, all of which he has no recollection of receiving? No recollection of pain, no recollection of being somewhere dangerous. And that this has happened now, when he’s feeling good. Now Jack is a man in the middle of his personal era, treasuring childhood memories by watching television re-runs, and who is a dedicated city worker. He enjoys reading and playing competitive but friendly games of golf. He enjoys going to the university reunions, and he socializes with his workplace buddies.

Jack is not particularly religious, though at times he feels very small; and yes, there was that past ‘happening’ which could never be explained. Remember that time Jack, on the Sunday night of a TM yoga weekend when just as you were leaving you levitated! Grazing the doorway arch and not landing until you got your car keys out. No one believed it and the yogi banned you, saying there was room for only one fraud. And you never got the chance to ask why! Because of his cynicism Jack will ask the awkward questions. On a busy street he’ll stop a stranger and ask the person. The stranger, taken aback, answers him. Jack is satisfied. But he is asking much less. And these wounds are different. They don’t need questions.

Of course, Jack couldn’t go to work with the wounds and he calls in sick. It’s the first time he’s done it. His sick leave has accrued significantly over the past ten years and he suspects he may need it all. His company loyalty has helped him conceal well his previous illnesses. And as a mid ranking manager in charge of a small unit processing house fire claims, his knowledge and experience is valued. He has been awarded more gold pens than anyone in the past five years. And though his company has recently downsized twice, there are now more casuals and contractors than the permanents, the framed gold pens in his office insist on his ongoing tenure. They could do with more friends.

Jack is in a dilemma. The wounds are certainly real, his fingers are bloody when he touches them, and the circles around each feel raised. His bleeding appears to stop at the surface like dormant geysers. They are there for no particular reason, and they might just stay there, maybe until the end of his life, and Jack wonders if he should seek help. Should he see his GP? Are the drugs for this condition? Perhaps he is meant for these wounds. All sorts of curious people would be interested in them. There is no-one around to ask at the moment. Jack lives alone in a semi in the suburbs and he sees his son as often as he can. He is still on good terms with his son’s mother. His brother and sister live overseas and his parents are both dead, and that at least is a relief. He is not currently in a homosexual relationship.

He actually feels OK. He’s had breakfast and he’s been to the toilet. He takes a shower though he is careful not to run the towel over the wounds. He cuts his toenails and he cleans his teeth. He puts on new underwear and a t-shirt and gets into his dressing gown. He then sits down at the kitchen table and begins looking more closely at his hands. His blood still hasn’t run. If he went to his GP, he would have to cover his wounds so as not to draw any attention in the street. His hands and feet are easy to cover. But he would have to pull a beanie over his forehead, or wear a bush hat like that great Aussie hero Crocodile Dundee did in the movies. Indeed, he’s feeling alright. He’s not fainted at the sight of the wounds, and perhaps they are something special, like they’re a sign or something. Jack fleetingly imagines himself the new Messiah. But then he would have to answer all those anxious questions about life, death, the future, and he doesn’t know how to answer questions, only ask them. He’s wondering if the Devil down there has chosen him to be the next worshipful freak, just for a bit of mischievous fun.

Jack’s sitting at the table with the back of his hands resting on the laminated surface and he’s staring at them. Suddenly his hands appear to move together, becoming co-joined like Siamese twins, and then they merge as one giant ten fingered hand, even though his arms haven’t moved. On his ten fingered hand there appears his face, but with one eye. Jack sees a resemblance to the fabled Cyclops. This hallucination, this trance, might be telling him something. Somehow, he takes a sip of his tea. He goes to wash up. And on impulse he began to snap his fingers. The snapping became rhythmic, and like a manic hypnotist he’s snapping fingers, off, on, off, on, unconsciously hoping there might be a change of circumstance with each snap.

And after a six fingered snap Jack’s body becomes dismembered and is thrown to all corners of the kitchen. And with another snap he contemplates his hands. Snap again and the disembodied Jack is looking for himself in the kitchen. His fingers and toes are independently and separately making their way up the wall. His eyeless head sits at the end of the table facing him. In his forehead is a diamond bullet. His buttocks are perched on the windowsill. Spinning around the microwave is his pumping heart.  His stumpy arms are trying to get inside nearby cupboard doors. His genitals are doing last night’s dishes; his pubic hair washes up, his testicles dry, his penis shelves. Leaning against the oven door is his disembowelled torso. His stumpy legs have somehow worked open the fridge door. Inside the fridge Jack’s innards are curled and stretched around the contents. There is muscle, skin, bone, organs, everywhere, but strangely no gore. Snap. Jack is staring at his hands again. He must now have the power to disassociate his body from himself at the snap of his fingers.  But where did the diamond bullet come from!

Jack is by nature a calm man. He’s learnt to be calm during his parent’s long and passionate arguments. He’s learnt that he couldn’t control very much outside of himself. When on the occasion Jack was to deny an insurance claim, he remained calm during the claimant’s abuse. And when his denials were overruled by his line manager, he was calm again. And seeing himself disembodied in his kitchen he was calm. But he is befuddled by how it is that he is presently a disconnected set of eyeballs elevated over his severed but eyeless hand. How can it be that in a finger snap he is conscious emptiness and everything that is him has been scattered? And there is this problem of elevation. The yogi had said that one of them was a fraud. Everything useless about him has scattered around his kitchen and his innards have now made their way inside the refrigerator to the freezer section. The wounds that were on Jack’s extremities seem rather insignificant.

Although he is homosexual Jack never felt he was that unique. He never felt the urge to parade, to be proud. He is a private person and a private person is calm. He played with a man after his divorce, the only man he’s ever been with, and he loved him. But his lover left him for another. He’s never fully mourned his loss. At the snap of his fingers, he sees the lips of his mouth move and mouth words which Jack doesn’t understand because he is not a lip reader, and his tongue is presently lying on top of a packet of butter in the fridge. In snapping his fingers Jack suspects that he risks his lips on his lifeless head mouthing things meaningless which, if he could understand his lips, might then tell him that nothing is going on. His brain is nowhere to be seen and Jack presumes it is still in his head. His repressed memories are in there somewhere, and long forgotten hopes and dreams. He briefly panics. Perhaps there is something in his material past that Jack should know about. Unable to comprehend his lips Jack snaps his fingers and wills his legs to bring in the bathroom mirror, and rested on his eyeballs they elevate in front of the moving lips. His vocal chords jump from the bread board to between his lips but they just mouth psychobabble, gibberish, Aramaic slang, legalese, upspin and downspin; separate and together as if Jack is subconsciously trying to sabotage himself. He snaps his fingers and he sees his lips mouth words again but his tongue is now camouflaged in a large jar of anchovies.

Jack senses his torso, lying prone on a chair nearby, is growling. He wants more breakfast, which often happens when he arises before dawn and eats immediately. Jack understands that because of his open wounds, the rest of his life will change forever. This diamond bullet is adding to the intrigue. With a snap of his fingers, and with the coffee on, he’s making himself an omelette with his separated hands. And despite his hand movements still not a drop of blood leaves them. There doesn’t seem much use in him living and working as he’s done. When he’s used up his sick leave he’ll resign. He’s got to go private, go underground. The implications of his open wounds are too much. The medical attention, the religious worship; too much. He’d be better off becoming a masked crusader, a bank robber, a graffiti artist, a hooded businessman. He could be a clown, a trolling victim, a warrior bob-sledder. He could have gender reassignment surgery and afterwards convert to orthodox Islam. At least he’ll be legitimately covered from head to foot. All these options would help sort out the public appearances he secretly hopes will eventuate.

But before that he’ll survive at home. He can get his elderly neighbour to go to the supermarket for him.  He owns where he lives and a notice on his front door would put off unwanted visitors. His anus is already the door’s peephole. He can cover his hands and feet and wear a balaclava when his son visits him. He’ll say he has acute psoriasis. It’s the finger snapping he’ll need to control. For a long time Jack has felt he’s wanted to withdraw. It’s just getting too hard out there. Too competitive, too much aggression, too much faux friendship, too much self revelation.  He wants to be the private man. And the noise. Too much. He always wanted to be a woodsman. Jack the pretend Thoreau. Jack pretending to himself and hurting no one.

The omelettes are ready. He’s thinking today is the first day of the rest of his life. He no longer concerned about his open wounds. They aren’t meant to heal. And he won’t fret about how he got them. It doesn’t matter. They have no meaning. They are just there. If he obsesses about them, he isn’t going to have much of a life. Too many questions which are erroneously answered. Maybe there shouldn’t be questions. The diamond bullet in his forehead has really got him intrigued though. How on earth did that get there! Damn. A new question. With a snap of his fingers his head is sitting on his prone torso, like a scene from an Islamic fundamentalist’s fantasy beheading. His one eyed ten fingered hand hovers above. The diamond brightly shines in his forehead. The omelettes will get cold and it’s time for his eye to take a closer look at it.